A US-born Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan had his US passport, a REAL ID driver’s license, a military ID card, and his US Marine Corps dog tags with him when he was arrested by police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which held him for three days before his lawyer demanded his release, according to the ACLU of Michigan. The advocacy group has called for an investigation into how the Grand Rapids Police Department handled the arrest of Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, who was born in Grand Rapids, served in Afghanistan and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The ACLU is also demanding that ICE explain why it took the veteran into custody and did not review his identification documents during the three days he was being held. Ramos-Gomez was arrested by the Grand Rapids Police on Nov. 21 on suspicion of attempting to start a fire in a stairwell at a hospital and trying to reach the facility’s helipad, according to his attorneys and local law enforcement. A police statement at the time said police contacted ICE because they believed the incident may have been a possible act of terrorism. That decision eventually led to Ramos-Gomez ending up in ICE custody. Read More

A man arrested on suspicion of DUI in Florida had a creative, if ineffective defense. During the June 27 arrest, 69-year-old Earle Stevens told officers he hadn’t been drinking and driving – he’d only been drinking at “stop signs,” according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Treasure Coast News. Police received a 911 call after a McDonald’s drive-thru customer in Vero Beach complained of a driver behind her repeatedly bumping her car. Indian River County sheriff’s deputies found Stevens still behind the wheel, an open bottle of booze stuffed in a paper bag on the seat next to him, according to the affidavit. Deputies said Stevens smelled of alcohol and told them he was feeling “pretty good.” Stevens, who said he has never had a Florida driver’s license, allegedly told deputies that he’d only sip Jim Beam at “stop signs.” According to the affidavit, “He further explained that he was not drinking while the car was moving and only when he stopped for stop signs and traffic signals.” Read More

A Texas teen in behind bars after police said he reportedly opened a bottle of AriZona tea, spat into it and put it back on a store shelf, according to KOSA. An affidavit states security footage caught the teen picking up the bottle, putting his mouth on it and putting it back. The teen reportedly told an asset protection manager he spit in the drink, saying he tried it but it was “gross.” The teen was charged with tampering with a consumer product, a felony. Read More

People in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, were shocked last week when a local school district sent hundreds of letters telling parents who owed lunch money for their children to pay up or else the kids could go into foster care, County Manager David Pedri said. “Nobody’s coming to take your kids in the middle of the night,” he assured them Monday on “CNN Newsroom.”

“Luzerne County foster care will never take a kid for not paying school debt,” Pedri said. The Wyoming Valley West School District letter told parents that “multiple letters” had been sent home with their students but that no payments had been made. “Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch,” the letter said, adding that failure to provide children with food could result in parents being sent to Dependency Court. “If you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care,” the letter read. Outrage erupted last week after CNN affiliate WNEP reported that about 1,000 letters were sent to parents. WNEP identified Joseph Muth, the director of federal programs for the school district, as the letter’s author. Muth told WNEP that about 1,000 students owe the district more than $22,000 and that the letter was a “last resort.” Read More

Erica Thomas, a black Democratic state representative from Georgia, posted a tearful video on Facebook this weekend, telling her followers between sobs that she’d been yelled at to “go back where you came from” after angering a man by bringing too many items into the express lane at a Publix grocery store. Now, things are getting murkier. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Eric Sparkes, the man who confronted her, denies her account of the exchange and interrupted Thomas’ televised press conference to say so. He acknowledged calling her a “selfish little bitch” but denied making the other comments. “Her words stating on Twitter, and her video, stating I told her she needs to go back where she came from are untrue,” he said. “I am Cuban.”

Thomas has reportedly flip-flopped a bit on exactly what went down since then. She told a local news channel that “I don’t want to say he said, ‘Go back to your country,’ or ‘Go back to where you came from,’” backtracking to say that she only knows he made those “types” of comments. Read More

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