From Fox we got:

Irman Jones claims in 2008, two Aurora officers stopped him and during that stop he claims he was yanked from his car, beaten with a flash light, and then tazed three times which left him unconscious (February 21, 2010)

A 30-year old Denver man is seeking court protection from an Aurora police officer who he says may be harassing him because of a federal civil rights violation lawsuit filed against the City.

Irman Jones claims in 2008, two Aurora officers stopped him and during that stop he claims he was yanked from his car, beaten with a flash light, and then tazed three times which left him unconscious, and beaten and bloodied as well. When Jones went to court on charges that were filed by police, a judge threw the case against him out.

That prompted Jones to 'lawyer-up' and in turn file a federal suit against the City and the cops. Now, he says as a result of the law suit officers named are following and harassing him.

"I was eating lunch a couple weeks ago, when Officer Matt Milligan came in and made threatening gestures toward me," said Irman Jones. "If he did what he did to me for no reason, what would he do to me now that I have filed a law suit against him and his partner."

(I highly recommend the racist comments section too. Stay classy Colorado.)

Tourist beat up and arrested after reporting police brutality on another man

As Officers Frankly Forte and Elliot Hazzi approached witness Harold Strickland, they didn't know he was on his cellphone reporting the beating to a Miami Beach 911 dispatcher, said Robert F. Rosenwald Jr., director of the ACLU Florida's Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Advocacy Project.

...

Forte and Hazzi both were hired by Beach police as new officers in February 2007. They were still on duty Wednesday, Juan Sanchez said.

The incident began about 1 a.m. March 13 as Strickland, a former Beach resident now living in Los Angeles, walked past Flamingo Park near 14th Street and Michigan Avenue.

Strickland called 911 when he saw a man being beaten by two men just outside the park.

“I saw a guy running and then I saw two, what looked like undercover cops running. And they pushed this guy down on the ground, the one cop did, and the other cop came up as if he was kicking a football … and kicked the guy in the head,'' Strickland, 45, told a dispatcher during a recorded phone call to 911.

For nearly five minutes, he talked to the dispatcher, who encouraged him to get closer for more detail “if it doesn't put you in any danger.''

A few seconds later, Strickland told the dispatcher: “Now they're coming after me!''

The two men, later identified as officers Forte and Hazzi, approached Strickland and could be heard saying, “What are you doing here? Where do you live? Let's see some ID.'' A few seconds later the line went dead.

Strickland later told the ACLU that Forte and Hazzi grabbed his cellphone and disconnected the call.

“The officers then told Strickland: ‘We know what you're doing here. We're sick of all the f---ing fags in the neighborhood.' The officers pushed Strickland to the ground and tied his hands behind his back,'' Rosenwald wrote in an ACLU letter delivered Wednesday to Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower.

“While Strickland was on the ground, the officers continued to spew anti-gay epithets. They called him a ‘f---ing fag' and told him he was going to ‘get it good in jail.'''

Bower and City Manager Jorge Gonzalez also declined to comment.

Strickland called 911 at 1:06 a.m., according to dispatch records.

Forte wrote in an arrest report that 30 minutes later – at 1:36 a.m. – he saw Strickland trying to break into six cars at 14th Street and Michigan Avenue near Flamingo Park.

From the Miami Herald.

Student Detained over English-Arabic Flashcards

A variety of places to get this story:

Yesterday, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nick George, a Pomona College student who was detained and aggressively interrogated by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) authorities, by the FBI and by Pennsylvania police when he tried to board a plane carrying Arabic language flash cards.

You heard right: Not liquids, not matches, not a bomb. Flash cards.

George, a physics major who's studying Arabic, was pulled aside for secondary screening at the Philadelphia International Airport as he tried to go through security. When he emptied his pockets, the inspector saw his flash cards and he was arrested, handcuffed, locked in a cell for hours and aggressively questioned. Because of some flash cards.

The following exchange took place between George and a TSA supervisor who questioned him:

TSA Supervisor: You know who did 9/11?
George: Osama bin Laden.
TSA Supervisor: Do you know what language he spoke?
George: Arabic.

At that point, the TSA supervisor held up George’s flash cards—which had words such as "to smile" and "funny" and on them—and said: "Do you see why these cards are suspicious?"

The lawsuit goes on to further say that George was never read his rights by either a police officer or eventually the FBI.

Man in camo saying he'll "blow your fucking head off", just a routine traffic stop

I admit, its last week's news.

