Category Archives: US policing

Police identify suspect in 1991 murders of four girls at Texas yogurt shop

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Officials name Robert Eugene Brashers in brutal deaths of Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas and Jennifer and Sarah Harbison

After more than three decades, police have identified a dead suspect in an infamous 1991 murder case in which four girls were slain at a yogurt shop in Austin, Texas.

Austin police revealed Friday that Robert Eugene Brashers had been identified as a suspect in the murders through “a wide range of DNA testing”. Brashers, who had a lengthy criminal history, died by suicide in 1999 at age 40 during a standoff with police in Missouri.

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California becomes first state to ban face coverings for most law enforcement

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Local and federal agents, including immigration officials, may not wear masks while conducting official business

California will be the first state to ban most law enforcement, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces while conducting official business under a bill signed by the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, on Saturday.

The ban is California’s direct response to a recent series of immigration raids in Los Angeles where federal agents wore masks while making mass arrests. The raids prompted protests and led Donald Trump to deploy national guard troops and marines to the city.

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Chicago suburb warns residents that federal agents may be about to arrive

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Evanston urges residents to report sightings of federal agents as Trump has threatened immigration crackdown

A Chicago suburb has warned its residents that federal immigration agents may be present in the coming days as Donald Trump continues to threaten an immigration enforcement crackdown and national guard deployment in the nation’s third largest city.

The city of Evanston issued a statement urging its residents to report sightings of federal agents, after local officials said they were informed over the weekend about the likelihood of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) activity.

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Chicago mayor signs executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raids

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Brandon Johnson’s order directs city police not to collaborate with federal agents in immigration enforcement

The mayor of Chicago has signed an executive order outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Brandon Johnson pushed back on Saturday against what he called the “out-of-control” Trump administration’s plan to deploy large numbers of federal officers into the country’s third-largest city, which could take place within days.

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Maine police officer detained by Ice agrees to leave US

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Jon Luke Evans had been employed by local police after federal database confirmed his eligibility to work

A Maine police officer arrested by immigration authorities has agreed to voluntarily leave the country, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Monday.

Ice arrested the Old Orchard Beach police department reserve officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on 25 July, as part of the agency’s effort to step up immigration enforcement. Officials with the town and police department have said federal authorities previously told them Evans was legally authorized to work in the US.

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Democrats introduce joint resolution to end Trump’s ‘lawless’ DC takeover

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Legislation says special emergency conditions that would warrant federalization of DC police have not been met

Democratic lawmakers have introduced a joint resolution aimed at ending what they call Trump’s unlawful and unprecedented move to federalize the Metropolitan police department (MPD) in Washington DC.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House judiciary committee; DC’s non-voting House delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton; and representative Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House committee on oversight and government reform, introduced the resolution on Friday, invoking the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973.

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Sea of people march across Sydney Harbour Bridge calling for an end to killing in Gaza

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NSW police estimate 90,000 walked despite force and premier opposing rally, while Palestine Action Group claims up to 300,000 peacefully protested

At least 100,000 pro-Palestine marchers, including Julian Assange, the former foreign minister Bob Carr and the government MP Ed Husic, have marched across Sydney Harbour Bridge in the rain to protest against Israel’s conduct in Gaza and to speak out about the children starving there.

The world-famous landmark was closed to traffic at 11.30am on Sunday, with protesters gathering in Lang Park in the city centre before enduring heavy rain as they walked across the bridge.

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Grenade missing from scene of blast that killed three LA police officers

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LA county sheriff’s deputies died when one of two ‘military-style’ grenades detonated at police training complex

A grenade is missing from the scene of an explosion that killed three people at a Los Angeles law enforcement training facility, authorities said.

Three veteran deputy sheriffs died in the explosion last Friday, the LA county sheriff’s department’s largest loss of life in a single incident since 1857.

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Videos reveal harsh conditions inside Ice’s New York City confinement center

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Footage shows people sleeping on floor next to toilets in facility that agency says is not a detention site

Two videos have surfaced shedding light on what is happening behind closed doors at a New York federal building where people are being confined after being seized by officers on their way out of immigration court on the 12th floor, with the footage offering a rare look inside a controversial and closely guarded space that is part of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown.

The filming, shared by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), captures one of several rooms at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, on the building’s 10th floor, where accounts have emerged of people being detained in wholly unsuitable conditions with few basic provisions, but there had been no public access to direct evidence.

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Two dead and three injured, including state trooper, in Kentucky shootings

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Unidentified shooter wounded trooper near airport in Lexington, then fled to a nearby church and opened fire

A suspect shot and wounded a state trooper near a Kentucky airport on Sunday before fleeing to a nearby church, killing two women and wounding two men, before being fatally shot.

At 11.36am ET on Sunday an unidentified shooter opened fire near Blue Grass airport in Lexington and wounded a state trooper, according to authorities. The shooting occurred after the trooper had pulled over a vehicle after receiving a licence plate reader alert in the area of Versailles Road, Lexington police said.

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‘Authoritarian playbook’: DHS accuses critics of assaulting officers when videos say otherwise

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Civil rights advocates and scholars say the US government’s claims are troubling indicators of rising authoritarianism

After New York City comptroller Brad Lander this week became the latest prominent Democrat to be arrested while monitoring and protesting US immigration authorities, the Trump administration trotted out a familiar refrain to justify his detention.

