Marion County, FL — In August of 2014, multiple deputies with the Marion County Sheriff’s office conducted a drug bust. During the bust, Derrick Price ran from deputies Jesse Terrell, Trevor Fitzgerald, James Amideo, Cody Hoppel and Adam Crawford. However, once he realized he could not outrun the pickup truck, he quickly stopped, put his hands up, and laid face down on the ground — completely surrendering. Continue reading
Police report that a man drove a tractor over eight police vehicles on Thursday. They estimate the damage at about $250,000.
The man was allegedly driving a farm tractor that he used to run over eight vehicles in the parking lot of a Vermont police station. Police officials claim that this was in an apparent revenge scheme. Continue reading
Tragic news is coming through on a young MMA Fighter who doctors say may never walk again following a run-in with local police.
According to reports, Donovan Duran, a promising Martial Artist was handcuffed than abused until paralyzed by the La Junta Police, in Colorado.
Officers responded to a call from Duran’s family stating that he was a drunk MMA Fighter, and the officers moved in under a drunk and disorderly violation. Continue reading
On January 30, 2015, a health food store in Henderson called the police after a disgruntled customer, attempting to return some protein powder, allegedly threatened to rob them. The store described the suspect to police as a black male wearing a black and tan t-shirt who left in an SUV. Continue reading
A video obtained by the Colorado Springs Independent shows an incident that’s at the center of an excessive force lawsuit that’s being prepared against the Colorado Springs Police Department.
The paper released the video as part of an in-depth report looking into the issue of police brutality in Colorado Springs.
(RawStory) Missouri highway patrol officer who criticized the department after a handcuffed man fell into water and drowned has been more harshly punished than the officer who failed to secure a life vest on the deceased man.
Veteran state trooper Randy Henry was demoted from sergeant to corporal and transferred from his post of nearly three decades at the Lake of Ozarks, the Springfield News-Leader reports. In March, Henry told public officials during a committee hearing that lack of training, but also recklessness and poor judgment contributed to the death of 20-year-old Brandon Ellingson last year.
A video was released on Friday May 29th showing Jacksonville police refusing to issue tickets to unmarked patrol cars which were in violation of the city parking signs.
The maker of the video states: “I conducted an audit at the Jacksonville Florida Jail where cops are constantly parking in violation of there[sic] own signage. Not one cop was willing to enforce their own restrictions simply because it is a fellow cop.”
Watch the video below
New York, NY– On May 14, copwatcher Michael Barber of the Copwatch Patrol Unit was out doing a great public service in which he frequently engages – filming the police. As he was doing so, he captured something absolutely amazing. Continue reading
Federal drug agents may be racially profiling and unjustly seizing cash from travelers in the nation’s airports, bus stations and train stations. A new report released by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice examined the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s controversial use of “cold consent.”
In a cold consent encounter, a person is stopped if an agent thinks that person’s behavior fits a drug courier profile. Or an agent can stop a person cold “based on no particular behavior,” according to the Inspector General report. The agent then asks people they have stopped for consent to question them and sometimes to search their possessions as well. By gaining consent, law enforcement officers can bypass the need for a warrant. Continue reading
On Sunday, Los Angeles Police Department officers fatally shot a homeless man. It is being reported that man suffered from mental illness and did not have a weapon at the time of the incident. The video can be seen HERE. Continue reading
Lawmakers in Missouri have put forth a bill that would bar public access to any videos taken by police. Watch the video below for the full story.
This is just another reason your government wants control of the internet.
Also listen to this interview below we did with Jason Bermas, creator of the films “Loose Change”, “Fabled Enemies”, “Invisible Empire”, and most recently “Shade: The Motion Picture”.
CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW W/ JASON BERMAS ABOUT POLICE STATE
PELL CITY, Alabama — St. Clair and Bibb county authorities are confirming there were roadblocks at several locations in their counties Friday and Saturday asking for blood and DNA samples. However, the samples were voluntary and motorists were paid for them as part of a study, they said.
According to Lt. Freddie Turrentine of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, it isn’t the first time such roadblocks have occurred in the area.
“They were here in 2007,” said Turrentine, the supervisor in charge of the roadblocks, which took place in several locations in St. Clair County Friday night, early Saturday morning and Saturday night and early Sunday morning. “It’s just with social media and Facebook now, word of it has just exploded.”
Turrentine said the roadblocks were part of a study conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, working with the National Highway Safety Administration. St. Clair County was asked to participate by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs because it had worked with the group six years ago.
Sheriff Keith Hannah in Bibb County said they too had previously participated in the study.
