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Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has warned he will crack down on any repeat of Monday night’s violent protests in Budapest.

Mr Gyurcsany said the protests, in which dozens of people were hurt, were Hungary’s “longest and darkest night” since the end of communism in 1989.

The violence erupted at the state TV building following a largely peaceful rally calling on Mr Gyurcsany to quit.

In a leaked tape, Mr Gyurcsany admitted his government had lied to the public.

His comments, which were recorded just after a general election in April, have prompted calls for his resignation from opposition parties.

But his own Socialist party, and the junior party in the governing coalition, have stood behind the prime minister.

Protesters storm station

Mr Gyurcsany has thus far withstood pressure to leave office and had vowed to push forward with tough economic reforms.

“I had spent three minutes on Sunday night thinking about whether I should step down or whether I had a reason to step down, and the conclusion I came to is that absolutely not,” he told Reuters news agency.

We lied morning, noon and night Ferenc Gyurcsany excerpt from leaked tape Excerpts from speech

The prime minister also warned he would deal firmly with any further violent protests.

He said he had told police “to use all means to restore order”, according to the national news agency MTI.

However hundreds of protesters gathered outside parliament on Tuesday, carrying a symbolic coffin with a placard that read: “We will bury the government of Gyurcsany.”

The trouble began on Monday night, when a group of protesters left a largely peaceful demonstration near parliament and went to TV headquarters.

According to reports, they wanted a petition to be read out on air, and when refused, attacked the building.

Riot police sent to contain the protest came under assault from protesters throwing cobblestones and bottles and setting cars alight.

Police were forced to withdraw before returning to expel the protesters. Officials said 150 people had been injured - 102 of them police officers.

There were dramatic scenes after night fell Enlarge Image

“Nothing like this has happened since 1956,” one young protester told Reuters news agency, referring to Hungary’s failed uprising against Soviet rule in October 1956.

Mr Gyurcsany’s comments which sparked the protests were heard in a tape of a meeting he held with his MPs a few weeks after April’s election, and leaked to media on Sunday.

In excerpts broadcast on state radio, Mr Gyurcsany candidly admitted his government had accomplished “nothing” and had been lying for “the last year and a half to two years”.

“We lied morning, noon and night,” he said in a speech punctuated by obscenities.

Fiscal hole

Mr Gyurcsany won the elections on a platform of tax cuts, but has since proposed tax increases to deal with a huge budget deficit

Protests had already been planned this week over the austerity measures.

The leaked revelations were, for some of the protesters, the straw which broke the camel’s back, the BBC’s Nick Thorpe says.

The European Commission - the executive arm of the EU - on Tuesday urged the Budapest government to press on with its efforts to mend public finances.

Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres told reporters in Brussels that it was in the interests of Hungary that the economic situation should be “brought to relatively sustainable levels”.

Local elections are scheduled in two weeks’ time and the Socialists and their liberal coalition allies are trailing the conservative opposition party Fidesz in the polls.

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CHICAGO, IL

Four police officers used their badges and authority to “terrorize and steal” from Chicago residents, a prosecutor said Friday as the officers made their first court appearances on charges including armed violence and home invasion.

One officer is accused of wrongfully entering a man’s house, breaking into his safe and stealing a rookie card of baseball legend Mickey Mantle. Prosecutors said the officers targeted Hispanics and would often file drug charges against their victims, but then fail to appear in court, causing the charges to be dismissed.

Cook County Judge Matthew Coghlan set bond for the four officers at amounts ranging from $1.5 million (?1.18 million) to $3 million (?2.36 million). Wearing street clothes, they all appeared via closed circuit television during the hearing.

The officers are Jerome Finnigan, 43; Keith Herrera, 28; Thomas Sherry, 32; and Carl Suchocki, 32, all of Chicago. The charges involve 11 incidents dating back to June 2003.

Defense attorneys argued for lower bond amounts, saying all four were decorated officers with extensive ties to the community. Three of the four officers have family members who have served with the Chicago Police Department, their attorneys said.

Jim Knibbs, Cook County assistant state’s attorney, said the officers - members of a unit that focuses on gang and drug crimes - sought to steal money and illegal narcotics from people who seemed least likely to complain.

“The defendants, along with other as of yet uncharged officers, abused their authority and sworn police powers to terrorize and steal from the people of this city,” he said.

Knibbs did not elaborate how many other officers might be under investigation.

