Random pic dump time....

Slapstick

Its funny because its cruel. Click for vid...

Patti Deni wanted to surprise her teenage son by giving him his own big-screen TV, so while their new home was being built, she contacted Williamsville, NY–based Stereo Advantage with an idea: Instead of mounting the set to the wall, like everyone else does, she suggested having the TV laid flush across the ceiling.

“It was definitely a first for us,” says systems designer Kevin Bohner.

A 98-inch StarGlas60 display from Stewart Filmscreen was chosen for the unusual project.

“Because it’s so big and has such a wide viewing angle, Patty’s son wouldn’t have to lay flat on his back necessary to see the screen,” Bohner explains.

“He and his friends can prop themselves just about anywhere and get a good view,” adds Patty.

In order to support the weight of the display, plus the NEC video projector and the specialty Draper projection mirrors positioned behind it (a total weight of more than 300 pounds), the ceiling had to be reframed and reinforced.

Also, wiring had to be installed to tie the teen’s gaming consoles, laptop computer and cable box to the rear-projection assembly.

Although her son spends plenty of time gaming, Patty says that viewing and editing his own videos is probably her son’s favorite big-screen application—about the only thing that’s typical in this totally unconventional viewing environment.

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Yeah.... Editing video.... that's what every teenage boy would use it for.....

So, apparently the little beginner bike from Buell has been discontinued...Strike that, you can still get one, but the mileage is MUCH worse.

Funny stuff.

Click Here to hear and see Erik rationalize the changes to this years' model....

Thanks T

Lenore Skenazy: Pedophiles, witches and kids

Sometimes, when I try to explain how frenzied we have become about the real but extremely rare crime of childhood abduction, I compare our era to that of 1692 Salem. There was no way — back then, back there — to convince the average person: “Don’t you see you’re being swept up on a wave of mass hysteria? History will judge you as totally mad! (Though eventually, I suppose, that’ll be great for tourism.)”

Folks in and around Salem were convinced that witches were everywhere casting spells. In the end, 150 people were tried as witches and 19 hanged, all for — we can see with the perspective of time — no reason.

Now, I’m not saying that there are absolutely no evil folks in the world today who wish harm upon children. But to imagine them everywhere, ever poised to snatch children, is to see the world through Salem eyes. Eyes blinded by hysteria. And yet look what is happening in England.

“One quarter of the adult population will require criminal records checks under the new child protection system coming into force next year, according to a report criticising the scheme,” wrote The Times, a British newspaper.

That’s right: ONE-FOURTH OF ALL ADULTS IN ENGLAND will be forced to undergo background checks to see whether they ever have been convicted of crimes related to pedophilia. The basic assumption being: Anyone who has any contact with children should be considered a pedophile until proven otherwise.

And it’s starting to happen here, too. I’ve heard from parents in a handful of states who say their local public schools are requiring the same thing. One Texas mom wasn’t allowed into her daughter’s kindergarten Christmas party because her background check hadn’t cleared yet. (Eventually, the teacher relented, but the mom had to stand at the very back of the classroom and could not interact with any child except her own.)

You can imagine that this type of law makes adults less eager to volunteer for schools, Scouts or any activity with kids involved, because they have to undergo (and often pay for) security checks first. But what’s worse is that in this suspicious climate, adults grow wary of any involvement with kids. Frank Furedi, author of ”Paranoid Parenting,” cites the story of a 2-year-old who wandered away from her nursery. A man driving by noticed her on the street, but (as he later testified at an inquest) he didn’t stop to help for fear he’d be accused of trying to abduct her.

She ended up at a pond. And drowned. When we get to the point in society at which basic adult concern for children could well be mistaken for evil — and tried and found guilty — we’re back in Salem, 1692. The next “witch” could be you, comforting the kid who fell off her swing or volunteering for the school dance without a background check. Or, of course, letting your children go “free-range” and being accused of depraved indifference to all the black magic swirling around them.

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Creepy/cool helmets....

Seriously?!?!?!?

The Shakeweight

Site autoplays video and audio, potentially NSFW.

Really?

Powerful anti-speeding ad from Ireland....(0:59)

16 is OK to Strip in RI?!

Rhode Island teens under 18 can’t work with power saws or bang nails up on roofs. But dance at strip clubs? Sure. Just as long as the teens submit work permits, and are off the stripper’s pole by 11:30 on school nights.

It’s enough to surprise even those in America’s mecca of striptease and sin –– Las Vegas.

