Prosecutors Say Corruption in Atlanta Police Dept. Is Widespread

From the NY Times [HERE] 

By SHAILA DEWAN and BRENDA GOODMAN

ATLANTA, April 26 — After the fatal police shooting of an elderly woman in a botched drug raid, the United States attorney here said Thursday that prosecutors were investigating a “culture of misconduct” in the Atlanta Police Department.

In court documents, prosecutors said Atlanta police officers regularly lied to obtain search warrants and fabricated documentation of drug purchases, as they had when they raided the home of the woman, Kathryn Johnston, in November, killing her in a hail of bullets.

Narcotics officers have admitted to planting marijuana in Ms. Johnston’s home after her death and submitting as evidence cocaine they falsely claimed had been bought at her house, according to the court filings.

Two of the three officers indicted in the shooting, Gregg Junnier and Jason R. Smith, pleaded guilty on Thursday to state charges including involuntary manslaughter and federal charges of conspiracy to violate Ms. Johnston’s civil rights.

“Former officers Junnier and Smith will also help us continue our very active ongoing investigation into just how wide the culture of misconduct that led to this tragedy extends within the Atlanta Police Department,” said David Nahmias, the United States attorney.

Asked how widespread such practices might be, Mr. Nahmias said investigators were looking at narcotics officers, officers who had once served in the narcotics unit and “officers that had never been in that unit but may have adopted that practice.”

The investigation has already led to scrutiny of criminal cases involving the indicted officers and others who may have used similar tactics. Paul Howard, the Fulton County district attorney, said his office was reviewing at least 100 cases involving the three officers, including 10 in which defendants were in jail.

If they continue to cooperate, Mr. Junnier, who retired after the shooting, faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and Mr. Smith, who resigned Thursday, faces 12 years.

The third officer, Arthur Tesler, declined a plea deal. He was indicted on charges of violation of oath by a public officer, making false statements and false imprisonment under color of legal process.

Mr. Tesler’s lawyer, John Garland, said his client was following his training when he put false claims in an affidavit.

Mr. Nahmias took a moment to dwell on what he said was the unusual nature of the officers’ offenses.

“The officers charged today were not corrupt in the sense that we have seen before,” he said. “They are not accused of seeking payoffs or trying to rob drug dealers or trying to protect gang members. Their goal was to arrest drug dealers and seize illegal drugs, and that’s what we want our police officers to do for our community.

“But these officers pursued that goal by corrupting the justice system, because when it was hard to do their job the way the Constitution requires, they let the ends justify their means.”

Mr. Nahmias said the statement in the plea agreement that officers cut corners in order to “be considered productive officers and to meet A.P.D.’s performance targets” reflected their perception of the department’s expectations.

The police chief, Richard Pennington, said that officers were not trained to lie and that they had no performance quotas. Two weeks ago, he announced changes to the narcotics squad, including increasing the unit’s size and more careful reviews of requests for so-called no-knock warrants like the one served on Ms. Johnston’s home.

“Let me assure you, if we find out any other officers have been involved in such egregious acts, they will be dealt with just as sternly as these other officers have been,” said Chief Pennington, who after the shooting asked for a review by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “I assure you that we will not tolerate any officers violating the law and mistreating our citizens in this city.”

The death of Ms. Johnston, whose age is listed variously as 88 or 92, outraged Atlantans, brought simmering discontent with police conduct toward residents to a boil and led to the creation of a civilian review board for the Police Department.

The day she was killed, narcotics officers said, they arrested a drug dealer who said he could tell them where to recover a kilogram of cocaine, and pointed out Ms. Johnston’s modest green-trimmed house at 933 Neal Street.

Instead of hiring an informant to try to buy drugs at the house, the officers filed for a search warrant, claiming that drugs had been bought there from a man named Sam. Because they falsely claimed that the house was equipped with surveillance equipment, they got a no-knock warrant that allowed them to break down the front door.

First, according to court papers, they pried off the burglar bars and began to ram open the door. Ms. Johnston, who lived alone, fired a single shot from a .38-caliber revolver through the front door and the officers fired back, killing her.

After the shooting, they handcuffed her and searched the house, finding no drugs.

“She was without question an innocent civilian who was caught in the worst circumstance imaginable,” Mr. Howard, the district attorney, said at a news conference on Thursday. “When we learned of her death, all of us imagined our own mothers and our own grandmothers in her place, and the thought made us shudder.”

When no drugs were found, the cover-up began in earnest, according to court papers.

Officer Smith planted three bags of marijuana, which had been recovered earlier in the day in an unrelated search, in the basement. He called a confidential informant and instructed him to pretend he had made the drug buy described in the affidavit for the search warrant.

The three officers, Mr. Junnier, Mr. Smith and Officer Tesler met to concoct a story before talking with homicide detectives, the court filings say.

Though the three met several more times, prosecutors said, Mr. Junnier admitted the truth in his first interview with F.B.I. agents. Mr. Smith at first lied about his role, but later admitted to the conspiracy.