TheAgitator.com
Federal Judge Says NYPD Plagued by “Widespread Falsification by Arresting Officers”
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009In refusing to dismiss a lawsuit against New York City brought by two brothers arrested on trumped-up drug charges, Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein had some harsh words for the city’s police department. From the NY Daily News:
“Informal inquiry by [myself] and among the judges of this court, as well as knowledge of cases in other federal and state courts … has revealed anecdotal evidence of repeated, widespread falsification by arresting officers of the New York City Police Department,” Weinstein wrote.
He said that while the vast majority of cops don’t engage in crooked practices, it was common enough to be an institutional problem.
The judge said that despite better training for recruits and tough disciplinary action for bad cops, “there is some evidence of an attitude among officers that is sufficiently widespread to constitute a custom or policy by the city approving illegal conduct.”
Maximo and Jose Colon were arrested and jailed last January for participating in a drug deal with undercover officers at a Brooklyn bar. They were released—and the officers who arrested them were later indicted—when surveillance video showed the arresting officers fabricated the entire drug deal. From an A.P. story on the case last June:
Jose quickly got the tape to defense attorney Rochelle Berliner, a former narcotics prosecutor. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“I almost threw up,” she said. “Because I must’ve prosecuted 1,500, 2,000 drug cases … and all felonies. And I think back, Oh my God, I believed everything everyone told me. Maybe a handful of times did something not sound right to me. I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic but I was like, sick.”
What the tape doesn’t show is striking: At no point did the brothers interact with the undercover officers, nor did the brothers appear to be involved in a drug deal with anyone else. Adding insult to injury, an outside camera taped the undercover officers literally dancing down the street.
If it weren’t the tape, the Colons would probably still be in prison.
The Colons’ lawsuit argues the incident is one of many, brought about in part by arrest quotas imposed on officers by the NYPD.
To the surprised judge and defense attorney: “Hey, welcome to the party! Thanks for waking up! Now do something about it!”
He said that while the vast majority of cops don’t engage in crooked practices, it was common enough to be an institutional problem.
Amazing how you keep hearing about how the “vast majority” of cops are not crooked, every single goddamn fucking time they find corrupt cops.
The judge said that despite better training for recruits and tough disciplinary action for bad cops, “there is some evidence of an attitude among officers that is sufficiently widespread to constitute a custom or policy by the city approving illegal conduct.”
Tough disciplinary action? What’s this guy been smokin’? The reason it’s widespread is because their isn’t any disciplinary action.
I know most people are against this, but this is EXACTLY why I support more surveilance cameras. Anyone else remember the story about the NYC cop who beat up a guy on a bike for no reason? What about the dude in Newark who kept getting harrased by the cops (and they even took his video tapes) until he mounted a hidden camera that taped off-site?
Most places have some low-def surveilance, true, but I think there should be more, and with a higher quality. Cameras and equipment is pretty cheap now and a business would do well to install a few of them, and spend an extra $1,000, to ensure that everything is documented properly on video.
I get sick every time I read the “sick” quote from their defense attorney. She’s admitting that she was too stupid to do any rudimentary checking as a prosecutor to see if the people who’s lives she was ruining had actually done the crime. Or, she was maliciously prosecuting innocents and is now lying. Neither possibility is reflects well on her, but at least she’s admitting it.
Obviously most of the people she prosecuted did the crime, but out of 1500-2000 there were plenty who didn’t.
If there is one single issue worth dedicating one’s life to, it is ending the drug war.
But, but, but … cops never completely fabricate data! This is an isolated incident! This is just another example, and a very clear one at that, of how you can be doing NOTHING wrong and the cops will make shit up just to get their rocks off and generate revenue, knowing full well that they’re likely to have no consequences, and knowing that the system will believe them over you.
How many completely innocent people have had their lives tainted, if not destroyed, by an incident like this? How many are partially guilty yet had a considerable amount of data fabricated against them? I would guess there are tens of millions that fit these criteria, whether they be alive/dead and/or “free”/jailed.
More surveillance by private individuals? Sounds good to me.
More surveillance by the government? No thanks.
I’m surprised the cops’ unions haven’t proposed laws making all surveillance tapes property of the state.
Holy shit Don! Don’t give them ideas! The fact that they’re too stupid to have ideas is the only edge we have.
This is why one of the main planks of the libertarian movement needs to be opening up the Grand Jury system to private individuals. When defense attorneys can legally file charges before a Grand Jury for perjury, and the prosecutors have to defend the police, it’ll start to change.
ktc2 “Holy shit Don! Don’t give them ideas! The fact that they’re too stupid to have ideas is the only edge we have.”
lol man you been on a roll lately!
I have argued the judges and prosecutors are overly credulous when it comes to the police. I’ve argued that they should start from a position where each side could be equally likely of telling the truth or not.
Nando: In the UK, at least, they always seem to have trouble finding the tapes of the incident if police misconduct is involved.
Steve Verdon,
We are supposed to have this: an adversarial court system with a presumption of innocence for the accused. Shit just doesn’t work that way in real life.