“Everybody buzzes about ‘Nevada and Sin City, tsk, tsk,’ ” said Edie Cartwright, spokeswoman for the Nevada attorney general’s office. “But we regulate it.”

Providence police recently discovered that teen job opportunities extend into the local adult entertainment world while they were investigating a 16-year-old runaway from Boston. The girl told detectives that she worked at Cheaters strip club this spring, and the police got tips about other underage girls working at another club on Allens Avenue.

That’s when the police found that neither state law, nor city ordinance bars minors from working at strip clubs. Those under 18 can’t buy pornography, and no one may take pictures or film minors in sexually suggestive ways. But the law doesn’t stop underage teens from stripping for money. Even if the police saw underage boys or girls on stage at a strip club, they wouldn’t be able to charge them or the club owners with a crime.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” said youth services Sgt. Carl Weston, “and I can’t find anything that says it’s illegal for a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old to take her top off and dance.”

State law says that anyone who employs a person under 18 for prostitution or for “any other lewd or indecent act” faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $20,000 in fines. But that isn’t enough to prevent underage girls from working in strip clubs, said senior assistant city solicitor Kevin McHugh, who researched the issue a dozen years ago when a teenage dancer was found at a raided strip club.

The term “lewd or indecent” is subjective, McHugh said, and is applied to behavior that’s protected by the First Amendment. “Since we have strip clubs in Providence,” McHugh said, “citizens don’t consider [stripping] lewd.”

With the age of consent at 16 in Rhode Island, the police worry that teenage strippers could take their business to the next level and offer sexual favors –– and it wouldn’t be illegal. State law currently allows indoor prostitution, and two bills intended to ban it have stalled in the General Assembly.

State and federal child labor laws dictate the number of hours and times of days that minors may work, and forbid certain jobs considered to be hazardous. For example, those under 16 can’t work on ladders or pump gas. Youths age 16 and 17 can’t work in manufacturing or excavation.

“Nowhere does it say anything about a kid not being able to strip,” Weston said.

Establishments with city liquor licenses need to keep the teenagers from the booze, but not the stage. “You can’t serve alcohol if you’re under 18,” Weston said, “but you can be the target of a man’s groping hands at age 16.”

But a Rhode Island teen stripper won’t find work in Massachusetts, where state law prohibits anyone from hiring minors under 18 for live performances involving sexual conduct.

Other states have had mixed encounters with the issue.

After a 12-year-old girl was found dancing nude in a club in Dallas last year, the city council swiftly passed rules barring minors from strip clubs and automatically revokes for a year licenses for sex businesses caught employing or entertaining minors.

But an Iowa county judge ruled last year that a striptease by a 17-year-old girl at a strip club was artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. The state attorney general’s office has asked the state Supreme Court to review the ruling.

Nevada, meanwhile, doesn’t let anyone under 18 work in casinos or in public dance halls where there is alcohol — and there are no strip clubs in Nevada without one or the other, or both, said Cartwright, of the attorney general’s office. Minors aren’t even allowed to deliver mail to brothels.

When questioned about Rhode Island’s law, Michael J. Healey, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, offered a copy of the current state law but did not comment for this article.

But Weston, of the Providence police, was adamant that the law should be changed.

