Cops Won’t Let Journalist Take Pics of Ugly Government Buildings, Because 9/11!

Overly suspicious control freaks…

Washington, D.C. is home to many government buildings that are as ugly on the outside as they are the inside. BuzzFeed’s Benny Johnson biked around town earlier this week snapping photos of a few of the most hideous examples, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters, the U.S. Post Office Building, and the Department of Health and Human Services. You can see the results here.

Today, in a follow-up article, Johnson explained that taking the photos was no easy task—cops actually attempted to thwart him at every turn. Even though representatives for the various departments confirmed to Johnson by phone that it was perfectly fine to take pictures of the buildings, law enforcement agents contradicted that directive over and over again.

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Don’t the cops have anything better to do than hang around outside government buildings, casually invoking national security when a reporter tries to snap some clearly innocent photos? Maybe they’re self-conscious or something.

For more on this subject, check out Reason TV’s “The Government’s War on Cameras.”

Cop Charged in Death of 95-Year-Old Nursing Home Resident

At least he was found guilty. Not that that’s much consolation…

The events leading up to John Wrana’s death read more like the treatment for a zany cop comedy than the makings of a real life tragedy. Cook County, Illinois, police were called to Wrana’s nursing home last year when the 95-year-old World War II veteran resisted being taken to the hospital. When then cops arrived, Wrana was brandishing his cane and a shoehorn as weapons.

That’s when things turned surreal and tragic. Wrana picked up a kitchen knife, which officers ordered him to put down. Any reasonable person would know better than to use much physical force on an extremely elderly man defending himself with a shoehorn and a kitchen knife. But Officer Craig Taylor—who later said he thought the shoehorn was a machete—responded by shocking Wrana with a stun gun and pelting him with five rounds of bean bags fired from a shotgun.

Taylor’s totally unreasonable and inappropriate use of force caused Wrana internal bleeding, from which he later died.

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Taylor was charged this morning with one count of reckless conduct, a Class 4 felony which would yield a maximum of three years in prison.

That’s all? Just three years?

I thought America honoured its veterans. I guess, not so much.