Raimundo Atesiano was chief of the Biscayne Park Police Department in 2013, and he was proud to boast about his department's 100% clearance rate for burglaries -- but according to federal prosecutors who just indicted him, Atesiano conspired with two of his officers to frame a 16-year-old child for unsolved burglaries so that they could impress local officials. Read the rest

This bear smartly checked out a couple cops suspiciously loitering in their car on the side of the road. Reportedly the officers were just eating their lunch. This time. Read the rest

Canada's two leading digital rights groups, CIPPIC (previously) and Citizen Lab (previously) have issued a joint report called Shining a Light on the Encryption Debate: A Canadian Field Guide , and every Canadian should read it. Read the rest

The London Metropolitan Police use a facial recognition system whose alerts have a 98% false positive rate; people falsely identified by the system are stopped, questioned and treated with suspicion. Read the rest

Securus Technologies markets a product to law enforcement that taps into realtime cell-tower data from mobile carriers to produce fine-grained location tracking of anyone carrying a phone; it is nominally marketed to find parolees and wandering Alzheimer's patients, but because it has no checks or balances, cops can query it willy-nilly to find anyone's location. Read the rest

Covering Airedale, Altofts, Castleford, Crofton, Featherstone, Ferry Fryston, Glasshoughton, Normanton, Ryhill, Walton, Whitwood and surrounding areas of West Yorkshire in England, the Wakefield Rural Police scored an epic haul at Walton Colliery nature park: a "small quantity of Cannabis" seized from a "young man who was parked up alone" and subsequently sent on his way without charge.

After announcing the drug bust on its Facebook page, however, the department found itself being mocked by locals who made fun of it posting such a trivial incident.

Such insolence will not stand!

Unfortunately we have had to ban a number of people from using this page today. I would like to remind everyone that this is a Police page and whatever your thoughts on one of my officers seizing drugs in the community, being insulting, abusive or offensive can and will result in a prosecution under the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

We will not overlook the significant harm that illegal drugs cause to our communities. We know from experience that this can progress from using what are perceived to be recreational drugs to more addictive and harmful substances and the resulting criminality used to fund their continued use.

Please use this page with respect or you will be banned and maybe even prosecuted

Police Inspector Martin Moizer.

***Cannabis Seized***

PCSO 687 Ian Campbell and PCSO 882 Ben Hughes attended Walton colliery nature park and seized a small quantity of Cannabis from a young man who was parked up alone.

Walton Colliery nature park will be firmly on our patrol plan in the future to prevent this behaviour.

Police in Rialto, California have released bodycam footage of an incident in which Bob Marley's granddaughter was detained when a white neighbor reported her for suspected burglary. Donisha Prendergast was merely staying at an Airbnb, on her vacation, with friends, while Black. Read the rest

When I read Macon County, IL K-9 trainer Chad Larner's claim that marijuana legalization would necessitate euthanizing 275 Illinois drug-sniffer dogs that couldn't be retrained and who would be driven mad by the pervasive smell of legal weed, I thought, "Gosh, I hope some cops from a legal weed state like Colorado show up to explain that this guy is full of shit." Read the rest

The South Wales Police deployed a facial recognition technology at the June 2017 Champions League soccer final in Cardiff, and 92% of the people identified by the system as matches for suspiciousness were false positives. Read the rest

Claudia Cavaliere had only been working as a massage therapist in Montreal, Canada for a few months when, as she began to work the knots out of a middle-aged client's leg, he started grinding against her massage table, juuuuuust before flipping over to bring himself off. The whole time that he masturbated, he didn't say a damn word, other than asking Cavaliere for a tissue to clean himself up with. Horrified, she backed out of the room that she had been alone with her client in and asked a co-worker for assistance. Her co-worker got Cavaliere to safety and demanded that her piece of shit client leave. The incident shook Cavaliere, deeply. After she collected herself, she was brave enough to report the incident to the police.

When she told the duty officer at the Kirkland detachment of the Montreal Police Service her story, he didn't respond in the way that you'd like to hope that those we charge with protecting us, would. Instead of offering a modicum of sympathy, he attempted to dissuade her from filing a complaint, saying, according to Cavaliere "Well, you know, you have to get ready to appear in court. Do you really want to do that?"

At this point, Cavaliere decided it might be a good idea to record the rest of their chat.

As the conversation between Cavaliere and the cop progressed, it was discovered that her client had provided her with a fake name and phone number. The duty officer that she spoke to told her that it was unlikely that a case could be pursued, given these circumstances, and even if it did, it would not be classified as a sexual assault. Read the rest

An off-duty Buena Park, California Police officer decided that a $1 pack of candy was worth risking human life. Mistakenly believing Jose Arreola was shoplifting a package of Mentos he had just purchased, the cop went into thug mode. After repeatedly being told Arreola had paid for the candies, by both the victim and the store's cashier, the officer offers an apology.

