The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/author/stephenh/)
Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown shot Sylville Smith last Aug. 13. After the verdict, the dead man’s kin called for racial unity, and the prosecutor noted the difficulty of self-defense cases.
Juries in recent days have acquitted two more cops involved in controversial fatal shootings of black men. One criminologist says jurors are reluctant to convict: “They just don’t want to second-guess officers in those life-or-death decisions.”
In partnership with a California security firm, U.S. Girl Scouts will now be able to explore the fundamentals of cyber security skills. Officials say the move will help instill “a valuable 21st century skill set” in members of an organization best known for cookie sales.
A new report finds that the former archbishop of Canterbury helped shield Peter Ball, a bishop accused of sexually abusing 18 boys and young men from 1977 to 1992. The report concludes, “The church appears to have been most interested in protecting itself.”
Missouri joins a growing list of states that have sued pharmaceutical firms. State Attorney General Josh Hawley says their “campaign of fraud and deception” led to the opioid crisis. The suit names the pharmaceutical firms Endo, Purdue and Janssen.
The case involved a woman whose citizenship was revoked after it was learned that she lied when she told immigration officials that her husband had not served in the Bosnian Serb military.
An industry research group says data shows a 2.7 percent increase in collision claims since recreational marijuana sales began in 2014 and 2015 in Colorado, Washington and Oregon.
Rewards totaling $141,000 were offered for the apprehension of two inmates accused of killing two Georgia prison officers during an escape. But parsing who gets how much is often a contentious process, as Californians discovered following the 2013 manhunt for accused cop-killer Christopher Dorner.
Reuters say says websites based in Europe that purport to sell such items as maps and flags are part of a multinational system to disguise payments for the $40 billion global online gambling industry.
Wisconsin justices voted 5-2 to close the doors on its administrative meetings, with the conservative majority outvoting the two liberal members.