New England Sun-Times

The whole Ice Bucket Challenge thing has become quite the story of the month of August, and it's certainly been fascinating to watch how this viral promotion has turned into a massive money raiser for research into ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis -- sometimes called Lou Gehrig's Disease). If you somehow haven't yet heard of this (and I find it nearly impossible to believe you haven't yet), it's when people get challenged to dump a bucket of ice over their heads or give money to charity (though, mostly people do both things). While there's been some ice bucket challenge backlash (often for silly reasons), just from the standpoint of watching something go viral, it's been fascinating. Of course, whenever things get big, sooner or later lawyers are going to step in and things are going to get messy. It appears that the ALS Association -- by far the largest beneficiary of the Ice Bucket Challenge -- is now trying to trademark the term . That...

Statistics show that 1 in 4 women in the US is a victim of domestic violence, those numbers jump to 1 in 2 if they are married to a cop. Law Enforcement officers beat their significant other at nearly double the national average. Several studies, according to Diane Wetendorf , author of Police Domestic Violence: Handbook for Victims , indicate that women suffer domestic abuse in at least 40 percent of police officer families. For American women overall, the figure is 25 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to The Advocates for Human Rights Organization , studies indicate that police families are 2-4 times more likely than the general population to experience domestic violence, making the potential for disparities in protective success particularly troubling. Historian John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, has a famous quote, Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This rings true thr...

  Close to 200 state and local police departments in the United States have been suspended for losing military-level equipment transferred to them by the Pentagon, a new investigation found.   According to the media outlet Fusion , its independent investigation into the Pentagon’s “1033 program,” which equips state and local police departments across the US with excess military equipment, turned up an alarming trend: Not only did many law enforcement agencies fail to comply with the program’s guidelines, they routinely lost dangerous weaponry. Already, the investigation has found that police departments in Arizona, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Georgia, and others have lost or cannot account for various types of weapons. This list includes M14 and M16 assault rifles, .45-caliber pistols, shotguns, and even vehicles. So far, 184 state and local departments have reportedly been suspended in a program that involves the ...

  Two police officers from Fairfield, California were recently accused of using department databases to research women that they were talking to on internet dating websites. According to court documents, Officers Stephen Ruiz and Jacob Glashoff used a statewide police database called “the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System” to dig up personal information about women on dating sites.  The documents also show that the officers allegedly spent a lot of time browsing these sites while on the clock. The officers were reportedly very open about their activity and discussed it with many of their co-workers.  One of the other officers who overheard them reported it to one of his superiors this past June. The detective who witnessed the alleged offense said that the officers were showing others the details of their potential dates’ DUI arrests, and the specifics of their addresses. Police Chief Walt Tibbet said in a statement that “Informa...

A music video response to the fatal police shooting of Ezell Ford in South Los Angeles prompted the LAPD’s union to call for police officers to be on heightened alert Thursday. The video, titled “F*** tha Police,” a name shared with the 1988 N.W.A. song, intersperses news video related to the Aug. 11 killing of 25-year-old Ford with footage of a more than a dozen people raising their hands and their middle fingers at the camera. Many wear T-shirts stating “Save Black Boys.” The video was posted Aug. 15 and, according to the YouTube caption, accompanies a song by “Ceebo The Rapper,” who told KTLA he wanted to consult his lawyer before commenting on the video. The song describes police as “the enemy” and “KKK in the flesh.” “When they killed Ez’, they should have killed me,” the lyrics state. In an alert emailed to members on Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Protective League board stated that the video was from a “street gang” and called for rev...

Ian Jaffier held his daughter’s photo as he asked any witnesses to provide information to help the police investigation. Three young men took off running. Jaffier, 26, lay bleeding to death on the ground, an “innocent victim” in the line of fire, according to Boston Police. It was 8:17 a.m. Hours later, her father, Ian Jaffier, stood in Boston Police Headquarters at a press conference holding a picture of his smiling daughter, pleading for witnesses to come forward to help solve her murder. “This is my daughter,” he said, his voice trembling. “I’m going to have to bury her. Because somebody shot her. Senseless crime.” A second woman in her early 20s who was about three blocks away when the shooting occurred was grazed in the leg by an “errant shot,” said Superintendent Robert Merner, head of the Bureau of Investigative Services. Dawnn Jaffier was shot in the head, her father said. Police who were nearby when the shooting occurred ...