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    An Officer Said She Was Disabled. Prosecutors Said She Ran, Skied and Danced.

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    Prosecutors said that Nicole Brown, 39, of the Westminster Police Department in California, falsely said that she wasn’t able to work, receiving her salary and benefits while engaging in strenuous activities.Nicole Brown, a police officer in Orange County, Calif., told her bosses in 2022 that she could no longer perform her duties after she sustained a head injury on the job.But according to prosecutors, whatever had happened to her didn’t prevent her from running in road races, skiing or snowboarding, and dancing at a music festival while she illegally collected more than $600,000 in workers’ compensation.This week, Ms. Brown, 39, who worked for the Westminster Police Department, was charged with 15 felonies related to workers’ compensation insurance fraud, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.Her stepfather, Peter Gregory Schuman, 57, of Buena Park, Calif., was charged with two felonies charging him with conspiring with Ms. Brown. He is a lawyer who specializes in defending employers and insurance companies against workers’ compensation claims.Ms. Brown was charged with nine felony counts of making a fraudulent statement to obtain compensation; six felony counts of making a fraudulent insurance benefit claim; and one felony enhancement of committing an aggravated white-collar crime worth over $100,000, court records show.Her lawyer, Brian Gurwitz, said on Thursday that Ms. Brown’s on-duty injury “continues to cause her severe limitations in her daily life.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inspector Let Recruits Who Failed Psychological Exam Join the N.Y.P.D.

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      Terrell Anderson, the former head of a unit charged with assessing candidates, has been transferred. He has been praised as an innovative officer.A New York police inspector was transferred after allowing dozens of prospective officers to continue in the hiring process even though they failed to meet mental health standards set by the department, according to two people briefed on the matter.Terrell Anderson, who had commanded the candidate assessment division, was sent to the housing unit because officials learned he had overridden negative psychological reports for 80 candidates. That allowed them to go into the Police Academy even though they should have been disqualified based on their psychological assessments, according to the two people.It is not clear how many of the candidates went on to graduate from the academy and become police officers. The psychological reports had been overridden over the past several years, according to one of the people.In a statement, the police said that Inspector Anderson had been transferred and that the matter was under investigation. The inspector declined to comment.The inspector’s decisions came as the department, the nation’s largest police force, has been hemorrhaging officers. The department’s head count has been falling since 2020. There were 33,531 uniformed officers in the department as of April 1, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office, down from a peak of 40,000 in 2000.Chris Monahan, the president of the Captains Endowment Association, the union representing Inspector Anderson, said the inspector was always “open and above board” about overriding psychological reports he did not agree with. “He’s not wrong here,” Captain Monahan said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Administration Pulls Back From Local Police Oversight Across U.S.

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      The Justice Department said that it would abandon efforts to overhaul local policing in Minneapolis and other cities with histories of civil rights violations.The Trump administration moved on Wednesday to scrap proposed agreements for federal oversight of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., as part of a broader abandonment of efforts by previous administrations to overhaul local law enforcement across the United States.Justice Department officials said they planned to drop cases filed after incidents of police violence against Black people in Minneapolis and Louisville, and to close investigations into departments in Memphis; Phoenix; Oklahoma City; Trenton, N.J.; and Mount Vernon, N.Y., as well as a case against the Louisiana State Police.In those cities and states, Justice Department officials said, they were retracting Biden-era findings that police departments had violated the constitutional rights of residents and were declaring those findings to be misguided.The announcement came four days before the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died at the hands of the Minneapolis police. That act of violence, caught on video, inspired national outrage and worldwide protests against police violence targeting Black Americans.It also resulted in a withering federal report that found that the Minneapolis Police Department had routinely discriminated against Black and Native American people and had used deadly force without justification. After nearly two years of negotiations, the Justice Department and the city submitted an agreement to the court in January calling for federal oversight of the Police Department’s efforts to address the issues.That arrangement, known as a consent decree, was similar to court-approved agreements between the federal government and at least 13 other cities whose police forces have been accused of widespread civil rights abuses, including Los Angeles, Newark and Ferguson, Mo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Couple Imprisoned Girl for 7 Years and Kept Her in Dog Cage, Police Say

