Penny Dean and Your Rights

“The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to create a program that would offer a $1,000 reward to anyone who provides information that leads to the recovery of an illegal firearm,” Brentwood Patch parroted, noting the measure was approved 15-0.

Authorities say a good Samaritan with a handgun thwarted a savage attack on a police officer in Utah.

The good Samaritan in question is Derek Meyer, who told Salt Lake City Fox-affiliate KSTU-TV that he was driving on Main Street in Springville, which is about 50 miles from Salt Lake City, when he spotted police lights — and a man walloping a police officer.

The incident happened about 2 p.m. on Friday, police said. An officer on patrol saw a pair of feet dangling out of a bin for Tabitha's Way, a local food pantry that hosts a clothing recycling program.

On Thursday the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced plans for a new pilot program that will test out biometric facial recognition technology as part of an effort to identify fugitives or terror suspects. The Austin-American Statesman reported on the announcement:

In December 2016, the Boston City Council held a hearing to discuss the Boston Police Department’s plan to spend $1.4 million on a social media surveillance system. Police Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald and Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) director David Carabin spoke of their commitment to transparency but did not provide any specific details about the software. After news of the plans became public, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans explained, “We’re not going after ordinary people.

How unqualified does an aspiring deputy have to be before the Sevier County Sheriff's Department won't hire him?

In October Reason covered the story of Justin M. Johnson, a deputy in Sevier County, Tennessee, whose bodycam caught him firing wildly and without warning at an unarmed man who had been filming him. The footage then shows Johnson suffering a severe panic attack. The man doing the filming has since been charged with assault for causing the deputy's panic.

The U.S. government uses secret evidence to build criminal cases, according to a report released today by Human Rights Watch.

The report offers one of the most comprehensive looks yet at "parallel construction," a tactic where federal law enforcement hides classified or sensitive methods from courts by building a parallel chain of evidence after the fact.

Thursday night, Wichita, Kansas, Police sent out a SWAT team to respond to a 911 call that a man shot his father and was holding his family hostage in their home.

The telephone call was a lie. There was no hostage situation—but nevertheless a man at the home ended up dead, shot and killed by a police officer at his own front door.

A pregnant woman walked into a grocery store and meat market in Fresno, California, where’s she’s a regular customer, and made her way to the soda fountain. As ice was falling into her cup, she started screaming.

“I heard her scream ‘Oh my God, I think I’m having my baby!'” said store owner Issamar Sepulveda. “It happened in like seconds.”

The cashier called 911 but was put on hold. The cook called 911 and was put on hold. The butcher called 911 and was put on hold.

According to the story the Wyoming Attorney General's Office is telling, Phil Parhamovich was moved during a traffic stop last March to donate $91,800, his life savings, to the state's Division of Criminal Investigation to help it wage the war on drugs. Parhamovich's version is rather more plausible: He says state police took his money after pressuring him to sign a "waiver" that circumvented even the limited protections offered by Wyoming's civil asset forfeiture law.

Leo Lech owns a property parcel at 4219 South Alton Street in Greenwood Village, a sleepy suburban enclave tucked between Denver's bustling Tech Center and the scenic reservoir of Cherry Creek State Park. His quarter-acre plot rests near the end of a quaint cul-de-sac that fits every idyllic American stereotype: two-car garages, well-manicured lawns, the stars and stripes waving in front of each home.

While most houses on this block were built in the 1970s, Lech's is brand new: It received a certificate of occupancy in August after two years of construction.