Philadelphia is dealing with a shooting of a man in a dispute with an off-duty police officer. Josh Taylor, 23, was shot in the chest by an eighteen-year veteran of the police force who has not been identified. The officer reportedly claimed that Taylor had a gun, though neighbors insisted that Taylor was on his way to a gun range and did not pull out the weapon.
Continue reading “Philadelphia Officer Chases Man Into His Home and Shoots Him in a Controversial Incident With Neighbor”
Category: Criminal law
Emmanuel Tavarez, 31, was a one-man crime wave. He was also a cop. Tavarez is facing trial after using his NYPD connections to run a crew that dressed up as officers and stole drugs and cash. An eight-year NYPD veteran, Tavaraz is responsible for more than 100 armed robberies of narcotics traffickers. Yet, despite what he agreed was “overwhelming evidence of his client’s guilt, attorney Raymond L. Colon insisted “[f]or all intents and purposes he was a fine officer. This was really an aberration, I think.”
Continue reading ““Really an Aberration”: NY Officer Pleads Guilty To 100 Armed Robberies, Stealing 250 Kilograms of Cocaine, and $1 Million”
The problem with being a “huffer” is that the paint can leave a fairly easy marker for police. Kelly Gibson took this mugshot on his 48th arrest for inhaling the toxic chemicals.
Continue reading “Can You Guess This Man’s Alleged Crime?”
President Barack Obama this week stepped over the line of both protocol and ethics by publicly declaring Bradley Manning guilty of crimes. During a speech, Obama stated Manning “broke the law” to an audience in an act that could be challenged as undue command influence in the military system and violates a long-standing rule of presidents refraining from prejudicing trials. Manning is accused of being the source for the wikileaks material, which have shown that the Administration and prior Administrations have lied to the American people in various areas of policy.
Even for the most committed civil libertarians, it is hard to work up sympathy for Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones. However, that is the plight of free speech advocates — you often end up supporting the most obnoxious members of our society. In Dearborn, Michigan, the order barring Jones from protesting utside of the Islamic American Center raises some constitutional concern.
Continue reading “Public Safety or Prior Restraint? Quran-Burning Pastor Barred From Protesting In Front of Michigan Mosque”
Various people had criticized the new groping searches by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) as assault and, when done on children, something akin to molestation. According to police, one alleged child pornography addict found the TSA the perfect job. TSA Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia has been arrested for uploading explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site. What is astonishing is that Gordon posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.
Continue reading “TSA Screener Arrested For Child Pornography”
The wife of Miami Dolphins receiver Brandon Marshall has been charged with stabbing him in the abdomen with a kitchen knife in Florida. The case could become even more complicated not just for Michi Nogami-Marshall, 27, but for Brandon Marshall.
Continue reading “Dolphin Receiver Brandon Marshall Stabbed By Wife — Questions Raised Over His Own Possible Criminal Conduct”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Twenty five year-old Ryan James Stephens will probably never be confused with actors Rex Harrison or Eddie Murphy but he may be the new Dr. Doolittle. Stephens has been charged with violating Cincinnati’s ordinance prohibiting citizens from “talking” to police dogs.
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has issued an interesting decision concerning the prerogative of police to order a suspect to exit a car after smelling marijuana smoke coming from within. Seems the opinion turned on the Bay State’s decision to decriminalized possession of less than one ounce of the wacky weed in 2008.
Continue reading “Odor Of Marijuana Not Enough For Probable Cause”
Anthony Garcia may be the ultimate example of corpus delicti evidence. The body of evidence in the case is his own body — or least the tattoos on his body that depict the 2004 murder scene where 23-year-old John Juarez was gunned down.
Continue reading “Corpus Delicti: California Gang Member Implicated In Murder By His Own Tattoos”
The disturbing video below shows a women being beaten by two other women as McDonald employees do virtually nothing to help her. While a manager makes a minimal effort to stop the fight, he then walks away and does not offer help to the woman on the ground. The girls then return and resume the beating. Other employees are shown doing nothing but watching the scene. The attack occurred in Baltimore, Maryland. The victim has now been identified as Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, who has been identified as a transgender woman. A manager at the Rosedale McDonald’s said she was “not allowed to speak to a reporter.”
Continue reading “Fast Food, Slow Rescue: McDonald’s Employees Shown Standing By As Woman Is Repeatedly Attacked In Restaurant”
Two-term Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has announced he is resigning from the Senate, effective May 3rd. This follows a prior pledge to remain in the Senate and a rather forced defense that he had not “done anything legally wrong” after he allegedly had an affair with the wife of his top staffer, Doug Hampton.
Continue reading “Ensign Announces Resignation From Senate Due To On-Going Investigation Into Affair”
We have another controversy over a police officer shooting a pet. Sherronda Aycox’s 8-month old blue pit bull Capone was killed in a hail of bullets that also hit vehicles and houses, including one house with a family inside. This is only the latest in a long list of such cases.
Continue reading “Camden Police Reportedly Fired Over 30 Rounds To Kill 8-Month-Old Puppy — Hitting Homes and Cars in Terrified Neighborhood”
A former soldier in England has been sentenced to 70 days in prison for burning a copy of the Koran (Qu’ran) in public. While a detestable act, the prosecution of individuals for the exercise of free speech is equally detestable and part of a growing trend of such prosecutions in the West under blasphemy or hate crime laws.
Continue reading “England Continues Crackdown on Anti-Religious Speech: Former British Soldier Sentenced To Jail For Burning Koran”
Kansas attorney Marc A. Schultz has been suspended from practice due to a car accident that raised serious questions about his fitness for practice. Schultz will be sentenced for involuntary manslaughter after driving under the influence of alcohol in a fourth such violation, killing bicyclist Timothy Roberts, 55, (shown right below) and then leaving the scene of an accident. It is rare for an attorney to be suspended for an accident unrelated to the practice of law. However, the repeatedly DUI violations and leaving the scene raise obvious professional problems for Schulz — in addition to being a felony crime which results in automatic suspension.
Continue reading “Kansas Attorney Suspended After Driving Under the Influence of Drugs and Alcohol and Killing Bicyclist — and Then Leaving Scene of Accident”