TheAgitator.com
Oakland Cops Lied on Drug Warrant Affidavits
Monday, October 13th, 2008At least seven Oakland Police Department officers and possibly a dozen more may have lied to judges over the past four years in order to win search warrants later used to bust down the doors of suspected small-time drug dealers.
Saying the latest scandal in the department is more than a result of a lack of training, at least one official who has reviewed illegal search warrants said officers knowingly lied to judges to secure warrants.
“There is no good faith here, these are willful,” said assistant public defender Ray Keller. “The thing that is really disturbing is that it is a reckless disregard for the truth; they are lying to judges.”
The department announced earlier this month that it had found a problem with how some of its officers were seeking search warrants for the right to raid the homes of suspected small-time drug dealers, mostly in East Oakland.
Department officials admitted that officers “misstated” on sworn affidavits submitted to judges that substances bought on the street by informants or undercover officers had been tested to verify the substance was illegal drugs.
At the time, the department said officers were acting in good faith but simply had a miscommunication with the crime lab or a lack of training on how to properly seek a search warrant.
Basically, the department said, officers sent drugs to the crime lab, and when they did not hear anything from technicians, assumed the substances had tested positive for drugs.
If I’m not mistaken, in most places it’s illegal to sell a substance you claim is an illicit drug, too. Which would make this a fairly minor offense in and of itself. Still, it makes you wonder what other shortcuts Oakland cops may have taking in obtaining warrants for drug raids.
Best quote in the article:
“The word ‘lie’ is too strong,” said Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan. “It is premature; the investigation is still going on.”
Call me a stickler for language, but I’m pretty sure when you willfully ignore the truth or say things counter to what is true, then you are, well, lying.
Unbelievable.
How many will be prosecuted for perjury? How many will lose their jobs? How many licks does it take to get to the center of tootsie roll pop?
Who wants to bet the answer to the first two questions is three less than the answer to the third question?
Do they have a tank at that police department yet?
“If I have to lie to keep drugs away from children, so be it!” - pig, when cornered (then let loose to hunt for more truffles)
Cops Lie To Obtain Drug Warrants…
Say it ain’t so. !!SHOCK!!
Pretty soon, you’re gonna tell me the cops lied to get the warrant on Ryan Frederick’s home as well.
Another tip o’ the hat to Radley…
Quick. Name all the politicians you can think of who made a campaign promise to hold cops accountable for abuses of power.
It’d be very surprising if that’s the only thing they lied about.
the end justifies the means- ‘whatever it takes’. Testilying is part of fighting the good fight.
Training Day.
Cops don’t think they owe us anything, be it respect for our rights or even the truth. We wouldn’t understand, we haven’t been “out there,” putting our lives on the line to protect all of us ungrateful bastards from the horrors of consensual behavior. After all, cops are the ones who protect our rights, so they have every right to ignore them. “There are two kinds of people in the world, cops and assholes.”
Anslinger would be proud.
I guess, according to AC Jordan, we can coin a new phrase:
the little blue lie! However cops are the only ones allowed to use it.
Nothing to see here.Now,if they were lying about using drugs to play sports,that, would warrant federal jail time.
Man, I cannot believe in this day and age of security for liberty that these poor cops, who already know these guys have drugs in their homes, have to even be bothered by going to a judge for a search warrant. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of law enforcement doesn’t it?
I agree. In fact, I think it could be taken a step further. The city could just send out arrest notices with utility bills instructing citizens where to report to serve their time. It would cut through the crap, eliminating all the bureacracy of courts and cops. I mean why should the taxpayers be burdened with the cost of having to investigate criminals? Just skip that crap. Everyone will eventually have to do time, so no criminals will escape punishment.
Oakland has a bunch of thugs and drug dealers trying to destroy the city and an under staffed police department. Don’t blame the police only.
The Oakland Police are only required to have a GED before taking their basic training, which I believe takes around six months, and upon graduation immediately start making 70,000 dollars a year.
And They’re not understaffed, just that they like to consider themselves understaffed if they have anything less than the maximum number of officers allowable by the city. Last year, I remember reading that the police chief was trying to delegate many responsibilities, such as crime scene investigation and routine calls, to trained civilians (who would probably do a better job for less money), but of course the police union wouldn’t stand for it.
#15 | Dave Krueger-
I’m trying to schedule my incarceration around the Christmas holidays, so I don’t have to do all the shopping nonsense…
If we provide our financial information, they could just debit the fines for civil violations on a monthly basis, so we wouldn’t even have to bother with it. Oh wait, we already do that- they just call it ‘taxes’.
I like your thinking on this, Dave. Anything we can do to make govt more efficient is a benefit to all of us!
with all his outstanding social commentaries, dramas, and comedies, I can’t believe Spike Lee hasn’t chimed in on these issues. Cory Maye or Kathryn Johnson would be perfect for him to look at. He could paint the system in a way that people would want to look at it closer, instead of like the stoner comedies, where the satire usually is forgotten as soon as the movie’s over.
No knock warrants, corrupt cops, innocent people’s lives destroyed, families left devastated, decent cops trying to do their jobs and getting killed, over-aggressive prosecutors, scumbag informants, and unsympathetic juries… how could he not make an amazing movie?
“Wherever the law is, crime can be found.”
(Solzhenitsyn — “Gulag”)
What really cracks me up is cops are NEVER charged with perjury, (In San Diego anyway) When a defense lawyer catches them lying the Judge dismisses the case and the minutes say “in the furtherance of justice.” If you want to confuse a judge really bad ask what letting a cop perjure himself in court and get away with it has to do with justice. Cops who lie under oath/color of authority should get ten times the jail time a regular citizen would for the same crime. DA’s who continue prosecuting a case once they’ve learned one of their cop witnesses is lying should get even more. It should also me a criminal offense for a DA not to charge a cop with perjury if he becomes aware of the fact, But hey, perjury is a crime of moral turpitude, which would preclude them from working in law enforcement, so maybe that isn’t such a good idea because we wouldn’t have any cops left.
NOTE to Christian cops. Don’t worry Jesus says it’s OK for cops to lie