police

Police officer promoted to chief despite admitting to 'filthy' texts with underage girl

John "Chuck" Ternent met with his police chief ten years ago when he learned that the teenage girl with whom he was exchanging "filthy" messages was part of an investigation into a school resource officer. At the time, his boss gave him a short punishment, and since Ternent wasn't the focus of the probe, it didn't destroy his police career.

Ternent was then promoted to police chief in the Maryland town of Cumberland.

The Baltimore Banner reported Friday that Cumberland leaders reviewed the 2015 incident before deciding to promote him to run the police department in 2020. The public is only now finding out about it, however, after the Banner fought a 10-month legal battle to obtain the investigation records.

The disciplinary incident has not been previously reported. The full details of the case were released only after the fight to obtain public records. Now, the city's mayor is under fire for being one of those to lend his support to Ternent in 2020.

“We believed it was something the chief had handled through the city’s process,” Mayor Raymond Morriss.

At the time of the investigation, the then-lieutenant Ternent revealed that his information was on the girl's phone. He confessed to his boss at the time that he was “disgusted and embarrassed” by their conversations.

Ternent was never criminally charged and was punished with 24 hours of leave for "conduct unbecoming," the Banner said, citing the documents.

In June, Ternent announced his retirement with one year left in his five-year term. The resignation came one month after the Baltimore Banner "obtained a fully unredacted investigative report about the 2015 incident and about one year before his contract was set to expire."

Ternent said through an attorney that the retirement was based on medical issues.

Investigators attempted to obtain the 146 messages and three videos sent over about six weeks, but they were sent through Snapchat. The company told investigators, "the messages had expired from Snapchat’s servers and could not be retrieved." Of the total messages, 25 were from Ternent.

The other messaging app that they used to chat is based in China, the report said.

"The teenager at the center of the investigation is now an adult, and she disputes that the messages exchanged with Ternent were inappropriate," the report said. "Their conversations took place using the auto-deleting app Snapchat and another messaging app, neither of which could be accessed by law enforcement, according to the investigative report. The Banner is not identifying the woman because she was a minor at the time of the incident."

“None of this even happened,” she told a reporter, according to the Banner.

She was 17 at the time and met the then-46-year-old cop at a community policing event.

“Lt. Ternent had a different interpretation of some of the messaging and voluntarily indicated so to his chief at the time,” a statement to the Banner on the matter read. “Lt. Ternent also voluntarily provided his cell phone for a forensic examination. The investigators ‘were unable to locate (any) digital content’ to support any inappropriate messaging.”

All of Ternent's records were expunched "one day before a new Maryland law took effect that made most police misconduct investigation and discipline files subject to public disclosure," the Banner said.

The Banner added that the retired cop also "tried to have his name removed from the investigative report" that journalists got after the 10-month lawsuit to obtain the records. Maryland's Public Information Act Compliance Board sided with the Banner and released the unredacted information.

Deputy State’s Attorney Gina Cirincion claimed that it was hard to say whether the information should have been revealed to the public during Ternent's hiring.

“We live in a democracy. These people have incredible power. They also have difficult jobs, and they should have the right to make mistakes within their jobs and not be condemned and lose their jobs over every mistake,” Gunston told the Banner.

“But there is certain information that is so serious and so relevant to how they do their jobs that the public should be able to have access to that information,” she said.

Read the full report here.

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'Blow up in their faces': Ex-Trump staffer says police likely 'very angry' over this move

One of President Donald Trump's first moves after the federal government shutdown began was to freeze roughly $18 billion in funding for New York City infrastructure projects. One former Trump administration official is now predicting severe backlash to that move.

During a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor — who authored the anonymous 2018 op-ed about the "resistance" within the Trump administration — said law enforcement communities would likely revolt over the withholding of funds.

"I think this is going to blow up in their faces when the groups — especially the sheriffs' associations, the police associations, the FBI associations start to mobilize ... and say: 'Wait a second, this is what allows us to do our jobs. This is what allows us to save lives,'" Taylor said. "And I have been on the receiving end of those angry voices. When I worked on Capitol Hill on the Appropriations Committee, anytime a member of Congress — and it was usually libertarian members of congress or Tea Partiers — tried to slash money for these types of grant programs, they got eaten alive because police and firefighters and 9/11 victims' families would show up on Capitol Hill and say, 'how dare you put lives in danger by trying to cut these funds and ... put the money toward your political priorities?'"

"The administration isn't even trying to go through Congress with this. It's trying to do it by fiat. It's trying to do it by itself. And I suspect they're going to be on the receiving end of some very loud and very angry first responders in this country."

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace went on to ask Taylor about how Trump's effective defunding of police in America's largest city squares with his previous promises to stand with law enforcement communities. Taylor plainly observed that Trump's vow to honor law enforcement comes with the caveat that law enforcement has to view loyalty to him as paramount.

"He never backed the blue. He backs the brownshirts," Taylor said. Donald Trump said he supported law enforcement, but what he meant was, 'I support law enforcement that supports me.' ... Donald Trump has long wanted his own 'pocket police' that's accountable to him, that's not accountable to the oaths they take, theta's not accountable to the Constitution, that's willing to advance his edicts.