“It leads to a societal breakdown,” he said. “These are just little girls.”

~~~So you can walk into a strip club in RI and get a lap dance from a 16 year old stripper and that’s legal. But if I take a picture of that same girl PERFORMING a lap dance, that’s child porn. Houston, we have a problem.

Source

U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving

In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess the safety risk posed by cellphone use behind the wheel.

They sought the study based on evidence that such multitasking was a serious and growing threat on America’s roadways.

But such an ambitious study never happened. And the researchers’ agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress.

On Tuesday, the full body of research is being made public for the first time by two consumer advocacy groups, which filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the documents. The Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen provided a copy to The New York Times, which is publishing the documents on its Web site.

In interviews, the officials who withheld the research offered their fullest explanation to date.

The former head of the highway safety agency said he was urged to withhold the research to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who had warned the agency to stick to its mission of gathering safety data but not to lobby states.

Critics say that rationale and the failure of the Transportation Department, which oversees the highway agency, to more vigorously pursue distracted driving has cost lives and allowed to blossom a culture of behind-the-wheel multitasking.

“We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up,” said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.

The group petitioned for the information after The Los Angeles Times wrote about the research last year. Mother Jones later published additional details.

The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002.

The researchers also shelved a draft letter they had prepared for Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta to send, warning states that hands-free laws might not solve the problem.

That letter said that hands-free headsets did not eliminate the serious accident risk. The reason: a cellphone conversation itself, not just holding the phone, takes drivers’ focus off the road, studies showed.

The research mirrors other studies about the dangers of multitasking behind the wheel. Research shows that motorists talking on a phone are four times as likely to crash as other drivers, and are as likely to cause an accident as someone with a .08 blood alcohol content.

The three-person research team based the fatality and accident estimates on studies that quantified the risks of distracted driving, and an assumption that 6 percent of drivers were talking on the phone at a given time. That figure is roughly half what the Transportation Department assumes to be the case now.

More precise data does not exist because most police forces have not collected long-term data connecting cellphones to accidents. That is why the researchers called for the broader study with 10,000 or more drivers.

“We nevertheless have concluded that the use of cellphones while driving has contributed to an increasing number of crashes, injuries and fatalities,” according to a “talking points” memo the researchers compiled in July 2003.

It added: “We therefore recommend that the drivers not use wireless communication devices, including text messaging systems, when driving, except in an emergency.”

Dr. Jeffrey Runge, then the head of the highway safety agency, said he grudgingly decided not to publish the Mineta letter and policy recommendation because of larger political considerations.

At the time, Congress had warned the agency not to use its research to lobby states. Dr. Runge said transit officials told him he could jeopardize billions of dollars of its financing if Congress perceived the agency had crossed the line into lobbying.

The fate of the research was discussed during a high-level meeting at the transportation secretary’s office. The meeting included Dr. Runge, several staff members with the highway safety agency and John Flaherty, Mr. Mineta’s chief of staff.

Mr. Flaherty recalls that the group decided not to publish the research because the data was too inconclusive.

He recalled that Dr. Runge “indicated that the data was incomplete and there was going to be more research coming.”

He recalled summing up his position as, the agency “should make a decision as to whether they wanted to wait for more data.”

But Dr. Runge recalled feeling that the issue was dire and needed public attention. “I really wanted to send a letter to governors telling them not to give a pass to hands-free laws,” said Dr. Runge, whose staff spent months preparing a binder of materials for their presentation.

His broader goal, he said, was to educate people about the dangers of distracted driving. “Based on the research, there was a possibility of this becoming a really big problem,” he said.

But “my advisers upstairs said we should not poke a finger in the eye of the appropriations committee,” he recalled.

He said Mr. Flaherty asked him, “Do we have enough evidence right now to not create enemies among all the stakeholders?”

Those stakeholders, Dr. Runge said, were the House Appropriations Committee and groups that might influence it, notably voters who multitask while driving and, to a much smaller degree, the cellphone industry.


Mr. Mineta, who left as transportation secretary in 2006, said he was unaware of the meeting.

“I don’t think it ever got to my desk,” he said of the research. Mr. Ditlow, from the Center for Auto Safety, said the officials’ explanations for withholding the research raised concerns. He said the research did not constitute lobbying of states.

