Deputies: Fleeing suspect attacked by alligator
ST. PETERSBURG —
Deputies said a Pinellas Park man tried to flee during a traffic stop only to be attacked by an alligator.
Bryan Zuniga, 20, was arrested at 12 p.m. Thursday in connection with the incident, which took place shortly before 3 a.m.
Exclusive video of Zuniga taken at the Pinellas County Jail shows his arm in a sling and a gash on his face.
According to reports, deputies tried to pull over Zuniga in the 7100 block of 78th Avenue N. because he was failing to drive in a single lane.
Deputies said Zuniga stopped the vehicle, then jumped out of the passenger side door. He kicked a hole in a vinyl fence, then fled.
Zuniga was found a few hours later at a local hospital, where he was being treated for multiple puncture wounds to his face, arm and armpit area, the report said.
Zuniga told deputies he had been attacked by an alligator near a water treatment plant in unincorporated St. Petersburg. He was released from the hospital and taken to jail without incident.
Zuniga’s neighbors were shocked to learn what allegedly happened.
“I always see him walking around. He’s like a cool dude. I don’t really know him or anything but he’s my neighbor. I don’t want this dude getting eaten up by a gator,” said Jacob Uliase.
Gets what he deserves I guess,” said Devin Cook. “Yeah, he should’ve just pulled over.”
Zuniga is facing charges with fleeing and eluding a police officer, driving with a suspended or revoked license, resisting an officer without violence and breaking or injuring fences. He’s being held on $6,300 bond.
Deputies say they aren’t sure how big the gator is that attacked Zuniga.
A Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officer says they’ve opened up an incident report on this case. The officer says anytime a gator attacks a human it has to be caught and put down.
FWC officials say since there are a few bodies of water out in the area. They have to wait for the suspect to show them exactly where the attack took place before they go looking for the gator.
San Diego, California: A reserve deputy was charged with smuggling undocumented people through a checkpoint while wearing her uniform and carrying a gun. She was arrested and charged with transporting illegal aliens and aiding and abetting.
And she’s just a lone cop… doing this all by herself, right?
Des Moines, Iowa: A police officer accused of kicking a man in the head and knocking out his front teeth has been fired.
“Obviously we’re allowed to use some force in an arrest,” Halifax told The Associated Press. “But there’s a line we can’t cross, and it was crossed in this incident.”
Delaware County, Pennsylvania: A deputy is facing assault and reckless endangerment charges after allegedly opening fire on his own car as the woman he lent it to attempted to flee. He has been suspended from his job pending the results of criminal and internal investigations.
Price loaned his 2011 Dodge Nitro to a Delaware County woman and was expecting her to return it by 7 p.m. Tuesday.
When the woman, a 24-year-old from Collingdale, did not show up, Price “obtained a ride from Delaware County to Allentown to retrieve his vehicle,” which he found in the 700 block of South Fifth Street shortly after 10 p.m.
“The defendant approached the (vehicle) while holding his Ruger pistol and demanded all occupants exit the vehicle,” Detective Thomas Anderson, wrote in the affidavit.
Identified as Price’s girlfriend in the affidavit, the Collingdale woman was with two other people in the car when, she told police, Price appeared “out of nowhere” and allegedly yelled, “Get the (expletive) out of the car!”
She said Price pushed his pistol through an open passenger side window, pointed it at her and threatened to shoot her if she did not exit the vehicle.
The woman told police Price fired three shots from behind the car as she attempted to drive away.
Former FBI Agent Confirms the Surveillance State Is Real
Greenwald wants to make sure we understand the full meaning of Clemente’s comments. “ ‘[N]o digital communication is secure,’ ” Greenwald repeats, “by which [Clemente] means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications—meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like—are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact.
“To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is,” Greenwald adds.
Military Quietly Grants Itself the Power to Police the Streets Without Local or State Consent -- By making a few changes to a regulation in the US Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has...upended a precedent that has been in place for more than 200 years
The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule: “Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.”
Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military.” He says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”
A defense official who declined to be named takes a different view of the rule, claiming, “The authorization has been around over 100 years; it’s not a new authority. It’s been there but it hasn’t been exercised. This is a carryover of domestic policy.” Moreover, he insists the Pentagon doesn’t “want to get involved in civilian law enforcement. It’s one of those red lines that the military hasn’t signed up for.” Nevertheless, he says, “every person in the military swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”
Yeah, that’s worked out so well for police. They practically hate that document. They enforce whatever law is written, regardless if it contradicts an amendment. We’ve heard them say “I’m just doing my job”.
One of the more disturbing aspects of the new procedures that govern military command on the ground in the event of a civil disturbance relates to authority. Not only does it fail to define what circumstances would be so severe that the president’s authorization is “impossible,” it grants full presidential authority to “Federal military commanders.” According to the defense official, a commander is defined as follows: “Somebody who’s in the position of command, has the title commander. And most of the time they are centrally selected by a board, they’ve gone through additional schooling to exercise command authority.”
As it is written, this “commander” has the same power to authorize military force as the president in the event the president is somehow unable to access a telephone. (The rule doesn’t address the statutory chain of authority that already exists in the event a sitting president is unavailable.) In doing so, this commander must exercise judgment in determining what constitutes, “wanton destruction of property,” “adequate protection for Federal property,” “domestic violence,” or “conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law,” as these are the circumstances that might be considered an “emergency.”
“These phrases don’t have any legal meaning,” says Afran. “It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”
Cotati, California Police Tase Man as He Films Them For Breaking In Without a Warrant
A [couple] recently captured police, who were outside his home answering a call about a domestic violence complaint, in what can only be described as a very bizarre video.
The unidentified Cotati, Calif., man and woman tell the police from inside their home that “there is no domestic violence, just an argument with yelling.”
They also inform police that they have one child in the house and one playing outside.
When the police ask the couple “why” they are not coming out, the man inside tells police: “Because we don’t live in a police state, sir. Martial law has not been established in this country.”
The man insists that police do not have a warrant or probable cause. Seconds later, the police tell the people inside to get down on the floor.
Police then break down the door and enter armed.
The woman is tased first and screams, then the man is tased and the recording ends.
They suspect domestic violence so they respond by disregarding any semblance of due process and tase the woman who is the alleged victim of domestic violence.
Miami cop fired 8 times could make it 9
For one police officer, will the ninth strike mean he’s out? This time around, Sgt. German Bosque—who has been fired eight times from three different police departments—has been charged with leaving his assault weapon with his girlfriend’s father, a trained security guard, while on an eight-day leave, according to CBS4 Miami. That’s a no-no, says […]The Miami cop has managed to return to his post despite his alleged vices. The Miami Herald reports Bosque has beaten back a long list of head-turning charges, including:
- busting the skull of a handcuffed suspect
- beating juveniles
- having dope and booze in his squad car
- ripping off suspects
- falsifying reports
- participating in an unauthorized chase where four people were killed
- calling in sick … from Cancun“It’s allegations. Allegations are not convictions,” said Bosque’s union-provided attorney, Andrew Axelrad. “We have a system in place, and that system is a fair system.”
To hear Bosque tell it, he just loves his job. “I love serving the community. I love what I do for a living, and I’m very proud,” he said.
Update: Portland, Oregon (First reported 04-12-13): The city will pay $2.3 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed after a police officer wounded a man when he mistakenly fired lethal rounds at him from a beanbag shotgun. The victim is now permanently disabled and narrowly escaped death only because there was a hospital nearby
The proposed settlement was reached after city attorneys and Monroe’s lawyer met Monday in a mediation session with U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken.
It must still go before the City Council for approval. If accepted, it would mark the city’s largest individual settlement in its history.
“Honestly, I think in the grand scheme of things, it’s not an unfair settlement,” Thane Tienson, Monroe’s lawyer, said Tuesday.
Tienson said the money will help pay for Monroe’s ongoing medical costs and lost wages.
Reister’s gunshots fractured Monroe’s pelvis and punctured his bladder, abdomen and colon. The fourth shot, fired from less than 15 feet away, left a “softball-size hole in his left leg” and severed the sciatic nerve, according to Monroe’s suit.
So it took 4 shots for the cop to realize he was shooting lethal rounds? Oh bullshit! That’s attempted murder.
Gunfire and moments of fear as a rural Oregon school tests their "readiness"
HALFWAY — Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire.
Someone figured out in a few seconds that the bullets were not drawing blood because they were blanks and the exercise was a drill, designed to test Pine Eagle’s preparation for an assault by “active shooters” who were, in reality, members of the school staff. But those few seconds left everybody plenty scared.
The world we live in: Scare children and teachers half to death to see if they can handle a mass murdering fuckhead on the loose in their school, rather than just equip them with the tools they need to defend themselves.
Unbelievable.
Memphis Cop Car Ends Up Against Pole, Other Cops at the Scene Ticket Drivers for Going Too Slow
A Memphis police officer was driving too fast as he tried to chase down a driver for not wearing a seatbelt, so his car ended up upright against a telephone pole, prompting other motorists to slow down and take photos of the incident.
That, of course, prompted other officers to ticket those drivers for driving too slow, according to WREG.
No word yet as to whether the first officer will be ticketed for reckless driving.
Love how this has taken off on the internet. Got to love showing how dumb lot of law enforcement is.
(via disaffected-libertarian)
Chicago police officer shoots unarmed man in back for running away.
A Chicago police officer shot and wounded a man as he ran from police in the South Chicago neighborhood, authorities said.
The 25-year-old man was shot several times but was expected to survive, according to Patrick Camden, a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police union.
(via beatyourselfup)
Feds seek to take property where medical marijuana was legally sold under state law: "More than 1,000 dispensaries and their landlords in California and other states have been threatened with drug-related forfeiture during the past year"
Anaheim small-business owner Tony Jalali fled Iran in 1978 for a better life in the land of liberty, but he soon may find his American Dream unconstitutionally taken from him by the city of Anaheim and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern California in a ploy that should leave most Americans shaking their heads in disgust. Jalali faces the loss of his well-maintained office building if the city and the federal government get away with an attempt to do an end-run around California laws.
