Fueled by bribes, a police chief in the suburbs of Chicago and a local building inspector became entangled in a shady deal involving a lucrative liquor license and then tried to cover up their corruption, according to a federal grand jury indictment ...
First Responders
US Coast Guard Tampa Bay Rescue: 3 Boaters, 1 Buoy, but No Boat
When US Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Joseph Duran and his crew on board their 45-foot response boat-medium left Station St. Petersburg on Saturday, May 21, they didn’t know much about the unfolding disaster in Tampa Bay. Watchstanders ...
‘Come to the Light!’ Florida Deputies Brave Burning Florida House To Rescue Boy
A pair of Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies followed the sounds of moans inside a burning Florida home to find and save a trapped 9-year-old boy. “Hearing that someone was inside intensified things,” said Deputy Kevin Reich, the first lawman ...
Detroit ‘Grifter’ Going to Prison for Stealing from Firefighters Union
Verdine Day, the Detroit Fire Department's “Woman of the Year” in 2019, will spend the next year behind bars for stealing $220,043 from fellow first responders in her union. On Tuesday, May 24, in Detroit, Senior US District Judge George Caram ...
Correctional Officer Fired for Releasing Murder Suspect From Indianapolis Jail
An Indiana correctional officer who allegedly released a murder suspect from an Indianapolis jail on Thursday, May 19, has been fired. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office told Coffee or Die Magazine that Detention Deputy Elwin Emery failed to ...
Watch Courtney Bayles, the Critter Cop Who Wrestles Cantankerous Carolina Gators
As the boss, Charleston Police Department Animal Control Supervisor Courtney Bayles often gets to pick who’ll grapple with a cantankerous South Carolina gator. On Friday, May 20, she chose herself, which meant wrestling and cuffing a 9-foot ...
Remembering Jody Cash, the Brave Chief Deputy Killed in Kentucky
At the Kentucky funeral of Jody Cash, the slain chief deputy of the Calloway County Sheriff’s Office, Jody Adair urged mourners to laugh a little. “We would do him a great disservice today if we were here and we didn’t laugh,” Adair said at the ...
Feds: BORTAC Special Operator Killed Gunman at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School
The Texas gunman who killed at least 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde was shot to death by an agent from US Border Patrol's highly elite BORTAC unit. In a statement released to Coffee or Die Magazine, officials said ...
Special Operators’ Mapping System Coming to Emergency Responders Nationwide
On Thursday, March 19, during Arizona’s annual Ostrich Festival, emergency responders in Chandler needed to quickly reach and retrieve an unresponsive patient within a crowd of tens of thousands of people inside Tumbleweed Park. But Chandler ...
Armed Missouri Man Who Repeatedly Slammed Chevy Into Cop Car Going to Prison
An armed Missouri man who speared a stolen truck into a police cruiser before turning part of the city of Independence into a demolition derby is going back to prison. On Monday, May 23, in Kansas City, US District Judge Greg Kays sentenced Isaiah ...
Army Chinooks, Air Force PJs, Park Rangers Rescue Stranded Hikers on Mount Rainier
He was trapped in an ice crevasse knifed into the side of Mount Rainier, his arm and leg busted, his buddy nearly eight stories above him getting whipped by winds blasting the snowy ridge at 50 knots. But he had excellent cell phone service. And ...
Feds: Chief Deputy in the Ozarks Sold Stolen Sniper Rifle, Grifted Taxpayers, Defrauded Bank
A chief deputy in an Ozark Mountains sheriff’s office sold a sniper rifle stolen from the property room, used bogus firearms and ammo sales and the power of his badge to repeatedly and flagrantly defraud taxpayers, and then cheated an Arkansas bank ...
2 Men Roll Over Embankment, Portland Firefighters Rush To Rescue Them
Oregon first responders still aren’t exactly sure how two men fell nearly three stories off Portland’s Northeast 16th Avenue embankment on Saturday, May 14, but the pair kept skidding through blackberry tangles and over rocks and landed in a bad ...
In Buffalo, an Activist Promotes Community and Gun Safety: ‘We Have To Protect Ourselves’
Within hours of a white gunman killing 10 Black people at a Tops grocery store just a few minutes' walk from Alexander Wright’s Buffalo home, Wright posted on his Facebook page that he would pay the entrance fee for 10 people to attend a gun safety ...
Watch This Heroic New York Rescue of Woman Drowning in SUV
When New York State Police troopers and Evans Mills Fire Department personnel arrived at the crash near the US Army’s Fort Drum on May 7, they saw a woman alone in an SUV, close to drowning. It was 8:50 p.m. and her 2010 Ford Explorer was sinking ...
