A New York man, John Swartz, was followed by police, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in 2006 when, according to court filings, he saw police officers with a radar detector at an intersection and "expressed his displeasure ... by reaching his right arm outside the passenger side window and extending his middle finger over the car’s roof."

The charges against Swartz were dismissed on speedy trial grounds, but he then brought a damages claim against the police -- a claim that was tossed out in a lower Albany court when the judge sided with the police's account that they had followed the man believing his hand gesture to be some sort of distress signal. On Thursday, however, the appeals court ruled against this conclusion, noting "the nearly universal recognition that this gesture is an insult." (The ruling highlights the ancient history of the insult in its footnotes, pointing out that Aristophanes wrote of Strepsiades flipping off Aristotle).

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Concerned by the boy's notebook, a Cedar Creek High School staff member called the local police, who searched the school and the teen's home with sniffer dogs. When police found chemicals in the house which, when combined -- although they were not combined and are found in many households -- could be used in an explosive device as well as a number of electronics, the boy was charged with possession of a weapon, an explosive device, and was placed in Harborfields Detention Center before being released and having charges dropped.

The boy's mother explained that her son, who had no history of violence or threat-making, regularly assembled and dissambled electronics as a hobby. “He takes the parts and he builds things with them,” she told Fox. “Good things.” And as the local police chief affirmed, “There was no indication he was making a bomb, or using a bomb or detonating a bomb,” and the boy didn’t issue any threats.

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Reedy's attacker struck again one year later. He was caught and admitted to the assault and robbery for which Reedy had been blamed.

This year, according to the Guardian's Observer, Reedy "won a marathon legal battle and a $1.5million settlement against the detective who turned her from victim into accused. The payment was agreed earlier this year, but can be revealed only now because of a non-disclosure clause that was part of the settlement."

"I'm relieved that people will be able to see now that I was telling the truth," Reedy, now 27, told the Observer.  "Although mine is an extreme case, I'm not the first – and I won't be the last."

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The newspapers analyzed in detail the incidents of police deploying deadly force in Maine -- a state with a comparatively low crime rate -- since 2000. The report noted:

42 percent of people shot by police since 2000 -- and 58 percent of those who died from their injuries -- had mental health problems, according to reports from the Maine Attorney General's Office. In many cases, the officers knew that the subjects were disturbed, and they were dead in a matter of moments.

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In August of this year, police in Jonesboro, Ark. claimed that Chavis Carter, 21, committed suicide while in the back of a patrol car. He was handcuffed at the time and had already been searched for weapons. Somehow, according to the police report, the searh missed Carter's concealed handgun and the young man -- found to be on a number of amphetamines and sedatives at the time -- managed to reach around his back to shoot himself in the right side of his head, despite being left-handed.  Dr. Isaac Richmond, national director of the Memphis-based Commission on Religion and Racism, called the police's account "a cold-blooded calculated lie," but a state autopsy fell in line with the suicide narrative.

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While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly endlessly tout the value of Manhattan’s "ring of steel," modeled after the security infrastructure of London’s financial district, they reveal little as to its role tracking car traffic in the city.  Both back the department’s Domain Awareness System (DAS), which can track individuals or incidents (e.g., a suspicious package) through live video feeds from some 3,000 CCTV cameras, 2,600 radiation substances detectors, check license plate numbers, pull up crime reports and cross-check all information against criminal and terrorist databases.

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Under New York law, members of the state police can't accept such gifts.

So state police officials are seeking the public's help in finding the woman who gave the money to Trooper Christopher Maniscalco in the Albany suburb of Guilderland on Sunday. They say they want the woman to tell them where she would like the donation to go.

Police say the woman told Maniscalco she had seen him doing a good job and wanted to say Merry Christmas and thank you. Officials say it wasn't until after his shift ended that the trooper opened the card and saw the money.

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For Taylor, it was about time. She’s a busy-body by nature, and it couldn’t have helped that she was saddled with a hack writer. Because no one else raised their hand and because she’s the rookie in the Austin Police Department’s (APD) 14-member DWI unit, Officer Taylor “volunteered” to serve as ride-along chaperone during one of the department’s “No Refusal” weekends. It’s probably fair to say we both got excited when she finally hit the lights.

Texas’ No Refusal law is pretty straightforward. If a police officer—after a reasonable detention to investigate his or her informed suspicion of public intoxication—can demonstrate probable cause that a vehicle operator is drunk, and if that person refuses to “volunteer” potential evidence to further the investigation, the officer can apply for a warrant from the night judge to take a biological sample to prove it.