In one case that prosecutors detailed, Finnigan is accused of detaining a man who was standing in front of his own home and using the man’s key to get into his home without a warrant or the man’s consent. Finnigan was accused of forcing open a safe and stealing a Mantle rookie baseball card, a 24-karat gold watch and $200 in cash.

The man and two other individuals at the home were charged with possession of marijuana, but no officers showed up for the preliminary hearings, and the charges were dismissed, prosecutors said.

The officers have been suspended without pay and the police department intends to move to fire them.

The charges include multiple counts of armed violence, home invasion, aggravated kidnapping and delivery of a controlled substance. If convicted, the officers could each face up to 30 years in prison.

Some of them also have been named in civil lawsuits.

Jose Hermosillo recently settled a lawsuit in federal court with the city for $50,000 (?39,330). His suit claimed that Finnigan, Sherry and other officers broke into his house in 2004, beat and robbed him of $5,000 (?3,900).

“I have no doubt the cops who went to this house were dirty. They set him up,” said attorney Joel Whitehouse, who represented Hermosillo in the criminal case.

The officers are due back in court on Oct. 3.

CHATHAM, Ont.
A Chatham-Kent police officer faces assault charges in connection with an alleged incident in the booking room of police headquarters in Chatham.

Sgt. Edmund MacLean, 58, is alleged to have assaulted and improperly used a Taser on a 33-year-old Chatham man, Insp. Wessley Dore said Sunday in a news release.

The man had been arrested and was being booked at headquarters on July 6, police said.

Police said the man did not suffer any injury.

MacLean is charged with assault and assault with a weapon.

The 31-year policing veteran was released on bail Saturday after appearing in video bail court and is scheduled to appear next on Sept. 18.

MacLean has been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the criminal charges, police said.

Chief Carl Herder said charges were laid as a result of an internal investigation launched by the professional standards branch.

He said the alleged victim in the incident didn’t make the initial complaint.

As a result of the criminal charges, MacLean is also facing disciplinary proceedings under the Police Services Act.

Three people, including the daughter of a Fort Worth, Texas, police officer, could face charges after they took the officer’s patrol car for a joy ride.

Police spokesman Lt. Dean Sullivan said the 21-year-old girl and two other young people took the keys from the sleeping officer’s gun belt and drove the car around the neighborhood, turning the lights and sirens on and off and at one point pulling over a motorist, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Tuesday.

“One witness saw the kids in the police car pull over a small, white vehicle with the lights and sirens on, then back up, make a U-turn and go the opposite direction,” Sullivan told the newspaper.

“We haven’t been able to clearly establish who was actually operating the police car at the time.”

Sullivan said the investigation was ongoing.

A well-known attorney takes on a case in which a Portland man was shot seven timesThe family of Fouad Kaady, a 27-year-old Portland man shot and killed by police a year ago today on a rural Clackamas County highway, has hired high-profile, flamboyant attorney Gerry Spence of Wyoming to argue a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court.

Kaady was naked, burned and bleeding when he was shocked with a stun gun then shot by Officer William Bergin of the Sandy Police Department and Deputy David Willard of the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

The 31-page lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, names the city of Sandy, Clackamas County and the two officers and seeks monetary damages in an amount to be determined at trial for civil rights violations, excessive force, unconstitutional arrest and wrongful death.

Willard and Bergin shot the unarmed man seven times. A Clackamas County grand jury heard testimony from at least 40 witnesses and decided against bringing charges against the two. Additionally, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Shooting Review Board and a review by the Sandy Police Department found that Willard and Bergin acted appropriately. Both have returned to duty.

Kaady’s family and friends bitterly criticized the grand jury’s decision and insist he had no history of mental illness and did not take hard drugs. They think his behavior was caused by the shock of being badly burned in a car wreck about a half-hour before the shooting.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this was not a justifiable shooting,” said Portland attorney Michelle Burrows, who also will argue the case with Spence’s son, Kent Spence.

Burrows said main arguments in court will be handled by Gerry Spence, who has represented high-profile clients such as white separatist Randy Weaver and Brandon Mayfield, a Portland attorney who was jailed for two weeks in 2004 after his fingerprint was mistakenly linked to terror bombings in Madrid, Spain.

Spence –who often sports a black felt hat and leather-fringed, buckskin jacket –made national headlines in 1984 after winning a $10.5 million settlement for the estate of Karen Silkwood, an Oklahoma plutonium worker.