Illinois Man Posed as Marine Combat Vet in Violent Threats to Congress
An Illinois man enraged at the outcome of the 2020 presidential election falsely posed as a terrorist-slaying Marine in a string of telephoned threats to federal lawmakers, and now he gets to stay in prison. On Wednesday, May 18, in Chicago, ...
Hero Firefighter Drowns Trying to Save 2 Trapped in Car in River
A hero firefighter drowned trying to save the life of a child and the mother who was trying to kill her by driving her car into a West Virginia waterway. Gassaway Volunteer Fire Department Station No. 2 Firefighter John Forbush, 24, died May 1 in ...
Tennessee Fugitive With White Supremacist Links Nearly Hit 2 Lawmen
A western Tennessee fugitive with links to a white supremacist gang is going back to prison after nearly running over a pair of lawmen trying to nab him. Chief Judge S. Thomas Anderson in Jackson sentenced Anthony Ray Phoenix, 37, of Decatur ...
Rescuers Find Florida Man Chin-Deep in Cold Quicksand, and Sinking
When the emergency responders found him, the 59-year-old Florida man was chin-deep in cold water, two stories down in the pit, and they weren’t exactly sure how they were going to get him out of the quicksand slurping at his neck. Brevard County ...
Meth-Fueled Iowa Man Who Attacked Cop Going to Prison on Gun Charge
An Iowa man hopped up on meth who attacked a Waterloo cop is going to spend the next seven years in a federal prison for illegally possessing a firearm. On Monday, May 16, in Cedar Rapids, US District Judge C.J. Williams sentenced 36-year-old ...
Massacre in Buffalo Points to Rise in Racially Motivated Mass Shootings
An apparently racially motivated attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, resulted in 10 deaths on May 14, 2022, with the teenage suspect allegedly targeting Black shoppers in a prominently African American neighborhood. Mass public shootings ...
Feds Convict Alaska Man Who Shot Harbor Seal on Naked Island
An Alaska man who shot, killed, and butchered a harbor seal and then lied to investigators about it has been sentenced in federal court. On Friday, May 13, in Anchorage, US Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon sentenced Paul Gil, 41, to two years of ...
Florida Cop Who Confessed to Sexually Abusing Women Going to Prison
A Florida cop who used his authority while in uniform to sexually abuse multiple women in late 2014 and 2015 is going to prison for three years, the maximum penalty under federal law. On Thursday, May 12, in Miami, US District Judge Kathleen M. ...
How the Coast Guard Rescued a Hawaiian Beekeeper and His Two Dogs in the North Pacific
Adrift on a dead sailboat in the North Pacific, his engine gone, the rigging tangled, alone with two dogs, the Hawaiian beekeeper with an injured hand got an emergency call out just after dawn on May 9. And the US Coast Guard answered. ...
Special Candlelight Vigil Caps Off National Police Week
To cap off National Police Week, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund holds a candlelight vigil in Washington, DC, every year to honor the men and women who died in the line of duty. But this year is special. Organizers have etched ...
A Louisville Fire Station in Mourning, Blessed With a Beautiful Gift of Life
Reeling from the sudden death of a fellow firefighter, on Thursday Louisville’s Engine Company 22 and Truck 4 received a very rare and beautiful gift of life. A woman rang the doorbell to their station house at 7:15 a.m. on May 12 with a baby in ...
Feds: Florida Men Dressed Like Cops To Rob Drug Dealers
Four Florida men masquerading as cops preyed on drug dealers in four counties during a violent robbery spree that lasted three months in early 2021 and triggered three shootouts, according to a federal grand jury indictment unveiled Thursday in ...
Convicted Texas Drug Dealer Faces Life in Prison for Shooting Cop
A convicted Texas drug dealer who shot a Houston cop during a May 4 narcotics bust now faces federal charges, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday. Federal prosecutors charged Jimmy “Jimbo” Caston Bryan, 23, of Pasadena, with ...
A Maverick, His Super Sniffer, and the Hunt for a Florida Runaway
When an 8-year-old Florida boy ran away from home on Sunday, May 8, the cops knew they needed the urgent services of Maverick and his super sniffer. Maverick, the Cocoa Police Department’s 2-year-old Western shepherd working dog, found the kid 45 ...
Feds: $18.3 Million in Meth Found in Diesel Tank of Mexican Big Rig
Federal officers on May 6 in Texas seized what they suspect is $18.3 million in methamphetamines that was hidden in the diesel tank of a big rig arriving from Mexico. Homeland Security Investigations agents say Mexican semitrailer truck driver ...