Free Talk Live

A federal judge Wednesday sentenced five former New Orleans police officers to prison terms ranging from six to 65 years for the shootings of unarmed civilians in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, prosecutors said.

The ex-officers were convicted in August on a combined 25 counts of civil rights violations in the shootings, which occurred on the Danziger Bridge on September 4, 2005, six days after much of New Orleans went underwater when the powerful hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast.

A retired New Orleans police lieutenant pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to cover up a deadly police-involved shooting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Calling the crimes inexcusable and barbaric, a judge sentenced two former New Orleans police officers to prison Thursday for their roles in the shooting death of an unarmed man whose body was later set on fire in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina....

The Anaheim police officers who killed two men in back-to-back shootings in July have returned to their jobs and are no longer on paid administrative leave, a police spokesman confirmed Thursday. Anaheim Police Sgt. Bob Dunn said he did not know exactly when the two officers returned but said it had been "a couple of weeks." He declined to provide their names but described both as veteran police officers.

A New Orleans police officer was laughing after he burned the body of a man who had been gunned down by police in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, a fellow officer testified Thursday.

The testimony came during the trial of officer Greg McRae and Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann, who are charged with burning the body of 31-year-old Henry Glover in a car after he was shot and killed by a different officer outside a strip mall on Sept. 2, 2005. Three other current and former officers also are charged in Glover's death.

A passenger in the pickup that rammed the suspect's van was OPD Sgt. Rhonda Huckelbery, who suspected that men in the van stole her husband's credit cards the day before and used them to buy nearly $1,000 in electronics.

At the time, OPD said the van's driver, Rogelio Cortes, tried to ram the van into its officers.

A 23-year-old man who was beaten by three Denver police officers after he questioned their authority to search the trunk of his car says the Justice Department has decided not to charge any of the officers with civil-rights violations stemming from the case. Alexander Landau tells The Denver Post that representatives of the department and the FBI told him Friday there was insufficient evidence to bring federal charges.

Authorities said Friday they arrested a small-town police officer in a series of apparently random shootings along the Illinois-Indiana border that left one man dead and another two wounded. The case has unnerved residents in the rural towns since the shootings began earlier this week.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/08/suspect-ill-ind-shootings-custody/

Young civil rights activist arrested after police found him with the M1 carbine strapped to his back. Says he and a girlfriend had gone to see a movie and had some spare time, so he decided to walk around the business district with the rifle to exercise his open carry rights under Michigan law. Police officers all testified that he appeared several years younger than 18. He was arrested "only" after he repeatedly refused to provide identification showing he was of legal age to be carrying a weapon.