Lawyers for the Clackamas County counsel’s office are ready to take on the case.

“We feel sorry for the family, but we believe this is a very defensible case, and we will fight it,” said Ed McGlone, an attorney with the office.

Scott Lazenby, Sandy’s city manager, said city officials have been instructed not to discuss pending litigation.

In the official police report, a detective speculated that Kaady’s bizarre behavior before the shooting may have been caused by “excited delirium,” a rare but often deadly medical condition associated with illegal drug use, mental illness or injury, experts say.

People with the condition commonly display incredible strength, are impervious to pain, growl like an animal, are aggressive and take off their clothing because they become superheated.

Clackamas County prosecutors confirmed that Kaady had traces of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his system.

Shortly before he died, Kaady smashed his car into three other cars on Southeast Bluff Road. Callers told 9-1-1 dispatchers he was combative and had assaulted a man who went to help him.

The lawsuit claims that both the sheriff’s department and Sandy police have cultures that encourage officers “to taser and/or ’shoot first,’ a pattern of repeated serious violations of the constitutional rights of citizens.”

The suit claims Kaady was not presenting any “objective danger.” It seeks damages for burial and memorial services; general damages for depriving his civil rights; monetary losses to his estate, including the loss of earnings; pain and suffering; punitive damages; and attorney fees.

A rookie Federal Heights police officer who blew the whistle on four Westminster officers for allegedly using too much force during an arrest last summer took the stand Monday during the first day of their trial.

Officer Jon Hess kneeled on the floor in front of the witness stand, his right fist pumping into an imaginary person on the ground, demonstrating to the jury the amount of force he said the officers used on a man Aug. 27, 2005.

Three members of an elite police unit and another officer were pulled off the streets last year after two Federal Heights officers said they witnessed excessive force during the arrest. One Westminster veteran officer, Mark Toth, was fired within three months of the event.

Toth has since filed a lawsuit against the city of Federal Heights, officer Donald Vallero and Hess, citing numerous claims, including defamation, and seeking more than $100,000 damages.

The officers, Toth, Norman Haubert and Jason Poppenger are charged with third-degree assault, official misconduct and filing a false report, all misdemeanors. Officer Chris Pyler was charged with official misconduct and filing a false report.

Adams County prosecutor

Thomas Quammen spent 10 minutes in opening arguments describing the events during the arrest of Scott Danielson, who had eluded officers earlier in the day.

The prosecution contends that officers may have hit Danielson up to 30 times in his lower back during the arrest. After he was in custody, pictures were taken of Danielson’s shoulders, back and legs showing bruising, Quammen said.

During their opening statements, the four defense attorneys for the four officers repeatedly told the jury their clients are innocent and were within the boundaries of the law. They said medics examined Danielson after the arrest and determined he was not seriously injured and did not need to be treated.

According to a Broomfield police report, Danielson, then 40, turned abruptly in front of another car, which hit his car on Broomfield’s Main Street during the afternoon of Aug. 27, 2005.

Danielson left the scene, driving west on 116th Avenue in his red Toyota Corrolla, and passed a Broomfield police car, which gave chase until losing him, the report said.

Westminster officers later spotted Danielson’s car and pursued him to Federal Heights.

The officers set out stop sticks near West 90th Avenue and Federal Boulevard and were able to stop him.

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA
Officials are asking for the public’s help identifying whoever is responsible for torching two police patrol cars in Buford earlier this week.

The fires were set separately about 1 a.m. Sunday, destroying a Gwinnett County police and a Georgia Capitol police patrol car. The cars had been driven home by police officers and parked near their respective residences, said Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John W. Oxendine.

“We’re very concerned that anybody that would set fire to a police cruiser is very dangerous to the public,” Oxendine said during a press conference at Gwinnett County Fire Department headquarters in Lawrenceville. “We’re concerned for the safety of police officers and their families if someone is targeting police officers.”

It did not appear that the officers were specifically targeted. Oxendine said the two officers did not know each other and had not worked together on any cases.

Investigators did not reveal the locations where the fires were set because they want to protect the officers’ safety. They also declined to say how the blazes were set.

“It could be one person or two people,” Oxendine said. “It could be people working together, or it could be a strange coincidence.”
The suspect or suspects would likely face a felony charge of destruction of government property in addition to a felony arson charge.

A reward of up to $10,000 is offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist.