8 January 201419 December 2022 4WardEverUK

‘We called for help, and they killed my son,’ North Carolina man says

originally by: CNN.com
published: 7 January 2014

Seventy seconds: That’s how long a North Carolina family says it took for things to go horribly wrong as they sought police help dealing with their mentally ill son.

Keith Vidal, 18, died Sunday. According to CNN affiliate WECT, he was just shot 1 minute and 10 seconds after a third law enforcement officer showed up at his Brunswick County home.

The three officers all were from different jurisdictions, and family members say that the third officer (who came from a nearby city) turned what had been an improving situation into an unnecessarily aggressive encounter that ended in their son’s death.

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3 January 201419 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Cover-up claim over police chief Ian Learmonth’s role in lorry ‘killing’ probe

Lee Balkwell originally by: Daily Mail
published: 21 December 2013

Police chiefs have been accused of a cover-up as one of Britain’s most senior officers prepares to retire while secretly being investigated over an alleged conflict of interest.

Ian Learmonth, chief constable of Kent, was reported to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) in July over a review of the police inquiry into the death of Lee Balkwell, who was found dead in a cement mixer lorry in 2002.

Mr Learmonth faces criticism for letting his officers in Kent investigate how Essex Police handled the case because he himself was working for the Essex force at the time of the original inquiry.

29 December 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Wrongly convicted King County man released after 10 years in prison

originally by: The Seattle Times
published: 23 December 2013

A man who spent 10 years in prison for robbery and burglary has been released after the Innocence Project Northwest persuaded King County prosecutors to re-examine the man’s conviction, which was based solely on eyewitness testimony.

The case of Brandon Olebar came to the attention of the Innocence Project Northwest (IPNW), based out of the clinical law program at the University of Washington Law School, in 2011.