And he said it was consistent with the highway safety agency’s research in other areas, like seat belts.

Mr. Ditlow said that putting fears of the House panel ahead of public safety was an abdication of the agency’s responsibility.

“No public health and safety agency should allow its research to be suppressed for political reasons,” he said. Doing so “will cause deaths and injuries on the highways.”

State Senator Joe Simitian of California, who tried from 2001 to 2005 to pass a hands-free cellphone law over objections of the cellphone industry, said the unpublished research would have helped him convince his colleagues that cellphones cause serious — deadly — distraction.

“Years went by when lives could have been saved,” said Mr. Simitian, who in 2006 finally pushed through a hands-free law that took effect last year.

The highway safety agency, rather than commissioning a study with 10,000 drivers, handled one involving 100 cars. That study, done with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, placed cameras inside cars to monitor drivers for more than a year.

It found that drivers using a hand-held device were at 1.3 times greater risk of a crash or near crash, and at three times the risk when dialing compared with other drivers.

Not all the research went unpublished. The safety agency put on its Web site an annotated bibliography of more than 150 scientific articles that showed how a cellphone conversation while driving taxes the brain’s processing power, impairing reaction time. But the bibliography included only a list of the articles, not the one-page summaries of each one written by the researchers.

Chris Monk, who researched the bibliography for 18 months, said the exclusion of the summaries took the teeth out of the findings.

“It became almost laughable,” Mr. Monk said. “What they wound up finally publishing was a stripped-out summary.”

Mr. Monk and Mike Goodman, a division head at the safety agency who led the research project, theorize that the agency might have felt pressure from the cellphone industry. Mr. Goodman said the industry frequently checked in with him about the project and his progress. (He said the industry knew about the research because he had worked with it to gather some data).

But he could offer no proof of the industry’s influence. Mr. Flaherty said he was not contacted or influenced by the industry.

The agency’s current policy is that people should not use cellphones while driving. Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the agency, said it did not, and would not, publish the researchers’ fatality estimates because they were not definitive enough.

He said the other research was compiled as background material for the agency, not for the public.

“There is no report to publish,” he said.

Source

Random oddness....(6:43)

Builder Davide Rovaris
Owner Davide Rovaris
Location Como
Country Italy

Bike Name -- Fear of the Dark
Bike Year / Model -- Hardcore Kitbike 2008
Engine Make / Size -- RevTech 88''
Transmission Type -- RevTech
Frame Make / Type -- Santee Rigid
Front End -- CCE + 10''+5°
Rake -- 53° + 5° Triple trees

Swingarm -- none
Wheels - Front -- CCE 21''
Wheels - Rear -- CCE 18 x 5.75''
Tires - Front -- 90/90-21
Tires - Rear -- 200--18
Brakes - Front -- Discacciati
Brakes - Rear -- Discacciati
Chroming / Plating -- none

Additional Info -- Oil tank in the single front down tube. Sitting in the frame reduced . Everything is hidden, but everything works.

customattack.com

Your Random Oddness clip....(3:45)...

hijinksensue.com

The first no fins, no suit freedive through the Arch, a 30m long tunnel connecting Dahab's Blue Hole to the Red Sea at a depth of 55m.
William Trubridge is the world record holder in unassisted freediving. (4:02)

Store video catches cop bullying woman






WHEN AGNES LAWLESS and three friends were inside a Lukoil convenience store in the Northeast at 3 a.m. last August, they'd all but forgotten the fender-bender in which they'd been involved moments earlier.

There was little damage, and the other driver had left the scene, near Northeast Philadelphia Airport.

What they didn't know was that they'd been rear-ended by the son of a police officer who was on duty, and dad was about to get involved.

Lawless was standing at the counter of the store, at Comly Road and Roosevelt Boulevard, smiling and chatting with the clerk, when she was grabbed from behind and violently pushed back with a police officer's gun in her face.

"He hit me with his left hand, and he had his gun in his right hand," Lawless said. "He pushed his gun into the left side of my neck. It caused a scrape-type bruise on my neck."

After a chaotic struggle, Lawless was arrested and charged with assaulting the officer.

Lawless and her three friends, all in their early 20s, filed complaints with the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau. But in cases in which it's a defendant's word against a police officer's, the benefit of doubt often falls to the cop.

Except when there's video.

Once surveillance video from the store's four security cameras was released, the case against Lawless collapsed, and disciplinary action commenced against the officer, Alberto Lopez Sr. A lawsuit against the city is likely.

The incident provides a vivid example of how the countless video recordings generated today by security cameras and cell phones are affecting police work.

Drexel Law School professor Donald Tibbs said that video recordings are capturing more criminal activity and assisting prosecutions, but they're also monitoring police conduct.

"Police are now aware they're more accountable for their actions, because these tapes may be used against them in misconduct cases or civil-rights lawsuits," Tibbs said.