"[Trump] said he was going to dismantle the deep state. He's actually building his own deep state," he continuned. "But the first place he started was not the EPA or the Department of Agriculture. It's federal law enforcement. He can lose the Congress, he can lose the courts, but if he has the guys with the badges and the guns, he has power. And that's why he's focused on lowering the standards into the FBI and ICE, and driving ideologically aligned people into these jobs so that they stay and advance his agenda."

Watch the segment below:

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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'They said it's a felony': Police yank Dem lawmaker out of bathroom for speaking to media

One Democratic state representative in Texas speaking out against the Republican effort to redraw congressional district boundaries was just threatened with a felony charge for speaking to journalists.

That's according to a Wednesday article in the Houston Chronicle, which reported that Rep. Nicole Collier (D) had to abruptly end a press conference she joined from a bathroom at the Texas State Capitol. A video of the moment posted to X shows Collier being interrupted mid-speech while on a Democratic National Committee video stream with California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) while speaking to police.

"Sorry, I have to leave. They said it's a felony for me to do this," Collier said. "Apparently I can't be on the floor or in the bathroom — well, you told me I had to be here in the bathroom — no, hang on. Bye, everybody. I've gotta go."

After Collier left the call, Sen. Booker called it "outrageous" that the Texas Democrat was being forced to stop talking to the media.

"First of all, let me tell you something. Representative Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office," Booker said. "...What they're trying to do right there is silence an American leader. Silence a Black woman. And that is outrageous. I hope everybody took note of that."

"The fact that she can't even let her voice be heard is freakin' outrageous. And this is what we're fighting for," he continued. "This is ultimately what this is about. What we just witnessed: Them trying to shut her down and say it's illegal for her to be in the bathroom and on this call? This is the lengths that they're going to in Texas."

Watch the video of the moment below, or by clicking this link.

— (@)

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Experts fear Trump’s 'legitimately frightening' new order to turn US military into police

On Monday, President Donald Trump issued a new executive order just shy of the 100th day of his second term that has some experts and academics sounding the alarm.

Trump's new order, which is entitled "Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens," makes various declarations about the administration's commitment to supporting law enforcement professionals in the opening paragraphs. However, one section further down specifically mentions the U.S. military and the administration's intent to have enlisted service members participate in civilian law enforcement actions.

"Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement ... [and] shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime."

"The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall utilize the Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTFs) formed in accordance with Executive Order 14159 of January 20, 2025 (Protecting the American People Against Invasion) to coordinate and advance the objectives of this order," the order continued.

That section in particular prompted Lead Matthew Noe, who is the lead collection & knowledge management librarian at Harvard Medical School, to call the order "legitimately frightening." Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based writer Susan Keiser posted to Bluesky: "Serious Question: Is this martial law[?]" Former criminal defense investigator Andrew H. Sowards responded to the order by simply declaring: "Not good."

"We're already a police state," Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf skeeted (the accepted term for Bluesky posts). "But now, thanks to this EO, moreso."

Deploying the U.S. military within American borders to act as a police force would be a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is a 143 year-old law prohibiting the president from ordering the military to double as law enforcement. As the Brennan Center for Justice explained in 2021, Congress passed the law during Reconstruction in order to prevent the military from being used to enforce Jim Crow laws in former Confederate states after the Civil War. Additionally, deploying the military to conduct law enforcement activity violates parts of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution — which were ratified in direct response to the British military's abuse of colonists prior to the Revolutionary War.

Click here to read the full executive order.

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'Sort of thing you hear about in communist China': Cop interrupts classroom to search for book

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is requesting police body camera footage following an incident in a classroom in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

According to the Berkshire Eagle, the principal of W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School escorted a plainclothes police officer into an eighth grade classroom on December 8, who then turned on his body camera and conducted a search for the coming-of-age novel Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe. The Eagle reported that the teacher was "surprised" by the search, which turned up empty.

"Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia," said Ruth Bourquin, the senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts. "What are we doing?"

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The search was allegedly in response to an anonymous complaint filed with the Great Barrington Police Department, in which the complainant said was out of concern that the book could contain "obscene" and "pornographic" material. Prior to the search, officers notified school administrators of the complaint and of their impending arrival, and also notified the Berkshire District Attorney's Office as per department policy.

In a letter, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District Committee said the search "has challenged and impacted our community," and has announced a community meeting on January 11 to address the issue.

"Faced with an unprecedented police investigation of what should be a purely educational issue, we tried our best to serve the interests of students, families, teachers and staff," the letter read. "In hindsight, we would have approached that moment differently. We are sorry."

According to the American Library Association, Gender Queer: A Memoir topped the list of banned books last year. The illustrated novel, which grapples with gender confusion from a teen perspective, contains sexually explicit imagery and language. Bookseller Barnes & Noble says the book is appropriate for readers aged 15 and up.

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Here's when citizens are justified in using violence

If you see police choking someone to death – such as Eric Garner, the 43-year-old black horticulturalist wrestled down on the streets of New York City in 2014 – you might choose to pepper-spray them and flee. You might even save an innocent life. But what ethical considerations justify such dangerous heroics? (After all, the cops might arrest or kill you.) More important: do we have the right to defend ourselves and others from government injustice when government agents are following an unjust law? I think the answer is yes. But that view needs defending. Under what circumstances might active self-defense, including possible violence, be justified, as opposed to the passive resistance of civil disobedience that Americans generally applaud?

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