Here’s how the road blocks worked, Turrentine said:
Off-duty St. Clair County deputies stopped cars at random at road block areas. The road blocks were marked with signs stating it was a paid survey. Cars stopped were asked for voluntary cooperation. Drivers were offered $10 for a mouth swab, and $50 for a blood test. If they refused, they were free to drive away.
[ POLL: Would you voluntarily submit DNA, blood sample for government study at roadblock? ]
Road blocks took place Friday at the New London Fire Department, Alabama 34 in Pell City near the old Dan’s Car Wash, U.S. 231 at Alabama 144, at White’s Chapel Parkway and Moody Crossroads in Moody. In Bibb County, the road blocks took place in five areas in the county on Friday night through early Sunday morning.
If drivers participated, they were directed to an area where someone from the group carrying out the study took the samples, he said.
“It was completely voluntary,” Turrentine said, saying reports that people were detained if they did not cooperate were untrue. “If they didn’t want to take part, they could drive off.”
The samples were anonymous, he said.
Poll: Would you voluntarily submit DNA, blood sample for government study at roadblock?
“They were taking the samples in other parts of the country,” he said. “They want to find out of all the people surveyed, how many people were driving with alcohol in their system, or prescription drugs, things like that.”
This will be the only time this year the survey takes place in St. Clair County, he said.
Turrentine, who was at one of the roadblocks, said the group carrying out the study would ask for a certain number of volunteers. Deputies would stop drivers until that number of drivers needed agreed to the survey. Then they let cars pass while the samples were taken.
“We would have a lot who didn’t want to take part, especially at night,” he said. “But then we’d have a few that when we’d tell they could make $60 bucks, they said, ‘What do I need to do?'”
If you were stopped in one of the roadblocks, or took part, and would like to talk, email [email protected].
Here’s a link to a 2007 study which used Bibb County.
http://blog.al.com/east-alabama/2013/06/why_were_roadblocks_in_st_clai.html
During the occupation of Boston it was widely reported that the bombing suspects had robbed a 7/11. That turned out to be false. The robbery was perpetrated by others. That’s right; with a massive police state presence, criminals were undeterred. But how convenient for officials to let the story float for nearly a day?
It’s looking like that is not the only whopper coming from officials (shocking, I know). Police Chief Wiggum has been providing all sorts of details throughout the affair and since. Here he goes into great detail about the “shootout” in the early hours of Friday morning. According to Wiggum, the older brother all of a sudden decided to come out from behind cover and walk right up to the cops, unloading his gun in the process. When he ran out of ammunition, says Wiggum, one of the heroes in blue tackled him. As officers were handcuffing him, Wiggum explains, his younger brother decided to charge them with the stolen SUV. The donut eaters were able to leap away just in time, leaving the older brother not only to be run over but dragged down the street as the younger suspect hightailed it out of there.
This all happened after what Wiggum describes as a 5-10 minute gun battle. So how did the remaining suspect elude the cops? Was there no police helicopter? Did someone at the top want him to get away?
One thing is for sure, Wiggum’s story is completely contradicted by an eye-witness. She says the cops ran over the older brother, and then, in what seemed to be retaliation, filled him full of lead.
“He failed to disclose he had applied for other agencies and also he had changed his answers to be more accommodating,” said Detective Steve Berry with the Mesa Police Department. Berry said Mesa police weren’t aware of this until Kelso’s wife at the time called police and told them in August 2011. A few days after that call, Mesa police got another call, this time from Kelso’s stepson.
“He had allegedly used a Taser, a department-issued Taser, on his then-14-year-old son,” Berry said. Kelso’s stepson told police he had brought home a report card Kelso wasn’t happy with. Police said Kelso then concocted a story to explain why he deployed his stun gun.
“An aggressive dog had come into the yard,” Berry said.
The stepson said the incident happened in 2007; again, police weren’t aware until he called them in August 2011. But Mesa police said they immediately began investigating after that.
“We take these things very seriously,” Berry said.
According to court records, Kelso claimed he used the stun gun in self-defense because his stepson attacked him with an iron. But a jury convicted him of aggravated assault and Mesa police said if Kelso hadn’t resigned first, he likely would’ve been fired.
“Clearly this is someone the police department would not have on our force,” Berry said.
Kelso’s case is now up before the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board; they’ll decide whether to suspend his certification, revoke it or take no action. CBS 5 News tried reaching Kelso, but couldn’t find a current address or phone number for him. We also tried contacting him on Facebook but haven’t heard back.
(RT) A spike in gun and ammunition sales has caused a nationwide shortage that has delayed police training exercises and is putting a substantial amount of weaponry in civilian hands.
