The Dickinson Press

WASHINGTON — A Dickinson man, who had a weapons cache in his vehicle and told U.S. Secret Service agents he was Jesus Christ, was arrested Wednesday in the nation’s capital on weapons charges after agents were alerted he was there with the intention of kidnapping the Obama family’s pet dog.

Scott Davy Stockert, 49, told Secret Service agents he drove from Dickinson to Washington alone in his Dodge Ram pickup truck. He brought with him guns, ammunition and other weapons, according to court documents.   Continue reading “Dickinson man arrested after driving truck full of weapons to D.C. to kidnap Obamas’ dog”

Patch – by Marc Torrence

A Texas police chief is urging his citizens, and citizens everywhere, to buy guns, get carry permits and step in when officers can’t immediately help — or are in trouble themselves.

Hughes Springs police chief Randy Kennedy posted the plea as a Facebook video following President Barack Obama’s Oval Office address where he called for tighter gun control.

Kennedy’s video had been viewed nearly 100,000 times and shared more than 5,000 times Thursday afternoon.   Continue reading “Texas Chief to Town: Grab Your Guns and Don’t Run Out of Bullets”

Huffington Post – by Matt Ferner

LOS ANGELES — The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has unconstitutionally “disrupted” justice in the county by blocking murder cases from being heard by a judge who exposed misconduct, a local judge ruled.

Superior Court Judge Richard King, in a strongly worded Dec. 3 ruling, wrote that the prosecutors’ actions “have substantially disrupted the orderly administration of criminal justice in Orange County, the sixth largest county in the nation,” by repeatedly disqualifying Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals from hearing their murder cases.    Continue reading “Judge Says OC Prosecutors Violated Constitution By Avoiding Judge Who Exposed Misconduct”

The Guardian – by Molly Redden

The women were teenagers and grandmothers. Most were living on the margins. All of them were black. And during a month-long trial that became a symbol of police predation, they formed a bleak parade of 13 witnesses who accused a former Oklahoma City officer of using his badge to coerce sex acts and rape.

On Thursday, after 45 hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, on five counts of rape and 13 other counts of sexual assault, including six of sexual battery, against eight of the women.   Continue reading “Daniel Holtzclaw: former Oklahoma City police officer guilty of rape”

Huffington Post – by Christopher Mathias

New York City has agreed to pay $280,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by NYPD whistleblower Craig Matthews, who says he faced retaliation after he complained about the police department’s use of an illegal quota system.

“This settlement completely vindicates Officer Matthews, who had the courage to speak out about illegal police quotas and suffered serious retaliation for having done so,” Christopher Dunn, associate legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union and Matthews’ representative in court, said in a statement Monday.     Continue reading “NYC To Pay $280,000 Over Cop Who Exposed City’s Quota System”

AOL – NBC

NBC News has learned that early Saturday the FBI searched the Riverside, California home of the man authorities believe originally bought the assault rifles used in the San Bernardino shooting rampage that killed 14.

During the search, neighbors say, agents cut open the garage door with blow torches, used bomb-sniffing dogs, and temporarily detained the man’s father and younger brother. The man’s father told NBC News Saturday afternoon that he does not know where his son is and declined further comment.   Continue reading “FBI searches home of Farook friend who bought guns”

AOL

Tashfeen Malik’s path to accused mass killer in California began in a small city on the Indus River in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

It was from here, when she was a toddler, that she moved with her father Gulzar 25 years ago to Saudi Arabia, where he became more deeply religious, more conservative and more hardline, according to a family member.   Continue reading “Investigators piece together portrait of Pakistani woman in shooting massacre”

We are getting bombarded with gun control in NYC.

New York Times

The New York Times is running an editorial on its front page on Saturday, the first time the paper has done so since 1920, calling for greater regulation on guns in the aftermath of a spate of mass shootings.

The editorial, headlined “The Gun Epidemic,” describes it as “a moral outrage and a national disgrace that people can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill with brutal speed and efficiency.” It suggests drastically reducing the number of firearms, and “eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.”   Continue reading “Gun Debate Yields Page One Editorial”

The Hill – by Jordan Fabian

President Obama on Friday met with prominent gun control advocate former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband, Mark Kelly, the White House said.

The meeting, which was not on the president’s public schedule, comes as Obama is weighing executive actions on gun control in response to a string of mass shootings that have cast a cloud over his presidency.   Continue reading “Obama talks gun control with Giffords”

Huffington Post

Oscar-nominated actor Robert Loggia, who was known for gravelly voiced gangsters from “Scarface” to “The Sopranos” but who was most endearing as Tom Hanks’ kid-at-heart toy-company boss in “Big,” has died. He was 85.

