Russia police crisis: Burned out, disappointed and demoralised

In the early hours of 14 January 2020, blood-curdling screams could be heard at an apartment block in the Russian region of Kemerovo.

Shocked and scared, a resident called the police to report what sounded like an attack on a woman.

But no-one came.

The screaming continued, alongside loud bangs and cries for help. Six more calls were made to emergency services but still no police officers arrived.

Paris police in 'shocking' clash at migrant camp

French police violently dismantled a makeshift migrant camp in the heart of Paris overnight, clashing with migrants and activists.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin tweeted that some of the scenes were "shocking", and ordered the police to provide a full report on their actions.

Dozens of small tents were removed from Place de la République, with occupants sometimes being tipped out by police.

The homeless migrants say they are forced to live on the streets.

Can the Manufacturer of Tasers Provide the Answer to Police Abuse?

Rick Smith, who made a fortune selling conducted-energy weapons—stun guns—likes to say that he is a “techno-optimist.” Human beings create problems, technology solves them, and a few bold thinkers get phenomenally rich in the process. Forty-eight years old, with a coplike, jacked physique, Smith is a co-founder and the C.E.O. of Taser International, which supplies police departments with weapons that are less lethal than firearms. “A hundred years ago in New York, they had a major problem,” he said. “Horse manure was spreading disease. You can imagine if you’d gone around New York and told people who love their horses, ‘We’re going to take your horses away.’ There’s the same dynamic with Americans and guns. What happened a hundred years ago was that we had a technology shift.” He paused, dwelling for a fraction of a second on the implication that cars had saved the world. “Now, that introduced some other problems,” he continued breezily. “And hopefully now we have some new technology to solve the carbon problem.” Solutions that create problems in need of solutions: that, he told me, is the definition of business.

British police uncover crucial new evidence about Novichok poisoning

British police believe they’ve uncovered the source of the deadly nerve agent Novichok, which was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and also led to the death of a woman who was exposed to the agent in June.

Counter-terrorism officers said on Friday that upon searching the house of poisoning victim Charlie Rowley, they came across a small glass bottle. After sending the bottle to Porton Down, Britain’s military research laboratory, it was confirmed that the substance inside was Novichok.

This Disgusting Scheme to Enrich Cops by Starving Prisoners May Soon Be Scuttled

Alabama’s sheriffs have been getting rich off of prisoners for decades thanks to purportedly ambiguous pre-World War II statutory language that lets them keep “excess” food funds. With that distorted incentive to keep expenditures low, sheriffs have been subjecting prisoners to sustenance that ranges from unappetizing to inadequate to unsafe.

Now, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey is trying to put a stop to that practice with a memo to the state comptroller. “Public funds should be used for public purposes—it’s that simple,” Ivey said.

Cops Accused Of Racism After Detaining Black Man Over 'Vegetation'

A Kansas police department is facing allegations of racism after a black man used his cellphone to record two white officers yanking him out of a vehicle after seeing “vegetation” on his window.

Rudy Samuel, 31, live-streamed the encounter on Facebook earlier this month after Winfield police stopped his car. Winfield is a small city situated along the Walnut River in Cowley County, Kansas.

“If you want to see a video of racial profiling, this is the poster child right here,” Kansas City attorney Brian McCallister, who is not representing anyone in the case, told HuffPost on Monday. “It was an abuse of power because they had no reason to use that kind of force.”

Would You Forfeit Your Privacy to Catch a Killer? The Golden State Killer Suspect and DNA

On Tuesday, police arrested the man they believe is one of the most notorious serial rapists and murderers in American history. The news came, astonishingly, thanks to some unidentified person who was likely just intrigued about genealogy and ethnicity. The Sacramento District Attorney's office has attributed the capture of suspected Golden State Killer, ex-cop Joseph James DeAngelo, to "genealogical websites that contained genetic information from a relative." Which, if you've ever spit into a tube and dropped it in the mail, has got to make you wonder.

Theresa May’s Police Cuts Exposed By Manchester Bombing Army Deployment - Police Federation

Theresa May’s dramatic deployment of troops in the wake of the Manchester bombing has laid bare Tory police cuts, the leader of the Police Federation has declared.

Hundreds of soldiers were ordered onto the streets on Wednesday and given a very visible role in defending the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

Mississippi’s richest county uses police checkpoints to enforce segregation, lawsuit claims

Madison County, Mississippi, is among the most segregated places in America. Past court decisions have made note of its “racial isolation” and “confluence of…geography and demography.”

Part of the reason the state’s wealthiest county remains so divided, according to a new class-action lawsuit filed Monday, is that county leaders want it that way — and are willing to use local law enforcement to enforce an unofficial cordon around the county’s roughly 40,000 black residents.

This Mississippi Sheriff’s Department Is Completely Out of Control, Lawsuit Alleges

In racially segregated Madison County, Mississippi, black residents live in fear of the police. According to a federal lawsuit filed Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, the Madison County Sheriff’s Department has been using illegal tactics and subjecting people who live in majority-black towns to unreasonable searches of their bodies, their homes, and their cars. The purpose of these stops, the ACLU alleges, is to generate revenue by collecting unpaid fees and fines from those who are detained.