Police in Atlanta, Georgia have been forced to delay training exercises due to a shortage of ammunition. The police department has put orders for more bullets on back-order, while officers are being deprived of the training that makes them capable of handling weapons.
“When you can’t get ammunition, it is very concerning,” Sandy Springs Police Chief Terry Sult tells WSBTV. “It affects our ability to be prepared. It affects the potential safety of the officers, because they’re not as proficient as they should be.”
The Sandy Springs Police Department is facing a shortage of tens of thousands of bullets and is scrambling to restock. The neighboring counties are facing an equally dire situation, with both practice ammunition and duty ammunition in short supply. Douglas County Chief Deputy Stan Copeland predicts it could be 6-8 months before the back-orders come in.
“We’re going to get very concerned at the six-month level if that’s all we have in stock, because then we have to start planning and rationing,” Sult says.
Local ammunition suppliers are attributing the shortage to the spike in gun and ammunition purchases by civilians after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting sparked debate on tighter gun control regulations.
FBI background checks for weapons hit a record 2.8 million in December, with most of those occurring after the Dec. 14 massacre. Last month also saw a drastic increase in gun sales, with every US state seeing a rise from the previous month. Ammunition sales were equally steep, with Brownells, the largest supplier of firearm accessories in the world, reporting that it has blown through several years’ worth of ammunition in just a matter of hours. The company apologized for its inability to meet consumer demands.
“There’s been a whole lot of hysteria raised by the [National Rifle Association] about the need to stockpile guns because Obama’s going to take your guns away,” Caroline Brewer, a spokeswoman for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, tells ABC News. “It may mean more gun owners are buying more guns.”
Factories are now struggling to produce enough ammunition to keep up with demand, prompting police departments to share with neighboring counties in order to keep running. The federal government may have experienced a similar shortage if it didn’t prepare ahead of time: the Department of Homeland Security recently ordered 200,000 rounds of bullets at the cost of $45,000 dollars. The ammo will be delivered to a training site in South California.
The agency said there was already a shortage of bullets back in August, which made the threat of “substantial safety issues for the government” a very real one, should law enforcement officials not be adequately armed. The spikes in gun control, which came in waves after Obama’s reelection and the Sandy Hook massacre, drastically worsened the shortage.
Rather than purchasing ammo from their usual factory suppliers, police are now being forced to search local shops for the supplies they so desperately need.
“We’re having law enforcement agencies that are coming in and buying ammunition off the shelf, because, you know, they need it,” says Jay Wallace, owner of the Georgia-based Smyrna Police Distributors.
(WealthWire) -Last month, we told you about San Bernardino, the city in California that’s struggling with bankruptcy after paying out excessively high incomes to state employees.
In light of the situation there and all across the state, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn the best-paid officer in the 12 most-populous states was based in California.
Last year, 53 year old Jeff Talbot retired from his position as California Highway Patrol division chief with $483,581 in salary, pension, and other compensation.
From Bloomberg:
“I think some of our rules were negligent, and I think people were allowed to build up overtime pay who shouldn’t have been, who accumulated leave time and furlough time,” said Marty Morgenstern, a member of Governor Jerry Brown’s cabinet and secretary of the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency, which oversees labor relations, employment and unemployment.
In North Carolina, only three state troopers made upwards of $100,000 last year. In California, over 5,000 troopers did.
And California cities like San Bernardino continue to file for bankruptcy while shelling out high salaries to their public employees
A former NYPD detective — whose BAC was more than three times the legal limit when he plowed into a Bronx grandmother with a cop car — was convicted of manslaughter yesterday.
Former Detective Kevin Spellman, however, beat the rap on the most serious charges against him (aggravated vehicular homicide and first-degree vehicular manslaughter) in the death of 66-year-old Drane Nikac, who was struck by the tipsy former detective on October 30, 2009, as she was walking near the intersection of West 232nd St. and Kingsbridge Avenue in the Bronx.
Following the accident, Spellman refused abreathalyzer test, and his BAC wasn’t tested until five hours after he slammed into the Bronx grandmother while driving erratically in his NYPD-owned Chevy Impala.
At trial, Spellman’s attorneys argued that the blood evidence against him had been contaminated, which may have swayed jurors to cut him a break on the more serious charges.
Blood evidence aside, witnesses told jurors that the traffic light was red when Spellman went barreling through the intersection, hitting Nikac, and that empty beer cans were found in his vehicle.
Spellman, a 22-year NYPD veteran, retired after killing Nikac. He faces up to 15 years in prison when he’s sentenced on February 15, 2013.
