TheAgitator.com
Video of Rogue Philly Narcotics Unit in Action
Monday, April 6th, 2009A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a rogue narcotics unit within the Philadelphia police department that was terrorizing grocery stores owned by immigrants. All of the raided store owners told a similar story: The unit raided under the pretense that the stores were selling small plastic bags commonly used by drug dealers to package narcotics. The cops then disconnected the stores’ security cameras. Once the cameras were disconnected, they then looted the stores of snack food, cigarettes, and cash. According to store owners, the official police reports often underreported the amount of cashed seized from the stores.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has since published accounts of more raids. And the Philadelphia Daily News has posted video from one of the raids (embed doesn’t seem to be working, but you can watch at the link, or read the transcript here). The officers seem particularly concerned about whether the video from the cameras can be viewed outside the store, and where the video is stored. In the story from last month, at least one store owner told the Daily News that the police returned to his store in a second raid solely to confiscate the computer that hosted the video of them disconnecting the video cameras during the first raid. These cops obviously didn’t want a video record of what they were doing, at least one they couldn’t confiscate.
According to press accounts, the warrants weren’t obtained to search for actual illicit drugs, but merely for the open sale of plastic zip-lock bags, which aren’t illegal by themselves, and have perfectly legitimate uses. It’s a ridiculous law that requires mind reading on the part of investigators—the bags become illegal to sell only once the merchant suspects his customer might use them for illegal purposes. (It’s the same odd concept of criminality that led to the bizarre arrests of several dozen Indian convenience store workers in Georgia in 2005.)
Meanwhile, the head of this particular narcotics unit, Officer Jeffrey Cujdik, is coming under fire in other cases, too. One of his longtime informants has come forward to say Cujdik routinely lied on warrant affidavits and police reports, including describing controlled drug buys that never happened. One of those cases resulted in a botched raid on Lady Gonzalez, who alleges one of Cujdik’s officers sexually assaulted her during the raid.
Cujdik has since been stripped of his gun and badge, but he remains on paid desk duty.
This has all the telltale signs of an isolated incident.
What do you want to bet somebody somewhere is coming up with a law making it illegal to have an off-site record of your security cams?
Who wants to bet that if some of these pigs had been shot dead as armed robbers (which they literally were, under the color of authority) that most of their brethren would have been outraged that they’d been attacked, not outraged that they engaged in the behavior which got them shot?
Philly cops aren’t looking too good lately. Here’s another one: http://tinyurl.com/c6ell7
A cop with a history of thuggish behavior handcuffs a state rep for protesting when he sees the cop acting like a thug.
What these stores (or any other stores, for that matter) need now is a redundant micro-camera circuit, preferably with wireless transmission to an off-site computer. A few hundred bucks may be a lot for the owners, but I’d contribute if those cameras caught a few cops in action, causing at least embarrassment for the city, if nothing more.
Every store owner should have visible security cams, and then backup video and audio that no one knows about. You know, to protect them from police.
On another note, i wish drug dealers would go on a concentrated crusade to get as many nonsensical things banned as they can. We are all already suspects if we want some Sudafed or a sandwich bag. I wonder what other creative ideas the dealers could come up with that our moronic ‘leaders’ would then make illegal.
1.) They could buy packages of cheap pens or markers and put the drugs inside those. Then we could ban pens!
2.) Freezer pops! Buy them, poor out the liquid to get the long, empty tube, and put the drugs in there!
3.) Tampon Applicators! Ban ‘em.
4.) Regular business envelopes!
It could be great to see just how innocent and daily-use an item the drug dealers could get banned…and get cops arresting people for.
And then, take all the people convicted of selling these everyday items…and put them on the sex offender registry! Why? If you have to ask, you are probably a frickin’ commie!
I can’t believe a cop would “routinely lie”.
That would mean he had no respect for the law or due process. It would mean most of his buddies would have to at least tolerate it if not be willing co-conspirators. I would mean a lot of innocent people would be hurt. It would mean a lot of people had put their faith in someone not worthy of it. It would mean he was out of control and lacked supervision. It would mean the guy is a worthless scum sucking pile of shit.
That just doesn’t happen in America.
Seeing that they use a knife to disconnect the camera, the solution to this problem is clear. All convenience store cameras should have a dummy wire that is actually a high voltage line connected directly to the grid.
It could be great to see just how innocent and daily-use an item the drug dealers could get banned…and get cops arresting people for.
You know, I’d trust a drug dealer more than the vast majority of “upstanding” cops. My reasoning for this is simple: I know what the drug dealer wants. He wants profit, preferably large, and to keep the cops away. I haven’t got a clue as to the cops intentions.
I’m sure they’ll be punished to the same degree as civilians who committed armed robbery and kidnapping with conspiracy charges to boot.
Or maybe even a little more, since, you know, cops are held to a higher standard.
This is all very telling about how conditioned society is.
We have video evidence of actual crime. Multiple witnesses, a common MO.
Only the police could get away with an “investigation” that goes nowhere.
At least these productive members of society, the convenience store owners, were robbed by heroes.
For almost all my life, I’ve considered the statement, “we’re turning into a police state” to be bullshit hippie talk.
But FFS, the citizenry now needs surveillance cameras to protect itself from the police, and lawyers to protect itself from the lawmakers.