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      Investigators, who did not identify the teenager, now 18, said they believed she had been sexually abused by her stepfather.One evening last week, a barefoot teenage girl with a shaved head burst into her next-door neighbor’s home in Blackwood, N.J., sat down on the couch and began to spill out a harrowing story.She said her stepfather and mother had imprisoned her at their home for the past seven years, ever since they pulled her out of elementary school with the excuse that she would be home-schooled. She said they locked her in a dog crate for an entire year, and at one point had chained her up in a bathroom. She said her stepfather had sexually abused her.This week, following a police investigation, prosecutors in Camden County, in South Jersey just outside Philadelphia, announced several charges against her mother, Brenda Spencer, 38, and stepfather, Branndon Mosely, 41. They included assault, criminal restraint, kidnapping and weapons offenses; Mr. Mosely also faces numerous counts of sexual assault.“The investigation has corroborated the heinous acts endured by the victim and we will hold those responsible accountable,” Lt. Andy McNeil, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office, said in an interview. Authorities did not identify the 18-year-old teenager.Mr. Mosely is a rail conductor for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the transit system that serves the Philadelphia region, and Ms. Spencer is a dog handler who specializes in Great Danes, the authorities said. They are being held in jail while they await a detention hearing scheduled for next week. Lawyers for the couple declined to comment.Days after the distressed teenage girl barreled into the home where he was staying, Michael Lacey, a 36-year-old pool cleaner, said he kept breaking down in tears over the brutality she had described.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      36 Deaths in Police Custody Should Have Been Called Homicides, Report Finds

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      An audit of deaths in Maryland found that in cases of people who died after being restrained by the police, medical examiners often classified the deaths as natural or accidental.Medical examiners in Maryland miscategorized dozens of deaths that happened in police custody over the past two decades, according to a report released by state officials on Thursday.At least 36 of those deaths should have been called homicides, the report said. Instead, medical examiners had classified them as accidental, or as a result of natural or undetermined causes.The report, 70 pages long, capped a yearslong audit that revisited medical examiners’ reports over 17 years ending in 2019 — a time period matching Dr. David R. Fowler’s tenure as Maryland’s chief medical examiner — and found evidence of racism and pro-police bias.Anthony Brown, Maryland’s attorney general, said at a news conference on Thursday that medical examiners had been less likely to call a death a homicide if the person who died was Black, or if he or she had died after being restrained by police officers.“These findings have profound implications across our justice system,” Mr. Brown said. “They speak to systemic issues rather than individual conduct.”Dr. Fowler did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. He was not solely responsible for the decisions made by medical examiners during his tenure, and in the past he has defended the work of the pathologists in his office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Police and Brooklyn College Protesters Clash After Pro-Palestinian Rally

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      The police moved in to make arrests after demonstrators left the college grounds and gathered outside. Officers punched some students and slammed others to the ground.Police arrested several people during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Brooklyn College on Thursday.Paul Frangipane for The New York TimesA pro-Palestinian rally at Brooklyn College erupted in chaos on Thursday, with demonstrators and the police engaging in physical altercations, several people being arrested and one officer firing a Taser to subdue a man in the crowd.The unruly scene followed the arrests of 80 people on Wednesday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied part of Columbia University’s main library, prompting university officials to quickly call in the police.The swift moves to crack down on the two protests reflect the enormous pressure that colleges across the United States feel from the Trump administration to quell pro-Palestinian campus unrest.The disorder at Brooklyn College began around 6 p.m., as dozens of students and faculty members who had gathered to chant slogans and condemn Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza exited the college’s wrought-iron gates.They had been on campus for several hours by then. Although tensions had grown through the afternoon, as college officials and security guards threatened to have the demonstrators arrested, the rally appeared to be ending peacefully. Two of the four tents someone had set up had been removed at the college’s request.There were some small skirmishes as people went through the gates, and officers made a few arrests. The crowd walked on before pausing in front of the college’s Tanger Hillel House, where someone in the group gave a speech denouncing the building as a “Zionist institution.” Others held signs that said: “Israel has no right to exist” and “save Gaza.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      British Police Arrest Iranian Nationals in Counterterrorism Investigations

