Reason’s Radley Balko reveals another disturbing story of America’s increasing police force gone awry: Last Sunday night, police in Morganton, North Carolina shot and killed 17-year-old Michael Sipes. The officers were responding to a noise complaint called in by a neighbor in the mobile home park where Sipes lived. His mother says there were three [...]

Some things you just cannot make up: A device designed to control unruly inmates by blasting them with a beam of intense energy that causes a burning sensation is drawing heat from civil rights groups who fear it could cause serious injury and is “tantamount to torture.” The mechanism, known as an “Assault Intervention Device,” [...]

Its one thing when anti-death penalty activists petition a governor to pardon or commute a sentence of an individual scheduled for execution but quite another when death penalty supporters agree. Kevin Keith is scheduled to be executed by the state of Ohio on September 15th for the 1994 murders of 2 adults and 1 child; [...]

Ernie Suggs of The Atlanta Constitution reports: Four years after rogue APD narcotics officers killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during an illegal raid of her home, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has offered her family a $4.9 million settlement. […] Reed said the resolution of the case is an important healing step for the city and the [...]

Idaho: A police dog in the central Idaho resort town of Sun Valley is back on duty after serving a “suspension” for an unprovoked attack on a small schnauzer. Sun Valley Police Chief Cameron Daggett says the 5-year-old German shepherd named Dax took a few weeks off the job after the incident. The dog will [...]

It was arguably the first nationally broadcast officer involved shooting of 2009. Early January 1, 2009 BART Officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant on a crowded platform at the Oakland station. Several videos (see them here) captured by cell phone cameras show what appears to me to be an execution style shooting of [...]

Most of us have been pulled over and issued a ticket for speeding or other moving violations at least once in our lives. It’s probably also fair to say that in many if not most cases; we don’t even bother to challenge the ticket because the patrolman says that his radar gun reading showed that [...]

Yesterday, an Ohio jury found a local police officer guilty in the shooting of an unarmed motorcyclist: TOLEDO, OHIO — A Lucas County jury has found an Ottawa Hills police officer guilty of felonious assault in the May 2009 shooting of a motorcyclist. After over five hours of deliberations, a jury found that part-time Ottawa [...]

From the Progressive/Left-wing DemocracyNow.org’s coverage: Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings. On May 4th, 1970, National Guardsmen opened fire on hundreds of unarmed students at an antiwar rally at Kent State University in Ohio. The guardsmen fired off at least 67 shots in roughly 13 seconds. Four students were killed and [...]

This is an excerpt from a post from the blog Classical Liberal that was written in response to the post Doug wrote yesterday regarding the University of Maryland student police beating caught on tape. As long as men and women in uniform (State-issued costumes) carry out these violent acts, we think it’s okay, because they’re [...]

The Bill of Rights provides citizens basic protections against unlawful searches and seizures via the Fourth Amendment, protections against self incrimination via the Fifth Amendment, and the right to an attorney via the Sixth Amendment. On a theoretical level, most people probably know this but what does this mean on a practical level? If the [...]

It’s always a raucous time on the University of Maryland campus in College Park, Maryland after a basketball game, especially after a game against the Terrapins long-time ACC rival Duke, and March 5th was no exception as about 28 students ended up getting arrested for rowdy behavior and public intoxication. In turns out, though, that [...]

The state of Washington is currently in process on a bill that will impound any car for 12 hours where the driver is arrested on suspicion of DUI. This will be automatic — whether the car is owned by an innocent third party, or whether someone else in the vehicle can legally drive does not [...]

Okay, maybe not. But I sure have a great way to do so (and maybe to turn a few readers). I’m in Chicago visiting family, sadly with little internet access (sitting outside Panera Bread Co in the car with my napping son in the back). Today we celebrate my grandmother’s 90th birthday. This is a [...]

Here’s a perfect song to complement my recent call to action to pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009. System of a Down “Prison Song” Toxicity (2001) Written by: Tankian, Serj;Malakian, Daron;Odadjian, Shavarsh; and Dolmayan, John They’re trying to build a prison, They’re trying to build a prison, Following the rights movements You [...]

With my busy work schedule as it is, I managed to miss the very encouraging news that Cory Maye will get a new trial! I think it will be very interesting how his second trial unfolds now that he will have a better legal team with better expert witnesses to debunk the dubious testimony of [...]

For the first time today, TASER international has acknowledged that the use of their electro-compliance device has a higher risk to the health of the restrainee than they have advertised Taser: Don’t shoot stun gun at chest First time company has suggested there is any risk from its stun guns AP – updated 8:23 a.m. [...]

On Monday morning around 5:30 a.m. in Springfield, Virginia, Eric Williamson was making coffee (in the privacy of his own home) in the buff. Unbeknownst to Williamson, a woman and her 7 year old son could see him in all his glory as they took a shortcut through his front yard. The woman, horrified that [...]

I tells ya, sometimes ya just gotta to make an example of ‘em: When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs. … Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her [...]

After reading the litany of Radley Balko’s Puppycide chronicles, I still took solace in the fact that if some brute squad mistakenly came to bust down my door instead of a neighbor’s, my 10 lb Yorkshire Terrier, who I refer to as a “barking cat” due to his laziness, would probably not get himself shot. [...]