What are the guidelines for when an officer is supposed to draw a firearm? Was anyone in any danger here? Did he need a gun to stop a suspected candy thief? I would hope officer education programs explain that considering consequences like "One of us dies, or that candy gets stole" might be part of the rubric?

Buena Park PD Chief of Police Corey S. Sianez offered this statement via Facebook: "I want you to know that after I watched the video I found it to be disturbing, as I’m sure it was to you. However, because there is an ongoing personnel investigation and potential litigation pending against the city, I am unable to discuss the details of our investigation."

Video via the Orange County Register Read the rest

Oakland, California -- a city across the bay from San Francisco whose large African-American population has struggled with gentrification and police violence for decades -- has a long reputation for police corruption and surveillance. Read the rest

I was getting on a plane in Toronto yesterday when I heard the news that a van had been intentionally driven into a crowd of people. By the time I landed a few hours later in Calgary, word was that 10 people lost their lives in the attack. Just under 20 were wounded. I assumed that if he was found by the authorities, the alleged driver of the van would be toast. He or she would have no chance to be tried by a jury of peers; no option to stand before a judge. There'd be no justice, save what a bullet, by the driver's own hand or that of a police office, could afford.

This morning when I woke, I was amazed to see that this was not the case. A single Toronto Police Service constable managed to capture a suspect alive in the murder of those ten unfortunate souls. Despite the fact that the suspect menaced the officer, his demanded to be killed, and constantly reached for a firearm – which turned out not to have been there – the suspect ended up in handcuffs instead of a body bag.

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation's got what little footage of the event there is, along with commentary on how a police service that was once known for its heavy-handed tactics identified its aggression as a problem and fought to change its ways. Through frequent deescalation courses, Toronto's Police Service is changing its officer's responses to violent situations, slowly, but with measurable success. Read the rest

Linus F. Phillip was 30 years old when Largo, Florida cops shot him when he drove his car away from a gas-station where he had been stopped by police. Read the rest

An overwhelming stench of poop and urine led authorities to check out what was going on in an unassuming two-story house in Toliara, Madagascar. When they opened the front door, they were shocked to find the house full of endangered tortoises--10,068, to be exact. According to Soary Randrianjafizanaka, a representative from Madagascar's environmental protection agency, so many of the poor little critters were jammed into the house that they literally had no room to move.

From National Geographic:

In total the house contained 9,888 live radiated tortoises, a rare species found only in Madagascar—and 180 dead ones. Randrianjafizanaka helped count them as rescuers loaded them onto six trucks that made several trips to Le Village Des Tortues (Turtle Village in French), a private wildlife rehabilitation facility in Ifaty, 18 miles north of Toliara. It took until early the following morning to transfer all the tortoises to the rescue center.

The majority of the turtles taken to the rehabilitation facility are doing well, now that they've been cleaned up, moved into more suitable quarters, and provided with veterinary care. Unfortunately, close to 600 of the turtles have died since being removed from the house, due to dehydration or infection--the result of their long neglect.

With a shrinking population of around three million of the reptiles, the trade of radiated turtles, each of which can have shells up to 16 inches across and weigh as much as 35 pounds, is illegal in 182 countries. That makes the turtles an attractive product for blackmarket traders operating out of Madagascar, to export to shady buyers around the world. Read the rest

The Mercury News obtained and released a 30-minute captioned bodycam video of police interacting with Nasim Aghdam as she slept in a Walmart parking lot a few hours before shooting three people and killing herself at YouTube headquarters. Read the rest

As Rick James would be the first to tell you if he weren't dead, cocaine's a helluva drug. Aside from providing an intense high that can be followed by an even more intense bout of depression, tons of fun paranoia, anger, breathing issues and maybe if you're really into the stuff, death. Until today, I have to admit that I was unaware that it also has the power of flight.

According to the New York Times, Floridian (of course she's from Florida) Kennecia Posey was found by officers from the Fort Pierce Police Department to have a goodly amount of marching powder in her purse. The pouch of nose candy was discovered during a traffic stop after seeing the car that Posey was a passenger in was swerving all over the road. The cops decided to search Posey's purse after smelling marijuana in the car. I can't tell you what Posey had to say about her left-handed cigarettes, but her theory on how the bag of rail ended up in there is amazing: she claimed that with it being a windy day, the stuff must have blown in there.

I guess it goes without saying that Posey is getting dinged up on charges of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession. I really hope that she fights the charges in court – hard. I want expert witnesses called in to able to talk about the flight qualities of a bag of blow. I demand to hear the arguments over the aerodynamics of an ounce of Yeyo. Read the rest