The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.
From [HERE] and [HERE] It was a routine drug arrest in one of Baltimore’s more troubled neighborhoods. But it has become a flash point sparked by video from one of the officer’s body cameras.
The public defender’s office looked at the video and contended it showed an officer planting evidence in a trash-strewn alley.
Baltimore police countered with a more complicated explanation. They are investigating whether the officer had legitimately found drugs but, realizing he had forgotten to turn on his body camera, reconstructed his find. His body camera captured both him hiding the drugs and then finding them. Authorities said that would be improper but would not be an effort to make a false arrest of an innocent citizen. [It would also be improper to use such fake video to convict someone of a felony!]
The video led prosecutors to drop the felony drug case against a suspect who had been jailed for nearly six months. Baltimore police said one officer has been suspended and two others were placed on desk duty amid an internal investigation.
One officer has been suspended and two others have been placed on administrative duty, police said. Police said they have not reached any conclusions as to the conduct depicted in the video. Other cases in which the officers are involved are now under review as well, police and prosecutors said.
The case is among the latest to show the challenges faced by the growing number of police agencies whose officers wear cameras, including questions of when officers should start and stop recording, and how much discretion they should be given. [huh? stop & start the public's cameras?]
The public defender’s office, which released the footage, said it was recorded by an officer during a drug arrest in January. It shows the officer placing a soup can, which holds a plastic bag, into a trash-strewn lot.
That portion of the footage was recorded automatically, before the officer activated the camera. After placing the can, the officer walks to the street, and flips his camera on.
“I’m gonna go check here,” the officer says. He returns to the lot and picks up the soup can, removing the plastic bag, which is filled with white capsules.
Police cameras have a feature that saves the 30 seconds of video before activation, but without audio. When the officer is first in the alley, there is no audio for the first 30 seconds.
The public defender’s office flagged the video for prosecutors last week, prompting prosecutors to drop the heroin possession charge against the man arrested.
The man, unable to post $50,000 bail, had been in jail since January, according to attorney Deborah Levi, who is leading a new effort to track police misconduct cases for the public defender’s office.
Levi said prosecutors called the officer just days later as a witness in another case — without disclosing the allegations of misconduct on the officer’s part to the defense attorney in that case.
“You can’t try a case with that guy and not tell anyone about it,” Levi said.
Return to Article