Brickbats: June 2025
Two police officers in England waited outside a woman's house while her husband killed her. The same officers had come to the house the day before and arrested him for assault, but he was let out on bail that night. The next day, when the officers came back to take the woman's statement, they heard an assault taking place inside but spent 35 minutes talking to their supervisor about whether they could go in. By the time they finally entered, the woman was dead. One officer and the supervisor face an investigation for incompetence, while the other officer has left the force.
The Los Angeles Times discovered that the office of Mayor Karen Bass was editing Q&A sessions from news conference videos posted to her Facebook page—specifically, cutting out parts where reporters pressed her about her handling of wildfires earlier in the year. Bass' office did not respond when the paper asked why the videos were being edited.
In England, former West Mercia Police Constable Mark Cranfield received eight months in jail after being convicted of misconduct in public office and accessing computer records without authorization. Cranfield reportedly saved intimate videos and nude photos submitted as evidence in a revenge porn case, which he not only kept on his phone but forwarded to another person. Prosecutors also said he repeatedly contacted the victim in the case, discussing his sex life and seeking a relationship with her.
Police in India questioned Ranveer Allahbadia after a crass joke on his YouTube show sparked a public backlash. Allahbadia asked a guest if he would rather watch his parents have sex every day for the rest of his life or join in once. The Supreme Court of India granted Allahbadia protection from arrest but barred him from leaving the country and ordered him to surrender his passport, saying his conduct was "condemnable" and showed a "lack of responsibility."
Former New Orleans Police Sergeant Todd Morrell pleaded guilty to six counts of wire fraud and was sentenced to five years of probation, with eight months on home confinement. Morrell admitted he got paid for hours he didn't work by submitting fake time sheets to both the police department and an off-duty job at the local fairgrounds. Sometimes, he billed both places for the same time, and in one case, he was racing cars while claiming to be on duty.
Nakedra Shannon, a former postal employee in Charlotte, North Carolina, received five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud and to theft of government property. Prosecutors said that between April and July 2023, Shannon and two accomplices stole $24 million in checks from the mail, which they then sold.
An Alabama grand jury indicted Hanceville Police Chief Jason Marlin and four officers, plus one officer's wife, on charges including tampering with evidence, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, and use of office for personal gain. The report recommended the department be immediately disbanded, calling it "more of a criminal organization than a law enforcement agency."
The post Brickbats: June 2025 appeared first on Reason.com.
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Stanislav Seleznev, cyber security expert and lawyer with the Net Freedom rights group, doesn't expect ubiquitous prosecutions, since tracking individual online searches in a country of 146 million remains a tall order. But even a limited number of cases could scare many from restricted content, he said. Another major step could be blocking WhatsApp, which monitoring service Mediascope said had over 97 million monthly users in April. WhatsApp 'should prepare to leave the Russian market,' said lawmaker Anton Gorelkin, and a new 'national' messenger, MAX, developed by social media company VK, would take its place. Telegram, another popular messenger, probably won't be restricted, he said. MAX, promoted as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more, was rolled out for beta tests but has yet to attract a wide following. Over 2 million people registered by July, the Tass news agency reported. Its terms and conditions say it will share user data with authorities upon request, and a new law stipulates its preinstallation in all smartphones sold in Russia. State institutions, officials and businesses are actively encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX. Anastasia Zhyrmont of the Access Now internet freedom group said both Telegram and WhatsApp were disrupted in Russia in July in what could be a test of how potential blockages would affect internet infrastructure. It wouldn't be uncommon. In recent years, authorities regularly tested cutting off the internet from the rest of the world, sometimes resulting in outages in some regions. Darbinyan believes the only way to make people use MAX is to 'shut down, stifle' every Western alternative. 'But again, habits ... do not change in a year or two. And these habits acquired over decades, when the internet was fast and free,' he said. Government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor uses more sophisticated methods, analyzing all web traffic and identifying what it can block or choke off, Darbinyan said. It's been helped by 'years of perfecting the technology, years of taking over and understanding the architecture of the internet and the players,' as well as Western sanctions and companies leaving the Russian market since 2022, said Kruope of Human Rights Watch. Russia is 'not there yet' in isolating its internet from the rest of the world, Darbinyan said, but Kremlin efforts are 'bringing it closer.'
