Northeast

Fears of Tick-Borne Powassan Virus Increasing, Experts Warn

After working in the garden or taking a walk in the woods, it’s a good common practice to check your body for ticks; but it’s not just Lyme disease you have to worry about anymore. Experts are warning that the Powassan virus, a tick-borne virus that can cause dangerous inflammation in the brain, may be transmitted even faster than Lyme. [1]
Powassan is still considered a rare disease; but a recent study of ticks in Maine, as well as a few widely-reported cases of human infection, suggest that the virus may becoming more common.

Connecticut State Troopers Charged with Kidnapping for Beating and Torturing Man at Party

Two Connecticut state troopers were arrested Tuesday for nearly beating a man to death while they were off-duty after a night of heavy drinking and nightclubbing.
The troopers were angry that the man grabbed a woman’s butt at an after-party in one of the trooper’s home.
In classic mob style, the troopers even took pictures of the man’s drivers license in an attempt to dissuade him from telling the police.
Now, both troopers have been suspended and a judge has put them both on house arrest until their day in court.

Former Massachusetts Cop Sent Back to Prison for Child Porn After Early Release from Prior Child Porn Arrest

A Massachusetts police officer was convicted of possession of child pornography while on duty in 2011 after mistakenly sending a CD of child porn images to the local district attorney, including photos of himself masturbating to these images inside the evidence room of his agency.
Alan Vigiard, who resigned from the Adams Police Department, was sentenced to two years in prison, serving a year in prison.

Massachusetts Cop Married to Police Chief Rapes Inmate in Closet

What happens in the closet stays in the closet, right?
At least that’s what a Massachusetts cop was hoping for when he forced a drunk, naked inmate into a closet and performed oral sex on him before raping him on Halloween night.
Salem police officer Brian Butler, 56, said he simply “gave into temptation.” And insists the sex act between him and the 28-year-old man was consensual.
Considering he is married to the department’s police chief, he should be protected, right?
Except there’s video.

WATCH: Providence Cop Slugged Compliant Woman 3 Times in Face in Violent Arrest

“Honestly Fuck this shit is just krazy that’s no way to treat a fucking female! Share this shit!”
A Providence cop is going viral on video, for bashing a woman’s face forcefully, and deliberately three times in a row when she showed passive resistance to an extremely brutal arrest.
The blond woman was wearing knee high black boots and a revealing outfit that looked like what anyone might wear to a nightclub.
A pair of Providence cops arrested the scantily clad woman on the front doorstep of a home, and she appeared to give passive resistance, refusing to stand.

WATCH: Massachusetts Cops Nearly Kill Man For Recording Traffic Stop, Beat Him Senseless Instead

“Then a police officer on the righthand side—he starts bashing my window with a baton, trying to break in. That’s when I noticed they might kill me.”
“You’re going to see people drawing their guns, all pointing their guns into my car,” – Steven Cepeda’s description of his terrifying encounter with Massachusetts police after he was stopped in the lot of a pizza shop last april.

New Hampshire Complaint Censorship Chills Viral Video on YouTube, Uses False Privacy Claim

Complaint censorship is a rising tide on YouTube, threatening to scrub the internet clean of video recorded in public, which people want to take back years later.
A New Hampshire citizen journalist recorded a public conversation on a sidewalk and posted it to YouTube (see below) where it went viral, getting over 1,000,000 views, but now someone is using complaint censorship to claim a privacy right, on a public sidewalk.
Complaint censorship uses illegitimate claims to bog down news and public interest videos on YouTube.

New Jersey Crime Lab Tech Suspended For Falsifying Test Results, Blows 7,800+ Cases

A New Jersey Crime Lab technician was suspended with pay, after he was found writing down results of suspected marijuana, before the tests were even completed, throwing 7,827 criminal cases into doubt, damaging confidence in the workings of that state’s criminal justice system.
Criminal charges have yet to be filed against Kamalkant Shah, but falsifying even a single test would be grounds for indictment.