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The menu one recent Thursday featured grilled chicken, scallion risotto—and a grisly five-year-old murder that happened 3,000 miles away.

Jodine Serrin, 39, was found stabbed and beaten to death in the bedroom of her Carlsbad, CA home on Valentine’s Day, 2007.  But the trail to any suspects had long since grown cold, and the Carlsbad cops working the case—Detective Bryan Hargett and Sergeant Mickey Williams—had reached only dead ends.

So on the Thursday in question, Hargett and Williams found themselves eager (and hopeful) lunch guests of the Vidocq Society, whose unique self-appointed mission is solving cases that have defied the best efforts of law enforcement—on the theory that fresh ideas from colleagues can inject new thinking to help unravel even the toughest mysteries.

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The LA Times reports:

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On Tuesday, a federal court condemned the police "code of silence" that had protected the offending cop. The court awarded the plaintiff -- the assaulted bartender, Karolina Obrycka -- $850,000 in damages. The Chicago Tribune called it "one of the most embarrassing incidents in the police department's history" when a tape of the vicious beating was made public:

The shocking videotape showed off-duty Chicago police Officer Anthony Abbate throw a female bartender half his size against a wall in the Northwest Side tavern, slam her to the floor and pummel her with frenzied punches and kicks.

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A new study in the Journal of Public Administration Research looks at possible factors contributing to why some city police departments are particularly stringent on enforcing immigration law. "Many assume that in places where the political climate runs against unauthorized immigrants — and where longer-standing community members perceive the 'threat' of encroachment by new arrivals — there is automatically a backlash, manifest through law enforcement crackdowns. But research suggests these dynamics are often complex," noted the report from Arizona State University and John Jay College-CUNY.

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The news site Al.com reports that a passerby called 911 in Birmingham on Thursday morning after seeing the woman slumped over her steering wheel at a traffic light.

Police say officers roused the woman and removed her from the SUV. Authorities say she was handcuffed and taken to the city jail on a DUI charge.

A photo of the woman by al.com showed fake blood covering much of her torso as she was apprehended.

Details on her identity weren't immediately available.

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Officer Chris Webb was attending "career day" at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School when he sent 50,000 volts of electricity into the child's chest on the playground. The young boy blacked out and has, according to his legal representative, been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder ever since; the officer faces a civil suit.

According to the complaint, Webb shot his Taser at the child (referred to only as "R.D.") after he said he did not want to join fellow classmates in cleaning the officer's patrol car. Courthouse News reported:

"Defendant Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, 'Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.'"

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Michael was told – falsely – that his 12-year-old sister’s blood was found in his room, that his hair was discovered between her fingers and that his voice stress analyzer test showed deception. Eventually, Michael cracked. He told detectives he had no memory of the crime, but he would be willing to make something up for them.

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Although sources confirmed with CrownHeights.info that Halevi had been sleeping in the space for a month with permission, one security guard, unaware of the arrangement, called the police. The guard later told the New York Daily News that he regretted making the call.

According to Gothamist, "[Halevi] was also pepper sprayed during the arrest, [and] was charged with assaulting a police officer, trespassing, resisting arrest and harassment. He's currently out on bail and faces up to five years in prison for assaulting an officer." The NYPD have yet to issue comment.

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Clark , N.J., policeman Alan Scherb released the following statement:

The Clark Police Department is pleased to announce that at approximately 4:30 p.m. on October 2, 2012 Kara Alongi was found safe and unharmed. She was discovered by troopers with the New Jersey State Police walking along the side of the Turnpike near Exit 1. As dictated by protocol she was taken to a local hospital in South Jersey for an evaluation. Her family was notified shortly after she was found and they were reunited at the hospital yesterday evening. A detective from the Clark Police Department also responded to the hospital as a standard part of a missing juvenile investigation.

Scherb said that Alongi returned home early this morning, but the police continue to investigate her whereabouts for the past two days.

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NYC's population is a little over 8 million. That means that there are 4.18 police officers per 1,000 people. By comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. with 3.8 million people, has only 9,895 officers--a ratio of 2.6 police per 1,000 people.

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Images of "pepper-spray cop," campus police officer John Pike, blasting sitting demonstrators with orange pepper spray garnered viral attention. The district attorney determined Pike's behavior "not objectively reasonable," but did not seek criminal charges.

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