Loggia’s wife Aubrey Loggia said he died Friday at his home in Los Angeles after a five year battle with Alzheimer’s. “His poor body gave up,” she said. “He loved being an actor and he loved his life.”   Continue reading “Robert Loggia, Movie And TV Tough Guy, Dead At 85”

Ammoland – by David Codrea

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- It took a while for the identity of the suspects in yesterday’s San Bernardino massacre to be identified, a fact not lost on those of us riveted by the unfolding story and wondering what was taking so long to at least provide a general description of suspects who were already taken down. With it finally coming out that they were a “devout Muslim” and his Saudi Arabian wife, it makes it fair to wonder what political correctness pressure authorities were under, self-imposed or otherwise.

It’s not that unfair of a speculation.   Continue reading “Attacks on Gun Owners Backfiring as Facts on San Bernardino Shootings Emerge”

AOL

CHICAGO (AP) — The number of U.S. police officers charged with murder or manslaughter for on-duty shootings has tripled this year — a sharp increase that at least one expert says could be the result of more video evidence.

In the past, the annual average was fewer than five officers charged. In the final weeks of 2015, that number has climbed to 15, with 10 of the cases involving video.   Continue reading “More US police charged with murder, manslaughter in 2015”

LAist – by Jean Trinh

A police chase ended in a shootout this afternoon in San Bernardino, just hours after a mass shooting at the nearby Inland Regional Center.

The SWAT team was called in after police began pursuing a black SUV shortly before 3 p.m. The chase ended in a shootout, and news helicopters showed a bullet-ridden black SUV surrounded by armored SWAT cars in the 1700 block of San Bernardino Avenue. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said one suspect was down, and that it’s not clear if this was related to today’s shooting at Inland Regional Center that left at least 14 people dead and 17 people injured: Continue reading “Police Chase Of Black SUV In San Bernardino Ends In Shootout”

Huffington Post – by Taryn Finley

Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland posted a video on its blog Wednesday, after an officer was convicted of assault for pinning his gun to a man’s head. The officer, Jenchesky Santiago, was found guilty of first and second-degree assault, misconduct in office and the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence.

In May of 2014, Santiago approached William Cunningham, who was sitting in a car parked in front of his cousin’s house with his cousin in the driver’s seat. Santiago told them that they had parked there illegally. Cunningham later testified in court for an investigation into Santiago’s actions that they had parked in that location on earlier occasions. According to NBC News, when Cunningham got out of the car, Santiago ordered him back in the vehicle, using his gun to stop Cunningham from going into the driver’s home. Continue reading “Maryland Police Release Video Showing Cop Pointing A Gun To A Man’s Head”

AOL

A college president in Oklahoma is defiantly standing by his controversial view that today’s students are too sensitive and too quick to play the victim card.

Dr. Everett Piper, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, posted a blog post on the school’s website last week, saying college students expect too much coddling and declaring: “This is Not a Day Care. It’s a University!”   Continue reading “Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Dr. Everett Piper: ‘This is not a daycare’”

Huffington Post – by Nick Wing

Nearly an hour and a half of surveillance footage from the night of Laquan McDonald’s death is missing from the security system at a Chicago Burger King near the scene of the black teen’s alleged murder, and new evidence obtained by NBC Chicago suggests police may have been the last ones to view it.

Jay Darshane, district manager for the Burger King at Pulaski Road and 41st Street, told NBC Chicago in May that his cameras were fully operational when police came in on Oct. 20, 2014, the night of the shooting. While he wasn’t at the restaurant at the time, he said he authorized the manager on duty to give the officers access to the footage. He suggested that the video wouldn’t show the fatal 16 shots, but it might contain details about what happened directly before and after officer Jason Van Dyke killed McDonald. Continue reading “Images Appear To Show Police Viewing The Now-Missing Laquan McDonald Video”

The Guardian – by Jon Swaine and Oliver Laughland

Police in Kern County, California, have killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015. The Guardian examines how, with little oversight, officers here became the country’s most lethal.

Part one of a five-part series from The Counted

Seventy-five years after Kern County’s leaders banned The Grapes of Wrath from their schools and libraries, complaining that John Steinbeck’s new book portrayed their policemen as “divested of sympathy or human decency or understanding”, officer Aaron Stringer placed his hands on the body of James De La Rosa without permission.   Continue reading “The County: the story of America’s deadliest police”

Chicago Tribune – by Steve Schmadeke

Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, charged with murder in the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, walked out of Cook County Jail on Monday after posting a $150,000 cashier’s check as bond.

A judge set the $1.5 million bail after viewing police dash-cam video of the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old.   Continue reading “Chicago cop free after posting $1.5 million bail in Laquan McDonald’s shooting”

ABC News

The white Chicago police officer charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a black teenager was the subject of 18 civilian complaints over 14 years, including allegations that he used racial epithets and excessive force, police and court records show.

Complaints against police are not uncommon. But the number filed against Jason Van Dyke was high, and at least one was linked to a civil trial where jurors awarded damages to someone he arrested.   Continue reading “Chicago Officer Who Shot Teen Amassed 18 Civilian Complaints”