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      Seven Iranians were among eight men arrested in two investigations. Some of the detained were accused of preparing a terrorist attack on an unnamed site.British counterterrorism officers have arrested eight men, including seven Iranian nationals, in connection with two separate investigations London’s Metropolitan Police said on Sunday.In one of the cases, four Iranians and another man whose nationality has yet to be determined were detained on Saturday on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act against a single site.“The investigation relates to a suspected plot to target a specific premises,” the police said in a statement issued early Sunday. The police added that the site was not being named “for operational reasons.”Dominic Murphy, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said the investigation was “fast-moving” and that police were “working closely with those at the affected site to keep them updated.”He added: “The investigation is still in its early stages and we are exploring various lines of inquiry to establish any potential motivation as well as to identify whether there may be any further risk to the public linked to this matter.”The police said that two of the Iranian nationals were aged 29, one was 46 and the other 40. They were arrested in London and Swindon, about 80 miles west of the capital, and in Stockport and Rochdale in the northwest. The other man was arrested in the Manchester area.In a later statement, the police said that three Iranians, aged 39, 44 and 55, were detained at separate locations in London on Saturday but that those arrests were not connected to the other investigation.“All three men have been taken into custody and searches continue at the three addresses,” the police said. They added that the men were detained under the National Security Act 2023, which was introduced to tighten protections against hostile acts against Britain.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, described the arrests as “serious events that demonstrate the ongoing requirement to adapt our response to national security threats.”She added: “The government continues to work with police and intelligence agencies to support all the action and security assessments that are needed to keep the country safe.”Further details of the type of plots being investigated were not given.In a speech last year, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, identified Iran was as a country of growing concern to counterterrorism police. He said that, since January 2022, the security services had responded to 20 Iranian-backed plots that posed potentially lethal threats to British citizens and residents.Mr. McCallum cited as an example the jailing of a man last December for reconnaissance of what was then the headquarters of Iran International, a Persian-language opposition TV channel that operates from Britain.Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that the government “will obviously keep the public updated as we can,” but added: “given these are live investigations it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment further.” More

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      Another Reason People Fear the Government

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      Why do Americans have such deep distrust of their government?It’s a simple question with a complex answer, but here’s part of the reason: All too often, the government wrongfully inflicts profound harm on American citizens and then leaves them with no recourse. It violates the law and leaves its victims with no way to be made whole.Let me give you two recent examples, both taken from Supreme Court cases that were argued this term and have not yet been decided.In the predawn hours of Oct. 18, 2017, an F.B.I. SWAT team detonated a flash-bang grenade at a home at 3756 Denville Trace in Atlanta. A team of federal agents rushed in.The family inside was terrified. Hilliard Toi Cliatt lived there with his partner, Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son, Gabe. They had no idea who had entered their house. Cliatt tried to protect Martin by grabbing her and hiding in a closet.Martin screamed, “I need to get my son.” The agents pulled Cliatt and Martin out of the closet, holding them at gunpoint as Martin fell to the floor, half-naked. When they asked Cliatt his address, “All the noise just ended.”He told them: 3756 Denville Trace. But it turned out they were supposed to be at 3741 Landau Lane, an entirely different house down the block. The agents left, raided the correct house and then returned to apologize. The lead agent gave the family his business card and left the family, according to their Supreme Court petition, in “stunned disbelief.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.K. Counterterrorism Police Investigate After Crossbow Attack Injures 2 Women

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      The British police arrested a man on Saturday after an attack in Leeds, a city in northern England.Counterterrorism police in Britain are investigating an attack on Saturday that “seriously injured” two women in the northern English city of Leeds. The police said that they had recovered a crossbow and a firearm.The police arrested a 38-year-old man, who was taken to the hospital with what they called a “self-inflicted injury.”They said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack, which happened on Saturday afternoon, and that the motive for the violence remained under investigation.“Clearly this has been a shocking incident,” said Carl Galvin, an assistant chief constable with the West Yorkshire Police, the force that led the initial police operation. He thanked civilians and emergency responders for helping the victims.“We would strongly urge people not to speculate online or share information or footage which could affect the active investigation,” he added.The incident comes amid debates about violence and terrorism in Britain, which is still reckoning with the killing of three young girls last July in Southport, in northwest England. The knife attack last year set off rioting, which was inflamed by disinformation and far-right agitators.Knife crime is more common than crossbow attacks in Britain, but the use of the weapon is not without precedent in the country. Last July, a man with a crossbow killed three women in London — his ex-partner, who had recently ended their relationship, as well as her sister and their mother.A separate crossbow attack, which the police said resulted in non-life-threatening injuries, was reported in London in March last year. More