Citizens vs. Government

In April 2014, the Dallas Police Department’s top-rank leadership made it clear they support the concept of the right to photograph and record in public.
But the department’s Internal Affairs Division, the Dallas Police Association (DPA), and a small but troublesome and aggressive minority of officers on the street have adopted a completely different and opposing position whereby they do all they can to protect officers who interfere with photographers, no matter how damning the evidence.

Unable to reach a verdict against a Baltimore police officer accused of killing Freddie Gray, a judge declared a mistrial today, angering protesters who were standing outside the courthouse.
But prosecutors say they will retry William Porter, the driver of the van in which Gray was killed, and the first of six officers to be tried.
The jury deliberated for more than 16 hours over three days before Judge Barry G. Williams declared a mistrial.

UPDATE: A St. Johns County school bus caught fire on the road according to local news reports. It was carrying 25 students.
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PINAC Reporter Jeff Gray conducted a weeklong school bus safety investigation in his hometown of St. Augustine, Florida.
His public records research revealed school bus drivers lying about mandatory pre-trip safety inspections, which he recorded them skipping.

It’s been more than three months since Georgia cops entered a man’s home unannounced without a warrant, only to kill the dog, shoot the man and shoot a fellow officer before realizing they had entered the wrong home.
But the Georgia Bureau of Investigations said the case is still under investigation with no new developments to announce.

Dennis Ortiz was pulled over by New Jersey state police last year for driving 110 mph on the interstate as he was driving back from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
He readily admitted to the speeding and agreed to step out of the vehicle, where he followed the officer’s instructions in performing a roadside sobriety test, which he passed.
Once he was allowed back inside his car, his girlfriend was recording and asked him to recap the scenario.
Ortiz spoke into the camera, saying the cops gave him an “unlawful sobriety test with no probable cause in the vehicle.”

A Daniel Holtzclaw supporter poses for a gym selfie wearing a T-shirt sold on the Facebook support page that reads “Justice for Daniel Holtzclaw”.

Nebraska police arrested the founder of Omaha Cop Block for doing nothing more than “using four letter words” on a public sidewalk.
The Omaha police officer Lucpdo felt mocked, so he used his badge and gun to get street justice, punishing Floyd Wallace with a trip to jail for contempt of cop.
The YouTube effect doesn’t happen for police quite the same as it does for activists, since the officer’s video hasn’t yet surfaced.

Florida’s St. Johns County School Board has filed and served a strategic lawsuit against Jeff Gray’s First Amendment activities targeting the PINAC reporter for his investigatory work on school bus safety in the 35,000 student district.

The New York Times usually gets it right, but the Newspaper of Record published an op-ed piece titled “How to Prosecute Abusive Prosecutors” containing a glaring factual error.
While we support the ACLU’s efforts and mission at PINAC News, we wish they would have returned our calls and emails this past week as we did our research.

A taser-wielding, power-tripping national park ranger terrorized a couple for overstaying their visit to the Massachusetts seashore by twenty minutes, tasering the man, then twisting his wife’s wrist backwards until he was convinced she was not armed, all in the name of officer safety.
But it was nothing but officer insanity as we can see in the 18-minute body cam footage from Federal Park Ranger Steve Glaser, showing a complete overreaction to what he even said was nothing put a parking infraction.