Gang Databases: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Police control gang databases and they have low barriers for putting people on them. Non-gang members get put on the lists for stupid reasons.

Protestors have been added to the lists.

It can be hard to get your name off these lists, and you can be added without your knowledge.

Former gang members are still on the lists.

Police use the poorly made lists as justifications to deport peaceful people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlR8d9JVWtQ

Watch a New Mexico Sheriff’s Deputy Jovially Hurl a Baby Rabbit to Its Death As His Supervisors Laugh

“On the face of it, Gomez’s alleged gunplay, which involves a human victim, is more alarming than his vicious treatment of the baby rabbit. But combined, the allegations make you wonder what sort of people Grant County is trusting with guns and badges. It is especially worrisome that two supervisors not only saw nothing wrong with the behavior that one of them jovially documented but actually egged on Gomez as he sought to torment Salas with the sort of casual cruelty that is usually seen as a marker of dangerously antisocial tendencies.”

https://reason.com/2025/07/11/watch-a-new-mexico-sheriffs-deputy-jovially-hurl-a-baby-rabbit-to-its-death-as-his-supervisors-laugh/

Hunter Biden Walks Free While This Iowa Man Serves 4 Years for the Same ‘Crime’

“Alexander Ledvina was convicted of violating a federal law that bars illegal drug users from owning guns. Exactly a year later, President Joe Biden, whose administration had zealously defended that law in court, pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for committing the same crime.

Ledvina, a marijuana user who was 26 when he was arrested, was sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison. Hunter Biden, a middle-aged former crack user, faced up to 25 years in prison after he was convicted of illegal gun possession and two related firearm offenses. But thanks to his father’s intervention, he did not suffer any criminal punishment at all.

Under 18 USC 922(g)(3), “an unlawful user” of “any controlled substance” who receives or possesses a firearm is committing a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.”

https://reason.com/2025/07/21/hunter-biden-walks-free-while-this-iowa-man-serves-4-years-for-the-same-crime/

A Federal Inmate Had a Limb Partially Amputated After Being Kept in Restraints for 2 Days

“A federal inmate had to have one of his or her limbs partially amputated after being kept in restraints for two days. Another incarcerated person died after being pepper sprayed and left shackled in a restraint chair for five hours.”

https://reason.com/2025/07/02/a-federal-inmate-had-a-limb-partially-amputated-after-being-kept-in-restraints-for-two-days/

Police Blew Up This Innocent Woman’s House and Left Her With the Bill. A Judge Says She’s Owed $60,000.

“Years after a SWAT team in Texas destroyed an innocent woman’s home while trying to apprehend a fugitive, the local government will have to pay her $60,000 in damages plus interest, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
That decision may sound like common sense. But the ending was far from guaranteed in a legal odyssey that saw Vicki Baker of McKinney, Texas, left with a dilapidated house—and the bill for the damages—even though she was never suspected of wrongdoing.”

https://reason.com/2025/06/06/police-blew-up-this-innocent-womans-house-and-left-her-with-the-bill-a-judge-says-shes-owed-60000/

Pregnant Women in Prison Aren’t Getting Care, and No One Is Keeping Track

“A 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that “comprehensive data on pregnant women incarcerated in state prisons and local jails do not exist” even though the U.S. has “one of the highest maternal mortality rates” and “incarcerates women at the highest rate in the world.””

https://reason.com/2025/05/23/pregnant-women-in-prison-arent-getting-care-and-no-one-is-keeping-track/

Trump Deletes Database Containing Over 5,000 Police Misconduct Incidents

“In one of his first acts after returning to the White House, President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to delete a nationwide database tracking misconduct by federal law enforcement.

Along with rescinding former President Joe Biden’s executive orders on policing, Trump scrapped the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD), which logged more than 5,200 incidents of misconduct by federal officers and agents across various agencies.”

“”BOP and CBP employees comprised more than 70 percent of the more than 5,200 misconduct instances recorded in NLEAD between 2017 and 2024,” The Appeal reported. “BOP officers accounted for more than 2,600 incidents—over half of all entries.”

By deleting NLEAD, Trump isn’t protecting beat cops from woke witch hunts—he’s covering for two of the most sprawling, unaccountable, and expensive law enforcement agencies in the federal government.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/29/trump-deletes-police-misconduct-database/

A Federal Judge Says New Mexico Cops Reasonably Killed an Innocent Man at the Wrong House

A story of police incompetence resulting in an innocent man killed.

“At that point, according to the complaint, the officers “finally announced themselves, and Kimberly Dotson told them that someone had shot her husband and requested their help.” She “did not realize even at that moment that the three police officers had killed her husband,” which she did not learn “until she was finally told eight hours later at the police station where she was detained.”

After the shooting, the lawsuit says, “the officers involved did not disclose to investigators that they were at the wrong address, which was the error leading to the tragic result and without which it would not have occurred.” The mistake “was discovered by other officers who arrived at the scene.””

“In Garcia’s view, the late-night visit at the wrong house that resulted in Dotson’s death did not amount to such recklessness. He is not alone in concluding that police cannot reasonably be expected to make sure they are in the right place when they approach or even break into someone’s home.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/21/a-federal-judge-says-new-mexico-cops-reasonably-killed-an-innocent-man-at-the-wrong-house/