Brickbats: May 2025
News of politicians, police, and bureaucrats behaving badly from around the world.
A TikTok video shows a man in Port Arthur, Texas, laughing and smiling as he cleans snow off his car by wiping a child across the windshield and hood. The child, reportedly three months old, is heavily bundled up. Child Protective Services conducted a welfare check and found the child unharmed, but the local police chief says he still plans to pursue child endangerment charges.
Mississippi state Sen. Bradford Blackmon (D–Attala) introduced a bill to make it "unlawful for a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo." The bill, which Blackmon calls the "Contraception Begins at Erection Act," would impose fines on violators, including $10,000 for a third offense.
Former Lake County, Florida, Sheriff's Deputy Tristan Macomber resigned after rear-ending another car while on duty. An Internal Affairs investigation found Macomber was looking at something on his phone before the crash happened. Macomber at first said he was scrolling through a group chat with other deputies on his phone before admitting he was looking at pornography.
Former Shreveport Police Officer Christopher McConnell received a suspended prison sentence of three years, followed by two years of probation, after being convicted of malfeasance in office. When he pulled a woman over for a nonworking license plate light, McConnell got out of his car with his weapon drawn and shouted, "License, registration, shut your mouth." He pulled the woman from her vehicle and tried to handcuff her. Two other officers arrived to help him, and when the woman allegedly pulled away from them, another officer used a Taser on her. McConnell later struck her in the face even as she was compliant.
Two St. Louis police officers refused to aid a dying man because their shift was almost over. Officers Austin Fraser and Ty Warren, who have since left the department, found Urayoan Rodriguez-Rivera in a park, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head but still alive. As seen on body camera video, when Warren suggests they bring him somewhere for help, Fraser declines, saying, "I get off in 30 minutes." He then suggests, "Let's cruise around and come back," which they do. They returned 10 minutes later to find other officers on the scene, who called emergency services. Rodriguez-Rivera later died at the hospital.
Federal prosecutors charged Nicholas Kindle and David Cole, two U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents, with felony drug distribution conspiracy. Prosecutors say the two stole thousands of dollars in cash and valuables, plus drugs known as bath salts, from evidence, which they gave to a department "source of information" to sell. The FBI says the scheme netted the pair as much as $300,000.
Under reforms announced by the United Kingdom's Labour Party government, the National Health Service would delay some surgeries for smokers and for obese patients. The reforms would require obese patients to undergo a 12-week weight loss plan before being scheduled for hip and knee replacements, while smokers must stop smoking and be "confirmed…as fit to proceed" before receiving any noncancer surgeries. Those who do not comply will be put on waitlists, with fitter patients getting priority slots for surgery.
Residents and city council members in South Fulton, Georgia, are questioning thousands of dollars in unapproved purchases made with city funds by Mayor Khalid Kamau. From October through December 2024, Kamau made $26,000 in unauthorized purchases with his city-issued credit card, including more than $5,000 on plane tickets and $1,300 for a drone. He has not submitted receipts for 112 purchases. Kamau says the criticism is all political.
