Body Cam Footage Of A Cop Planting Evidence Leads To Dozens Of Dismissed Cases

from the giving-(drugs)-back-to-the-community dept

It seems as though a Baltimore police officer forgot about one key feature of his bodycam: the fact that it saves the previous 30 seconds of video recorded before the camera is activated. Most bodycams record and dump constantly. The moment it's activated, the 30 seconds preceding the activation become part of the recording.

What was apparently inadvertently captured by the camera was the officer planting drugs in a can and hiding them in an alley. All three officers then retreat to the sidewalk outside the alley before heading back in to "discover" the drug stash.

If it wasn't for the fortuitous discovery (in the legal sense) of the video, the officer might have gotten away with it.

There's controversy over a Baltimore City police body-camera video and whether it shows an officer tampering with evidence.

The 90-second clip led to the dismissal of a drug case, and 53 other cases that involve the same officer might be under review.

The clip is a snapshot of what appears to be an officer mishandling evidence. The video, which was used in connection with a drug arrest in January, was released Wednesday by the Public Defender's Office.

The term "mishandling" downplays what appears to be happening in the video: a cop generating probable cause for an arrest. There's a small possibility the drugs were discovered earlier but no recording existed, so the officers "reenacted" the discovery and hoped no one would notice their subterfuge. Either way, it's something you just can't do, not if you want to keep your conviction.

As for the other 53 cases under review, many of them appear to be headed for dismissal. And the original estimate of 53 was incredibly low.

Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby identified 123 cases associated with the officers mishandling evidence as seen on the body-camera video. Mosby said 34 of the cases will be dismissed, and 77 others remain under review.

[...]

"The cases that have been dismissed thus far or are scheduled to be dismissed are felony drug cases or free-standing possession of firearm cases. And we made a decision in every one of those cases after a very thorough review of the facts, that we did not have a case to prosecute without the testimony of one or all of the three officers," said Antonio Gioia, chief counsel at the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office.

Note that the attorney's office is ready to let suspects walk if any of the three officers might be involved in the prosecutions. This is the right way to handle this. The cop who planted the evidence isn't the only problem. It's also his fellow officers who did nothing to stop him. All three are culpable for this act -- whether it was the deliberate framing of an arrestee or a one-act play performed for the camera to make up for the lack of footage during the original find. In a little more than 90 seconds, three cops destroyed their credibility, possibly forever.

And it certainly appears that these aren't the only three Baltimore cops doing this kind of evidence planting. As I was finishing up this post, we got some more breaking news of... more Baltimore cops faking evidence:

Public defenders in Baltimore say charges against a client have been dropped because police body-camera video "appears to depict multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence."

Oh, and that's not all:

Separately, seven other Baltimore officers on a gun crimes task force are accused of faking reports and false detentions.

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think this might not be just one or two "bad apples."

Filed Under: baltimore, planted evidence, police, trust

What If You Gave A (Drug) War And Nobody Came? Deputies Answer Rhetorical Question With Planted Evidence

from the internal-affairs-notes-crime-numbers-are-on-the-rise dept

Crime numbers are down. Police militarization is up. The War on Drugs continues to be fought with as much intensity as ever even as the country sides with legalization. So, when a lack of crime meets budgets, weaponry and expectations -- all primed for battle -- what's a poor law enforcement officer to do?

Former deputies Julio Cesar Martinez, 39, and Anthony Manuel Paez, 32, have been charged with two felony counts of conspiring to obstruct justice and altering evidence, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Martinez faces two additional felony counts of perjury and filing a false report.

The two deputies had already had one charge -- possession of ecstasy -- but that apparently wasn't enough. Why settle for a low ball possession charge when you can add months or years to the sentence?

Before he got a search warrant, Martinez kicked a wall outlet and shut down power to the room, according to the complaint. Paez then allegedly opened a drawer, pulled out a gun and put it on a chair.

The complaint alleges Paez also planted a gun on top of an office desk, next to some ecstasy pills. At some point, Paez allegedly crawled under the desk and disabled the security camera system.

This led to Yang being charged with "possessing ecstasy in the presence of a firearm" (firearms are apparently very impressionable...), to which he pleaded no contest. Another person was charged with possession of an unregistered handgun.

One year later, after Yang had already served his sentence, Internal Affairs discovered the video from inside the pot dispensary was "inconsistent" with filed reports. Or worded more accurately, the deputies' reports weren't backed up by the unblinking security camera. The unnamed "suspect" was cut loose. Yang, however, had already spent several months in jail, time the Sheriff's Department can't give back to him. Both officers face up to seven years in jail if found guilty and are currently out on $50,000 bail pending arraignment.

Is this an outlier, one of the exceptions to the rule? Probably. But there seems to be way too many of these "exceptions."

A police car dash cam captured Santa Clara deputies plotting to plant drugs in a woman’s home after their first illegal search turned up nothing, the woman claims in court.

Allison Ross, who was arrested after the second search of her home, sued the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, its crime lab, Sheriff Laurie Smith, and 12 of her officers, in Federal Court.

Once again, officers primed for the "War" found themselves faced with a dearth of combatants. No drugs and nothing to do but walk away empty-handed. For some reason, these deputies believed a lack of criminal activity would somehow be marked up as a loss in the War on Drugs. So, they decided to make a second "search" of the premises, this time while the fix was in.

Deputies then re-entered the home and ransacked it, opening and rummaging through drawers in the bedrooms and kitchens. They placed personal property from around the house into one area in an effort to make it appear that the items were in plain sight, the complaint states...

Because the deputies failed to find any drugs in the home, "they planted narcotics which were kept in one of the sheriff's vehicles. Statements to this effect can be heard over the vehicle dash camera on one of the defendant's vehicles," the lawsuit states...

[T[he officers are heard on the recording saying: 'the house is clean, there is no meth in the house', 'we're gonna spike that and we're gonna spike him.' 'I got the meth in the ——- car,'" the complaint states.

These LEOs must be learning from their FBI heroes. If criminal activity fails to present itself, feel free to manufacture it. Of course, the FBI's tactics are a bit more subtle and require months of leading the easily-led until they've fallen into the agency's "terrorism" traps.

These deputies apparently didn't have the time or willingness to play the long con. They had made two (apparently illegal) sweeps and still hadn't come up with anything actionable. So, they took it upon themselves to "find" the justification they needed for their actions.

Another outlier? Sure, if you still have an inordinate amount of faith in your fellow human beings and believe law enforcement officers are less likely to be swayed by perverse incentives than, say, the guy a couple of cubicles over. But humans do human things, and those with a lot of power and very little accountability do human things that seriously damage other humans. And they do it more often than we'd hope, as Radley Balko points out.

And it certainly wouldn't be the first time drug cops have been caught doing so. Nor would it be the first time a crime lab analyst has been caught faking the results of drug tests.

We know cops lie and that judges oblige them. Planting evidence is a physical lie and it's just as simple (simpler, even) as looking the defendant in the eye and telling him or her, along with the assembled court, things the person facing months or years in prison knows aren't true. And then going back to work, secure in the knowledge that if the suspect wasn't exactly guilty of what you claimed, they were probably guilty of something. They all are, even the ones that aren't -- and the cops have the tools, ability and access to ensure the "evidence" is exactly where it needs to be to make the charges stick.

Filed Under: drug war, planted evidence, police