Turkey suspends 9,000 police officers for 'Gulen links'

Turkey has temporarily suspended more than 9,000 personnel from the country's police force while they are investigated for suspected links to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, the country's state-run news agency said.

Anadolu Agency said that police personnel were removed from duty on Wednesday, hours after Turkey launched nationwide operations, detaining more than a thousand people with alleged ties to Gulen's movement which Turkey blames for orchestrating a failed coup in July.

This Florida Sheriff's Message to Heroin Dealers Looks an Awful Lot Like an ISIS Video

Surrounded by a masked militant posse, Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell issued a terrifying video warning for local heroin dealers Monday:

    We’re coming for you... Enjoy looking over your shoulder constantly wondering if today’s the day we come for you. Enjoy trying to sleep tonight wondering if tonight’s the night our SWAT team blows your front door off the hinges. We’re coming for you... Run.

Alabama Legislature May Give Fundamentalist Church Its Own Police Force: What Could Go Wrong?

Donald Trump’s election didn’t just empower the alt-right troops with their #MAGA hats and Pepe the Frog avatars. The religious right is also more quietly making moves to consolidate power on a state and local level, aided by Trump’s promises to appoint conservative-friendly judges and to strike down legal limits on church-based politicking.

But even in the current environment, it’s startling to learn that the Alabama legislature is considering a bill to give a Birmingham-based church its own police force. The bill, Senate Bill 193, would specifically authorize the Briarwood Presbyterian Church, which has more than 4,000 members, to hire its own police force that would be “invested with all of the powers of law enforcement officers in this state.”

Cops' Feelings on Race Show How Far We Have to Go

This week, the Pew Research Center released a report entitled "Behind the Badge," a comprehensive survey of nearly 8,000 law enforcement officials across the United States examining their attitudes toward their jobs, police protests, interactions with their communities, racial issues, and much more. The report states that it is appearing "at a crisis point in America's relationship with the men and women who enforce its laws, precipitated by a series of deaths of black Americans during encounters with the police."

Terror sparks call to centralize German police powers

BERLIN — In the wake of last month’s terror attack in Berlin, Germany’s interior ministry wants to centralize and expand police and domestic intelligence services in what would be the most sweeping overhaul of the country’s security apparatus since World War II.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said expanding the powers of the federal police was essential for Germany to confront a growing terrorist threat. He also called for Germany’s regional intelligence authorities to be merged into a single service under Berlin’s authority.

Cops Are Watching Your Facebook Feed

On November 8, more than 130 million Americans turned out to cast their ballots in the presidential election. While a presidential election is a critical moment in a democracy, democracy is a year-round endeavor, not just a quadrennial experiment. And a well-functioning democracy requires transparency about the government’s operations, especially law enforcement. That increasingly means transparency around the use of social media.

New York’s Blue Lives Matter Bill Would Make Cops a Protected Class

New York has become the latest state to introduce a Blue Lives Matter bill, which would classify assaulting an officer as a hate crime. The bill was introduced today by New York Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R), with support from Council Member Joseph C. Borelli (R) and NYPD Sergeant Joe Imperatrice, the president and founder of Blue Lives Matter NYC.

How Dangerous Is It To Be A Cop? Here’s What The Data Says

After a spate of attacks on police officers this month, many conservative pundits and politicians have claimed that there is a “war on cops” being promoted by the Black Lives Matter movement, which calls for an end to racist policing. However, data on police deaths does not support this narrative.

Ten Lessons for Creating Safety Without Police

How can we create safety collectively? How can we challenge hate and police violence by using community-based strategies rather than relying on the police?

For the past 10 years, the Safe OUTside the System (SOS) Collective -- an anti-violence program led by and for lesbian, gay, bisexual, two spirit, trans and gender non-conforming (LGBTSTGNC) people of color (POC) in Central Brooklyn, New York, specifically Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights and Bushwick neighborhoods -- has been working to answer these questions. After a decade of organizing, the three SOS Coordinators, founding coordinator Ejeris Dixon (2005–2010), the second coordinator Che J. Rene Long (2010–2014), and the current coordinator Tasha Amezcua (2014–present) co-wrote this piece to share the lessons we've learned over the years. We also asked SOS members from the past 10 years about their reflections on our successes, struggles and our hopes for the future. We write these lessons for all the people seeking to address violence and envision safer communities.

—Ejeris, Che and Tasha

In Scathing Dissent, Justice Sotomayor Says Supreme Court Just Gave The Green Light To Racist Cops

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can still arrest someone for an outstanding warrant even if they had no right to stop the person in the first place.

The opinion, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, reverses a Utah Supreme Court order to suppress evidence discovered by a police officer during an illegal stop. After getting an anonymous tip about unspecified drug activity at a house, Officer Douglas Fackrell monitored the house for several days and ultimately decided to stop a random visitor to the house. That unlucky visitor turned out to be Edward Strieff. Fackrell had no reason to stop Strieff, yet he asked for identification and discovered a minor traffic violation on his record. Fackrell arrested him for the outstanding warrant and searched him, finding a bag of methamphetamine.