St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

For the past week the jury had been listening to arguments in a civil rights case that pitted Angela Zorich of south St. Louis County against the St. Louis County Police Department and four of its officers. In April 2014, the county’s tactical operations unit busted down Zorich’s door at the request of problem properties unit Officer Robert Rinck because their gas had been turned off. In the raid, an officer shot and killed the family’s 4-year-old pit bull, Kiya.

The full week of trial was necessary, she said, to get the parties to where they ended up Monday morning, when St. Louis County offered to settle the case for $750,000 just before closing arguments were to begin.

So have you made changes to policy to call off those dumbass SWAT raids?  Have you made changes to policy not to send cops out to harass people for not paying bills?  Have you thrown the participating cops in jail?

Over what, you ask?  Withholding evidence, animal cruelty, breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, trespassing, damage to private property, and kidnapping.  But no, instead of the cops paying for this, the taxpayer is left with the tab.

Over unpaid utility bills.  Over unpaid utility bills.

Via reader Ned, FreeThoughtProject:

The Free Thought Project has reported on multiple instances in which entire groups of people were detained and forced to show ID or submit to a search. However, during these questionable situations, police were able to reasonably articulate suspicion that a crime had been committed or was about to be committed. Over the weekend, at a popular Michigan City bar, there was no crime and no one had been suspected of committing a crime.

Despite these facts, more than a dozen officers raided this peaceful establishment in which patrons were enjoying their Saturday night. Police officers with the Michigan City Police Department blocked all the exits and the rights violating process began.

After police trapped them inside, every person in the bar was forced to line up and submit their identification to one of the many police officers who had setup laptops. Only after they submitted to the background checks were the patrons allowed to leave.

In the state of Indiana, a person only has to show their identification to law enforcement only if they have been stopped for an infraction or ordinance violation. Obviously, every single person inside this bar was not suspected of a crime, which made this process unconstitutional.

However, as the video shows, police didn’t accuse anyone of committing an infraction and detained them anyway.

What’s more, according to our sources at the bar that night, not a single arrest was even made.

As the video shows, the police officers running everyone’s IDs, couldn’t have cared about due process. Indeed, when Manna Carter, the woman who took the video, asks one of the officers why they are doing this, his response was, “because we can.”

As Carter questions them, the police attempted to justify this raid by claiming to be a part of some excise enforcement operation for the Alcohol & Tobacco Commission. However, the state of Indiana has an its own department for this known as the Indiana State Excise Police (ISEP).

More over, this was not some attempt to catch underage drinkers or a bar selling unlicensed booze. This was a sweeping raid and subsequent mass detainment of dozens of innocent people who were all forced to submit their information to police — probable cause be damned.

Even more damning is the fact that in an interview with TFTP, Carter said that no police officers from the ISEP were there that night and all the officers involved were from MCPD.

TFTP also reached out to the ISEP and the MCPD to inquire about which statute gave them the authority to carry out such rights-stomping exercise, however our calls and emails have yet to be returned.

The Supreme Court rule on “Terry Stops” means nothing according to the police.  They are a law unto themselves.

Oh, and make note of the reply.  “Because we can.”  Not a single one of these officers cared about their oath to uphold the constitution.  They may not be judged on this in time, but they certainly will in eternity.

The giddy celebrations of the American left over the wonderful New Zealand law seem to have subsided, and you don’t hear much about it any more.

It was one of the defining moments as New Zealand grieved after a pair of deadly mosque attacks: a near-unanimous parliamentary vote in April to ban assault-style rifles and similar weapons.

The lawmakers’ move was immediately acclaimed by gun-control advocates worldwide as an example of decisive collective action in a nation unified in horror by the March 15 assaults in Christchurch that left 51 people dead.

Then the momentum began to slow.

Growing opposition from New Zealand’s pro-gun groups has complicated efforts to round up the now-banned firearms under a buyback program. Lawsuits are threatened.

Gun-control advocates argue that compensation rates may not be fair and warn of a possible spike in black-market sales.

The government, meanwhile, is faced with a sobering set of challenges over how to enforce the new law.

There is no national registry for many of the weapons targeted by the ban, including the AR-15 – a semiautomatic rifle that has been used in mass shootings in the United States and is often at the center of American gun-control debates.

As a result, estimates of the numbers of newly banned weapons vary widely. So far, about 700 firearms have been voluntarily surrendered.

Authorities are “operating a little bit in the dark,” said Joe Green, gun-safety specialist and former arms control manager for the New Zealand Police.

[ … ]

Stuart Nash, the minister for police, announced last week that nearly 200 collection events would take place over the next three months in community hubs, including in some of the country’s largest sports stadiums.

“We urge people to stay calm,” Mike Clement, New Zealand Police’s deputy commissioner of national operations, told The Washington Post.

“We acknowledge that you’re a law-abiding citizen and through no fault of your own you now find yourself in possession of firearms that are now illegal,” he said, but he noted that once the amnesty period expires, there is no excuse for holding on to weapons.

[ … ]

But Yasbek pointed out that some of the banned weapons, including AR-15 rifles, fall into Category “A” in the New Zealand licensing system, which means they were not required to be registered in police databases and as such will be impossible to trace.

“These weapons are unlikely to be confiscated by police because they don’t know of their existence,” she said. “These will become black-market weapons if their owners choose not to comply with the law and become criminals instead.”

That’ll do it.  Call them “criminals.”  That’ll make them turn in the guns.  I’m sure their feelings will be hurt by the indictment.

On the other hand, if you declare them all criminals, what have they got left to lose?  Why not convert them all to fully automatic?  If they’re going to traffic in the black market now, what’s to stop them from acquiring more powerful weaponry?

That may be a less than fortuitous turn of events for the New Zealand police, yes?  Too bad.  Should have thought about that beforehand.

Via 357 Magnum, this report from New York.

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

Nah.  No record, no night in jail, no inability to get jobs, nothing.  Nothing is going to happen to them anyway.  Nothing.

This is what happens when you take corrupt men and put them in charge of prosecuting an unnecessary and immoral war on the American people.

Quotas.  Hardening of the heart to the plight of the victims.  Lying.  Cheating.  Falsification of documents.  Violation of your oath.  Harming other men for the sake of your own advancement.