And Tibbs said that there are numerous cases of police seeking to confiscate and destroy tapes that may have captured a police action.


Internal Affairs probe



The clerk on duty the night that Lopez confronted Lawless told investigators that three times after the incident, police officers spoke with him about the security tape and that two asked if he would erase it.

An Internal Affairs investigation found no misconduct among officers who spoke with the clerk about the tape. But it concluded that Lopez had verbally abused Lawless, had jammed his gun into her face and had violated departmental procedures that night.

A hearing to determine what discipline, if any, will be imposed on Lopez is still pending.

Lopez's attorney, Gerald Stanshine, declined to comment and said that Lopez couldn't discuss the incident. Lopez's son, Alberto Lopez Jr., didn't respond to messages seeking comment.

Although some details of what happened are in dispute, it's clear that the Lukoil encounter occurred a few minutes after the blue Mazda in which Lawless was riding was rear-ended at Decatur and Comly roads by a Buick Century driven at slow speed by Lopez Jr.

Lopez Jr. left the scene and drove to the Eighth District police station, at Academy and Red Lion roads, to report the incident to his father. Officer Lopez and his son then left in his patrol car and soon saw the blue Mazda in the Lukoil parking lot.

Officer Lopez entered the store with his son and got into a physical confrontation with Lawless. Lawless ended up in cuffs, charged with assaulting Lopez.

At a preliminary hearing four days later, Officer Lopez testified that he'd come into the store and ordered Lawless and the three young men with her to the floor, and that "she freaked out, started punching, slapping and kicking me multiple times."

Based on the officer's testimony, Judge Robert Blasi ordered that the case proceed to trial.

But four days later, investigators from Internal Affairs got the store's surveillance video of the incident, and things changed quickly.

Lopez was assigned to desk duty and his weapon was removed. He failed to show up at three trial dates for Lawless' assault charges, which then were dropped. Images from four security cameras at the store reveal an encounter consistent with the accounts of Lawless, her three friends and Carlos "Tito" Ruiz, the clerk on duty at the time.

There is no audio, and the video is not continuous, capturing images at intervals ranging from three per second to one every few seconds.

The images show that when Officer Lopez entered the store, Lawless was at the counter, smiling and apparently unaware of his presence behind her.

Lopez grabbed Lawless' neck from behind with his left hand, with his gun in his right hand. Lawless broke free and faced him.

"I was really confused," Lawless said in an interview. "I didn't know if we were getting robbed. I remember seeing his uniform on his arm, he swung me around and hit me with his arm. He hit me first with an open hand, then he hit me with his gun in the face."

The video shows Lopez's left arm extending toward Lawless' face, and then his right arm driving forcefully toward her, jamming the gun in her neck or jaw.

Lawless broke free again, and for several seconds the video shows the three young men sitting on the floor, while arguing occurs among all four and Officer Lopez and his son.

"I had noticed his son as the guy who had hit us," Lawless said, "and [Officer Lopez] was screaming, 'You think you can hit my son and get away with it, you think you can f--- with me?' "

The store clerk reported hearing similar comments from Officer Lopez.

Lawless said that she and her friends were yelling back that it was Lopez Jr. who had hit their car and left.


'I was really scared'



About a minute after the gun was in her neck, the video shows Officer Lopez on his cell phone, apparently calling for more police, when Lawless grabbed her bag and tried to walk out of the store.

"I remember stopping for a second, and thinking, like, 'This is out of control, I need to go get a real cop or something,' " Lawless said. "I was really scared."

Lopez Jr. intercepted Lawless and pushed her backward over the counter, with his right hand on her neck. Officer Lopez joined in and struggled with Lawless, who swung her arms at the two of them.

At that point, Lawless' friend Matthew Whatley came over and got between them, as did Ruiz, the store clerk. According to his statement to investigators, Ruiz managed to get Lawless and her friends to lie on the floor and wait for more police to arrive.

Then, according to the Internal Affairs report of Ruiz's statement, Officer Lopez told him to "do himself a favor and get rid of the camera tapes."

More officers soon arrived, and Lawless was cuffed and arrested. Her three friends were questioned and allowed to leave.

In his arrest report, Officer Lopez mentioned the auto accident that had initiated the events, but never mentioned that his son had been involved, referring to him in the report only as "the witness."

Ruiz told investigators that Lopez mentioned erasing the tape again after other officers arrived. He said that police visited him at the store twice the next day and asked him whether he would erase the tape. He also said that they had advised him to "help the cop out and testify for the cop."

Eventually, Lukoil turned the tapes over to Internal Affairs and to Whatley's family.

Although Officer Lopez and his son declined to discuss the incident with the Daily News, transcripts of their interviews with an Internal Affairs investigator provide their account of the events that night.

Lopez Jr. said that after the accident, the occupants of the blue Mazda got out of the car and began shouting, cursing and kicking his car.