Lawsuit: Deputies threatened husband as sheriff fondled wife

A sheriff in rural Tennessee has been accused of threatening a husband and wife by "blowing their f---ing heads off" and "inappropriately" touching the wife during an unwarranted traffic stop.

In a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Chattanooga, Shawn and Michelle Graham allege that a group of police deputies, wearing camouflage and not identifying themselves as law enforcement officers, stopped the Grahams' car in January, 2009, pushed a gun through the window of the Grahams' Nissan and pointed it at the husband, "sometimes tapping his head with the barrel."

The officers ordered the couple out of the car, and frisked them while yelling "death threats and angry curses at the Grahams."

The Grahams say Sheriff Ronnie Hitchock of the Sequatchie County Sheriff Department personally carried out a pat-down of Michelle Graham, during which he "reached inside the pockets of her clothing, making inappropriate contact with her breasts and groin areas. Handcuffed in the back of Sheriff Hitchcock's cruiser, Mr. Graham was forced to watch this unconstitutional spectacle."

The lawsuit states that, even though the officers' search turned up "no weapons, no drugs and no contraband," the couple were taken to a police station and strip-searched. The couple were never charged with any crime.

We'll see if the lawsuit goes anywhere.

Deputy TASERs 61 year old with lukemia at traffic stop

From Disclosure News,

Deputy Hal Pargin, shown left at a county board meeting last summer, affected a traffic stop last night on one Dennis Thacker, 61, who is currently suffering leukemia. With Thacker were his grandson, Blaine Steber, 3, and a neighbor, Abby Organ, 12. They were going from a ballgame to McDonald’s in Lawrenceville and were eastbound on 250 when Pargin pulled Thacker over for speeding.

Thacker provided Pargin his license and Pargin was apparently totally aware that it was Thacker he was dealing with and not some wild crazyman.

However, Thacker didn’t have his insurance proof immediately available. He had reportedly gotten out of the vehicle and was talking to Pargin, telling him he’d go back to get his insurance cards. When he retrieved them from his vehicle and returned to Pargin, the deputy reportedly started yelling at Thacker to “get back in the car!” inexplicably. Witnesses say all Thacker was trying to do was offer Pargin his proof of insurance.

Instead of taking it, Pargin, without shouting that he was about to deploy his TASER (per department policy), simply TASERed the older man, who began shouting “No! Stop it!” and then fell to the ground.

Witnesses say Thacker was TASERed a total of four times, and apparently Pargin was able to reload the cartridges on the TASER gun, as it was reported witnesses pulled a total of eight barbs from the sickly man.

To make matters worse, once at the jail, his blood pressure had risen and he requested to be taken to the hospital, which was initially refused. The only reason Thacker managed to get to the hospital and be eventually released? The mother of the neighbor's child had connections to the County Board.


The positive thing here is that all of the TASERs have been confiscated by the sheriff and the incident is under investigation.

Pittsburg Police beat black honor student

"Their actions were correct and law-abiding by everything they received in their training," FOP Vice President Charles Hanlon said. "The demand by special interest groups that they be removed from the streets is an insult to their hard work."

This is the response by the Fraternal Order of the Police about the three officers that brutally beat an unarmed, 5'-7", 150lbs honors student in Pittsburg. Oh, and he was also black, and the officers were white.

From CNN:

Police, in a criminal complaint on the incident, say "closed fist strikes" were used by the undercover police officers, but only to subdue the teenager as he tried to get away.

Terez Miles said her son, Jordan Miles, who is black, thought his life was in jeopardy when three white men jumped out of a car on the night of January 11 as he walked not far from his home.

"My son tried to run thinking his life was in jeopardy," Terez Miles said. "He made three steps before he slipped and fell." After that, she said, the police used a stun gun and beat him, pulling out a chunk of his hair.

...

The officers "delivered 2-3 closed fist strikes to Miles' head/face with still no effect," and then a "knee strike to Miles' head causing him to momentarily stop resisting," so that he could be handcuffed, the document says.

...

The complaint says the police officers believed Miles was engaged in criminal activity and possibly armed with a "large heavy object." The object turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew.

Miles was charged with aggravated assault, loitering, resisting arrest and escape.

The officers have been taken off of plainclothes duty and are back in uniform, but no other disciplinary action has been taken as of yet.

Details on the community reaction on trueslant.