The mayoral candidate had “assaulted” law enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asserted, warning “if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences”.

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US drops charges against LA protester accused of assaulting officers: ‘A huge relief’

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Federal prosecutors reverse course in case of Jose Manuel Mojica, who came forward to Guardian to say he was brutally attacked by agents

Federal prosecutors in California have moved to dismiss charges against a Los Angeles protester accused of assaulting border patrol agents, a major victory for the demonstrator who said he himself was brutally attacked by law enforcement.

US attorney Bill Essayli, a Donald Trump appointee, filed a motion on Wednesday to dismiss a complaint against Jose Manuel Mojica, a 30-year-old Los Angeles resident who was present at one of the first major protests of immigration raids in southern California this month. Mojica, a father of four born in LA, came forward last week to the Guardian, which published footage of his arrest by a group of officers.

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California bill proposes misdemeanor for officers who cover their face on duty

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Law enforcement officials would also be required to be identifiable by uniform carrying their name

Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers who cover their faces while conducting official business could face a misdemeanor in California under a new proposal announced Monday.

The bill would require all law enforcement officials show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform, which should carry their name or other identifier. It would not apply to the national guard or other troops and it exempts Swat teams and officers responding to natural disasters.

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Detainees at New Jersey immigration center revolt as chaos unravels

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Four people escaped after group held at Delaney Hall Ice facility pushed down wall amid police and protester clashes

Unrest and protests have erupted in and around a controversial immigration detention center in New Jersey, with police and federal officials clashing with protesters after detainees reportedly pushed down a wall in revolt at the conditions they are being held in.

About 50 detainees pushed down a wall in the dormitory room of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, on Thursday night, according to an immigration lawyer representing one of the men held there.

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LA police announce ‘mass arrests’ as Newsom intensifies criticism of Trump | First Thing

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Protesters defy overnight curfew as California governor issues searing rebuke of administration. Plus, who is behind the hedonistic party palaces of New York’s Fire Island?

Good morning.

Los Angeles police have announced they are making “mass arrests” in the city’s downtown area, as people gathered in defiance of an overnight curfew imposed after days of protests against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and military deployment.

What has Newsom said? Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard in LA was “a brazen abuse of power”, that has “inflamed a combustible situation”, Newsom said in a searing rebuke of the administration.

What about Trump? In an address to troops at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina yesterday, Trump spread conspiracy theories, maligned California’s Democratic leaders and misleadingly portrayed protesters as part of a “foreign invasion”.

Were they really armed by Israel? Yes. Israeli defence officials acknowledged last week that they had been arming the group, with the aim of undermining Hamas. Aid workers said the group had a long history of looting from UN trucks.

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Five New Orleans jailbreak fugitives still at large as police arrest alleged helpers

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Several people held in connection with jailbreak as manhunt enters second week and criticisms mount over jail management

Several people have been arrested on accusations of helping some of the 10 men who broke out of New Orleans’ jail on 16 May – and half of the escapers remained on the run as a manhunt for them entered its second week, according to authorities.

Police said on Friday that they had booked Casey Smith, 30, a day earlier on allegations that she provided transportation to at least two of the escapers in the hours after the jailbreak. She had allegedly admitted to doing that alongside another woman whom police took into custody on Wednesday, identified as 32-year-old Cortnie Harris, Smith’s cousin and the girlfriend of one of the escaped men, Leo Tate, 31.

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Ex-deputy in California repays $3,500 in cash he stole from homeless man

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Felony charges dismissed but John Sanzone banned from serving as peace officer in state after covering up theft

A former sheriff’s deputy who stole $3,500 from a homeless man he arrested in California has been permanently banned from serving as a peace officer in the state, while felony theft charges against him were dropped, authorities said.

John Sanzone, a former deputy with the Glenn county sheriff’s office, arrested a homeless man who had been carrying $3,500 – money the man had been saving for urgent dental work.

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Seven men still on the run after New Orleans jailbreak

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Total of 10 men escaped from hole behind toilet in cell; authorities are investigating whether they had inside help

Seven men – including one convicted in four killings and others charged with murder – remained on the run after a breakout at New Orleans’ jail that officials fear may have been enabled by help from within their own ranks.

A total of 10 men participated in the brazen overnight escape by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet and scaling a wall while the lone staffer assigned to their cell pod was away getting food.

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Columbia University calls in police to clear pro-Palestinian protesters

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University’s president says activists refused to leave library despite warnings of disciplinary action and arrest

Columbia University asked the New York police department to help clear pro-Palestinian activists from the campus’s main library after protesters clashed with the school’s public safety officers.

Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in a statement that protesters had refused to leave the building despite being warned that a failure to comply would result in disciplinary action and possibly arrest for trespassing.

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Three ex-Tennessee officers acquitted of state charges in fatal beating of Tyre Nichols

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Men, who have been convicted of federal charges, found not guilty in death of Black man, 29, after he fled traffic stop

Three former Memphis officers were acquitted on Wednesday of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop in 2023.

A jury took about eight and a half hours over two days to find Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith not guilty on all charges after a nine-day trial in state court in Memphis. After the jury’s verdict was read, the defendants hugged their lawyers as relatives of the former officers cried. One relative yelled: “Thank you, Jesus!”

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