He said that he left and drove to the Eighth District station, where he described the events to Officer William Forster in the operations room.

Forster put out a "flash" description on police radio of the car and its occupants. Forster told Internal Affairs that when Lopez Jr. described the incident, he never mentioned the possibility that any of the car's occupants might be armed.

But in his statement to Internal Affairs later, Lopez Jr. said that in the shouting at the accident scene, one of the occupants of the Mazda, a Hispanic male, "was reaching under his shirt and he was saying, 'Get him the f--- out of the car; I got something for him.' "

Ruiz, the Lukoil clerk, told investigators that after officers arrived following the altercation in the convenience store, he heard Officer Lopez give his son some instructions in Spanish, including, " 'Say he had a gun.' "

Lopez Sr. and Jr. both denied that, saying that the younger Lopez speaks almost no Spanish. Officer Lopez told investigators that his son had said from the beginning that a Hispanic man from the Mazda "lifted up his shirt and made a motion as if he had a gun."

The Internal Affairs report noted, however, that Officer Lopez's conduct inside the Lukoil store seemed inconsistent with a suspicion that he might be confronting armed suspects.

The video showed that he never frisked any of the young men, and at times left them unattended on the floor of the store while he went outside. When asked by Internal Affairs why he had allowed his son into the store if he thought someone had a gun and he was going to take police action, Lopez said: "I didn't even think about it. It happened so fast. It was bad judgment."

Ironically, Lopez Jr. had a .22-caliber Magnum revolver in his waistband during the accident and throughout the confrontation in the Lukoil, according to his statement to Internal Affairs. He had a permit to carry the weapon, he said in the statement.

The driver of the Mazda, Stephen Soda, also had a handgun in his glove compartment along with his carry permit, according to police. Police reviewed the permit and released Soda without charges. Neither weapon was drawn in the incident.

Officer Lopez said that before he grabbed Lawless in the store, he'd ordered her and her friends to the floor several times, and that the three men had complied.

But the video shows that Lopez grabbed Lawless' neck no more than five seconds after he entered the store, and that all three men were still standing.

He said that he had his gun in his hand with his finger outside the trigger, and "used three fingers of my gun hand and gripped her shirt to try to get her to the floor because she was still swinging at me."

The video doesn't show Lawless swinging at Lopez then. She does appear to swing at Lopez and his son later, after they stopped her from leaving the store, and Lopez Jr. appeared to push her back over the store counter by her neck.

Officer Lopez said that Lawless "told me I was a Mexican, I was here illegally, and that I should go back to Mexico." Lopez Jr. said she was "calling my father a f---ing s--c, a Mexican."

Lawless acknowledged in an interview that in her fury she "got racial."

Lawless wasn't seriously injured in the incident, but she said she had pain in her neck, back and jaw.


A night in jail



She spent the night in a jail cell, where she counted 23 mice and saw feces on the walls, she said.

"Somebody had probably had s--- on their hands and smudged it all over the wall," she said. "In the morning I threw up. It smelled so bad."

She said that she was emotionally traumatized for months, and afraid of the police. She moved to Florida earlier this year.

The District Attorney's Office reviewed the case and declined to prosecute Officer Lopez in December. Eight days later, he was reissued his weapon and returned to full duty.

But he may yet face discipline from the Police Department.

The Internal Affairs report concluded that Lopez had verbally abused Lawless and that he had pushed his gun into her neck.

Investigators did not sustain a charge of physical abuse based on Lawless' reported injuries. The report cited a lack of visible signs of injury on her arrest photograph, and said a "very minor scratch/abrasion to her left chin area . . . may have occurred at any point during Ms. Lawless' resistance to P/O Lopez's attempts to restrain Ms. Lawless or during her physical confrontation with Alberto Lopez Jr. when she tried to flee the store."

The report noted that Lawless was treated for bruises and abrasions at Frankford Hospital-Torresdale (now Aria Health's Torresdale Campus), two days after the incident, but that efforts to secure further medical records from her attorney had been unsuccessful.

The Internal Affairs report concluded that Lopez had committed "departmental violations," and it expressed skepticism about the claim that one of the four occupants of the Mazda appeared to have had a gun.

The report also noted that "by taking his son inside the Lukoil to confront the complainants, P/O Lopez made a dangerous situation even more volatile because of his close relationship with the alleged victim of the earlier attack."

Lawless' attorney, Alan Yatvin, said that he was exploring a civil suit on her behalf.

"I'm troubled by the conduct of the officer, about his telling a story that lacks credibility, and about the fact he thought he could get away with it," Yatvin said.

He said it's also troubling that so many officers apparently sought to dispose of the video, the key evidence in the case, and suffered no consequence after Internal Affairs investigated.

At the end of his interview with Internal Affairs, Lopez was asked if he would like to add anything that would assist the investigation.

"I would like to have used better judgment that night," the officer said.

Source with video