Oh yeah… these are just isolated incidents. I keep forgetting.
“Rogue” it’s not rogue behavior, it’s the Philly PD SOP.
Hippies are right about a lot of things, Mister DNA. Pot, lots of sex (especially right about this one), tie-dye goes with every decade, and cops are fucking tools.
Please keep us updated because I REALLY want to hear the justification for cutting security cameras.
Oh, and if I ever get arrested for armed robbery I expect to keep drawing a paycheck while they take years to “investigate”.
Look out Detroit…Philly wants it’s title back!
This reminds me of that movie pride and glory where they literally do the same thing, they shake down store owners, among other misdeeds, but get busted when one of the store owners pulls a gun out and shoots them.
Why do these parasites have their faces blurred out? Can someone get a copy of the original and post their faces? Citizens need to know to stay far away from these thugs.
Bill +1: great point. Any bank robber has their pictures plastered over the evening news, as does any perp: just look at Ryan Frederick. Why do the police get special attention?
Ktc+1 too: the “rogue”/”few bad apples” sounds like the BS we heard about Abu Ghreib, when it went all the way to the top.
A couple additional details: The cops based their P.C. for the warrant based on an alleged buy of the bags an “informant” made earlier the day of the raid. The tapes show no such purchase was made that day. Also, listen to the cops ask him about his vehicle and then talk about searching it. Do you think the warrant covered the vehicle?
This is a clear violation of Miranda as well. The owner is clearly in custody (cuffs) and is being asked many poentially-incriminting questions (have any illegal drgs here?) yet no rights are read.
This may sounds nit-picky, but actually it’s actually another great piece of evidence that this was in no way a legit police operation; cops know the Miranda thing very well in my experience, and wouldn’t have risked it if they were really investigating. It’s great to sorta feel the cops’s balls tightening as they realize the camera feeds to the guys house.
You all are completely overreacting. A recent internal investigation cleared all officers involved of any wrongdoing. You owe them an apology.
Miranda? MIRANDA?!?!?!? Philly cops laugh in your face if you mention it. I don’t think too many of them even know what it is. You have to live in Philly to believe how arrogant and nasty the cops are here.
Balko, you’re a hero. Keep exposing these criminals.
I find it highly interesting that when a confidential informant makes statements against police, he is called a “professional liar,” but he is a trusted source when it comes to obtaining warrants. The hypocrisy in this so called “drug war” is rampant, top to bottom.
I’m sorry but why the hell isn’t this all over the evening news? Why won’t the media ever cover this? What a fucking joke American journalism is.
JS,
Personally, I’m grateful that the broadcast news isn’t covering this stuff. Could you imagine what it would be like if Glenn Beck covered these types of stories? There’d be some sort of lizard people/Illuminati angle to his reporting, I’m sure.
The worst offenders are the clowns on CNN’s Headline News. I’ll give Robin Meade a pass because she’s hot and relatively inoffensive, but Mike Galanos, Jane Velez Mitchell and Nancy Grace operate on one speed: self-righteous indignation. Nancy Grace doesn’t give a fuck about due process or civil rights, so why should she care if some immigrant shopkeepers are getting robbed and beaten by cops?
Until cops start shooting Caucasian babies instead of dogs, the media will keep reporting that all cops are heroes who are keeping us safe from the threat of small plastic baggies.
Mister DNA, I know what you’re saying, especially about idiots like Nancy Grace, but damn, what happened to ABC, CBS or any of those? What about the NYT or Washington Post? The country’s going to hell and those idiots are busy covering everything but this. Maybe I’m just naive. When this country’s history is written one of the stories will be that their free press became a mouthpiece for those in authority and after that nobody dared hold the government and it’s thugs accountable.
JS, you’ve already answered half of your own questions, but I’d submit that the laziness engendered by the over-reliance – and downright coziness – many so-called journalists have with their primary sources of information has effectively gelded most of them. They don’t want to upset that easy ride.
True investigation is so tiring, don’t you know? it’s such a chore, you see? It’s soooooo much easier to sweep crumbs off the nice policeman’s blotter rather than have to root about in the muck. Especially when that muck leaves a slime trail under the front doors of your ‘friends’ precinct house.
nemo you’re right too. It’s a shame. Unless there’s some really good and clear footage they’re just too lazy and complacent to do actual investigation.
I agree with nemo – they’re just too lazy to actually go out and get the story. The other issue, as we saw recently here, is that they don’t want to actually say anything bad about law enforcement because, if they do, law enforcement will quit spoon-feeding them stories. And, at that point, they’ll have no choice but to perform actual journalism.
Just a guess, but at this point it’s unlikely that any of them have the staff to actually go out and cover all the stories that they print.
#17 | Bill |
‘Citizens need to know to stay far away from these thugs.’
all you have to do is look for anything labeled ‘police’ and stay away. from the beginning, narcotics and undercover units have been corrupt- there has NEVER been a legitimate reason for this style of policing.
“wyatt earp” at supportyourlocalgunfighter.com is a Philly cop.
Maybe we should ask him to comment.
I’m seeing a business opportunity here for off-site internet based backups. :D
not as funny as these Twitter Cops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIWjInz8fqA
[...] By The Agitator [...]
[...] The Agitator » Blog Archive » Video of Rogue Philly Narcotics Unit in Action. Police State, The War On [...]