The dancing done the street things is what gets me. It’s also what I took away from one of those “cop” shows. I was in the UK for a couple of weeks and they have one of those “Customs Cops” shows, and one of the people they followed was the guy in charge of seizing undeclared money. The interesting part is that the money sniffing dog found cash on a Thai lady returning home. She was a little evasive about it, and they kept digging. Turns out the women had like 17000 lbs on her tied up in bundles in her luggage. Now the customs guys are getting excited. Really questioning her hard. Really going at where’s this money from, where’d you get it, etc… she isn’t really answering other than to say “it’s mine”. So the cops are in the process of seizing all the cahs. For some reason, she finally remembers she has a bank book. Pulls it out. It shows that money came from her account. So she gets to go free with the cash.
The sick part is the quote from the agent as she gets on the plane. “I thought we were going to get to seize some cash. It sucks having it torn out of your hands like that” paraphrase, but his quote amounted to his disappointment that he didn’t get to seize the money. It wasn’t “well we did our job, she proved it was hers, and she’s free to go.” It was very much ” I can’t believe that moeny got away” regardless of whether they actually deserved to seize it.
This is the mentality that is out there now, and it’s why civil forfeiture is so rife for abuse.
I’ll say it again: There is no such thing as a good cop. If such shenanigans are so prevalent, all the cops know about it, yet they do nothing.
There is no such thing as a good cop. Period. Done. End of story.
Nando,
I’d say I agree their should be more video, but your putting the burden on the wrong party. That police actions aren’t video taped is certainly a problem but it shouldn’t be upto private citizens to videotape all police actions. An always on video camera should be part of any law enforcement officers uniform. Any undercover operation without video or audio tape should be tossed as there is no way to determine who is telling the truth in a he said/she said situation.
With the ubiquity/low price of recording equipment would it really be so awful to make cops record everything they do? That way, every crime would be documented on video/audio. Without the tape, no convictions.
Cops always manage to lose or misplace recoded evidence of their wrong doings. Or just take it away from a private citizen when they want to. Trusting the government to police itself hasn’t proven very effective.
I don’t understand why civil rights activists aren’t more vocal about these things. Did that just die off with the rest of the hippie movement?
Mattocracy “I don’t understand why civil rights activists aren’t more vocal about these things. Did that just die off with the rest of the hippie movement?
Yea thats what I always wonder about too. Also why is the stuff Radley reports so regularly not on the evening news? Why don’t the media get as outraged by all this as they do over Tiger Woods refusing to talk to the police?
Could it be that the media is part of the problem and are controlled propaganda, and also operate on the premise of “sex/garbage” sells (not sure what it sells)? I don’t see how anyone can believe that the media, year after year after year, spews non-important data and it’s because that is “what the people want”.
I think you’re right BamBam. I wish Radley would get his own show. They gave that douchebag Huckabee a show. Why can’t they give Radley a show?
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 12/2/2009, at The Unreligious Right
[...] Federal Judge Says NYPD Plagued by “Widespread Falsification by Arresting Officers” – With great power has to come great responsibility. Remember this next time you hear about some slam-dunk criminal case (not to mention the next time someone blames the problems with the criminal justice system on lawyers and “liberal judges”). [...]
Well at least he made it clear that it does go on, check out some more stories of the whole dirty system here,
http://www.dirtbadge.com/
Now now Dave, if we assume vast majority to mean 80%, which is obviously more than a simple majority or supermajority, that still means 1 in 5 cops are corrupt. In reality it’s probably lower than that as well when averaged out among all cops.
All cops are corrupt. Period.
By the way, I am using the word “corrupt” to mean morally corrupt. Of course most cops aren’t “corrupt” in the professional sense. In fact, very, very few of them are. Busting into innocent people’s (or nonviolent “criminals’”) houses, breaking their shit, shooting their dogs and terrorizing them; killing Good Samaritan pastors and then covering their asses; tasing 10-year-old girls; falsifying evidence and coercing confessions; highway robbery… that’s all morally corrupt stuff. But it’s not professionally corrupt for cops – it’s all just part of what their job IS. You know. They were following all the proper procedures.
So yeah, the vast majority of cops are good cops, in the same sense as hit men who take out their contracts efficiently are good hit men.
Is there even one police department anywhere in this country that does not have a “blue line” for its police officers? What that means is that police men will a-l-w-a-y-s lie under oath to protect fellow police officers from any kind of outside criticism or punishment or discipline. And the magistrates will rubber stamp the police officers’ lies under oath.
The “criminal justice system” of this country is itself criminal. The situation is so monstrous that nothing short of a bloody revolution can correct it.
review items #59, 63, 64, and 65 on my website, to see my response to these creeps. You have no idea to what extreme they will go to screw the public. I hate cops with a passion. I’ve never been guilty of any crime, but I’ve been harrassed by the police since 1944, just so they can prove they’ve got balls. The cops in California confiscate about $2 Billion a year, from citizens, bragging that they have a right to that money, that we are such suckers, that the cops deserve it. Since 99% of our money already tests positive for drugs, they have a dog sniff your money, and it’s theirs. Aren’t you proud that we have someone to Protect and Serve us. Don’t you dare tape cops doing wrong, they will bust you for interferring with the performance of their duties, and bash you, and confiscate your cameras.
It is against the law to demand honest cops? Are you ready to stop this, or will you continue to surrender your rights? Patriot or Coward?
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