The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/)
A Los Angeles entertainment lawyer has turned the city’s police commission into a force for addressing police abuse. His first goal: reducing the officer-involved shootings that have become the civil rights issue of the 21st century for young African Americans through “de-escalation” strategies.
The 2015 decision concerned church-related signage, but its free speech underpinnings have made it the case-law basis for successful court challenges of local panhandling laws across the country. “It’s an unanticipated consequence,” said an Ohio city attorney.
Faouzi Jaber, a 61-year-old Ivorian citizen, pleaded guilty this week in a case involving smuggling arms and drugs to Colombia’s FARC group. But the undercover tactics by U.S. agents raise questions about future drug-war strategies in Colombia.
President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser has been meeting with key Republican lawmakers to discuss criminal justice reforms, including to mandatory minimum sentencing, that conflict with the U.S. Attorney General’s tough-on-crime agenda.
The device, still in development, would allow a police officer to quickly check whether a cellphone had been in use before a crash. A civil liberties advocate called the technology “incredibly problematic.”
Garfield County Sheriff Jerry Niles and five jail employees have been indicted for their roles in the June 2016 death of inmate Anthony Huff, who was left restrained in a chair for more than 48 hours without adequate food or water.
Zachary Bearheels died June 5 after being shocked repeatedly with a Taser. The local district attorney said two officers judged to be the primary aggressors in the melee are being charged with assault. They have been fired.
Michael A. Allen went to prison in California as a teenager in the 1990s. He failed to build a conventional life after parole and was shot to death in 2009. His cousin, a Harvard political scientist, tries to make sense of his life.
As the city trudges toward a record number of homicides this year, more than 150 cops previously assigned to special operations units have been redeployed in uniform.
Staffing increases and technological improvements by the U.S. Border Patrol have helped reduce illegal immigration along the southwestern border in recent years. Yet hundreds continue to die annually during desperate bids to reach the U.S.
On Rikers Island, young inmates sit for hours with feet shackled to their desks in a cell block for the jail’s most violent detainees. It is considered a humane alternative to solitary confinement.
The Texas GOP seems hellbent on passing a controversial law that would prompt gender-policing in bathrooms. Many of that state’s top cops, including Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, tried in vain to talk them out of it.
Modern policing has become mired in community distrust and overwhelmed by technology. A back-to-basics idea called National Coffee with a Cop Day might help break through the barriers, says a former chief.
Ronald Phillips, 43, was put to death Wednesday morning in the first execution in Ohio in more than three years. He was 19 when he raped and beat to death the 3-year-old daughter of his girlfriend in Akron.
In a growing menace, scammers try to extort money after phoning parents or other kin and falsely convincing them that a loved one is being held hostage. They sometimes research potential victims on social media.