Florida Deputy: Planting Evidence and Lying is Part of the Game

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Mandy Thompson: Dec 26, 2014; by zen death robot

A deputy at the Palm Beach County Sheriff�s Office tells about planting evidence, lying in reports and testimony under Sheriff Ric Bradshaw

http://dcpost.org/florida-law-officer-planting-evidence-lying-part-of-the-game-exclusive-interview/

quote:

One of the biggest defenses in contraband cases are that law enforcement officers planted evidence and lie to make their arrests. These cries from defendants are largely ignored by all parties involved, including the juries because of psychology. When it is the word of a defendant against the law enforcement officer, people have been conditioned to rely on the word of authority as truth. The question is, should this be the case?
One of our editors stumbled across a web site where local law enforcement deputies are free to post, and do so with 100% anonymity. In this web site, they exchange tactical information, procedural tips and methods to use to gain compliance of subjects or to arrest them for being difficult.

One such post, titled �Tricks of the trade � let�s exchange!� was started by a deputy who wrote,

�I have a method for getting people off the street that should not be there. Mouthy drivers, street lawyers, assholes and just anyone else trying to make my job difficult. Under my floor mat, I keep a small plastic dime baggie with Cocaine in residue. Since it�s just residue, if it is ever found during a search of my car like during an inspection, it�s easy enough to explain. It must have stuck to my foot while walking through San Castle. Anyways, no one�s going to question an empty baggie. The residue is the key because you can fully charge some rear end in a top hat with possession of cocaine, heroin, or whatever just with the residue. How to get it done? �I asked Mr. DOE for his identification. And he pulled out his wallet, I observed a small plastic baggie fall out of his pocket�� You get the idea. easy, right? Best part is, those baggies can be found lots of places so you can always be ready. Don�t forget to wipe the baggie on the persons skin after you arrest them because you want their DNA on the bag if they say you planted it or fight it in court.�

This revelation started off a wave of other postings on what police officers do to put people in jail. This includes planting evidence and falsifying official reports used to lock suspects up. We left a post asking for the original poster to contact us anonymously and if certain conditions were met, we would interview him. We were contacted by a person, who we will refer to as Joe Deputy. Joe provided us evidence proving his law enforcement status and employment through the Palm Beach County Sheriff�s Office. He has been employed as a law enforcement officer for in excess of 15 years. He agreed to speak with us on the condition of anonymity, the condition we don�t ask him about anything he�s done directly, and referring to him by an alias, which we agreed to do.

Jeffery Schultz: You posted about arresting people for drugs that they didn�t have. Does planting evidence like this take place at the Palm Beach County Sheriff�s Office?

Deputy Sheriff: Um, yes it does, on a regular basis. Probably every day in my shift. I work nights on the Road Patrol in a rough, um, mostly black neighborhood. Planting evidence and lying in your reports are just part of the game.

Jeffery Schultz: �Did you observe with some frequency this � this practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?�

Deputy Sheriff: Yes, all the time. It is something I see a lot of, whether it was from deputies, supervisors or undercovers and even investigators. It�s almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they�re going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway. One of the consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured to make large numbers of arrests, and it�s easy for some of the less honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war inevitably leads to crooked policing � and quotas further incentivize such practices. It doesn�t help that your higherups all did the same thing when they were on the road. It�s like a neverending cycle. Like how molested children accept that as okay behavior and begin molesting children themselves.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw gives the nod to deputies and other law enforcement agents of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office to falsify reports and planting evidence on suspects.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, under fire for many cover ups and controversies in his agency
Jeffery Schultz: Is this taught in your training academy?

Deputy Sheriff: It is not a part of the course work, but many of the Field Training officers give life lessons in how to stay out of trouble or how to stay ahead of a suspect when it comes to planting evidence or writing your reports. My training officer, who is no longer at the Sheriff�s Office, would keep narcotics and a gun in his car in case he needed to put pressure on a suspect. We also regularly review the facts before writing our reports to make sure our reports match the facts as we present them. By doing this, we can present them in any way we want.

Jeffery Schultz: Has anyone ever been caught doing this? If so, what have your top bosses done about it?

Deputy Sheriff: Top bosses? It�s a joke, right?

Jeffery Schultz: No, why do you say that?

Deputy Sheriff: Our top boss, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, supports this behavior and has for his entire career. As with anything, it depends on who you know in our agency. Last year, we had three deputies on the TAC unit, Kevin Drummond and Jarrod Foster, get caught falsifying information for a warrant. They got a pat on the back for a job well done. Just recently, we had a deputy, I think his name was Booth. He was caught completely lying on a car crash. Back a few more years, our Sheriff was involved a massive coverup of the death of two black deputies. He hid the report for years. This is only the beginning. The Sheriff has been involved in falsification of documents and his underling, Chief Deputy Michael Gauger, has been personally involved in an overtime scandal to steal money from the Sheriff�s Office. Does our Sheriff know about this behavior? Of course he does. We have even had a judge outright accuse my agency of committing fraud upon the court in a public hearing. She was one of the ones who saw through all the lying and covering up our department does to get away with the internal crime committed by deputies on a regular basis.

Jeffery Schultz: What about planting evidence? Does Sheriff Bradshaw support that also?

Deputy Sheriff: Look, what you have to realize is that you do this at your own risk. Most supervisors look the other way, but occasionally some will not. Then what are you going to do if that supervisor writes a memo to IA? It�s better just to keep it to yourself and your road patrol partners or unit partners. It is not something we advertise because we have some supervisors that are angels and don�t have what it takes to do the job. Besides, we don�t brag about what we do because you don�t want those rumors out there. Still, Sheriff Bradshaw was caught a few years back ordering detectives to falsify evidence to implicate a black man in a robbery. This is why when his deputies do get caught in the middle of a scandal like planting evidence or lying on reports, he generally looks the other way and instructs Internal Affairs to sweep it under the run, unless he doesn�t like you.

Jeffery Schultz: You have proof of this?

Deputy Sheriff: It was testimony by his own chief. His own chief made this admission, in addition to making the admission Sheriff Bradshaw used to steal firearms from the evidence room. It was always speculated guns he would steal these were to plant on suspects.

Jeffery Schultz: So, planting of evidence, is this prevalent in law enforcement agencies?

Deputy Sheriff: I can�t speak for other agencies really, because I have been, you know, with the same agency from the very beginning. We have had guys come work here from new places and they always had new creative ways to get things done. So I suppose yeah, it is common everywhere. Our agency is, um, we are being sued for it right now. It will never make it to court though. There is a cap on what you can win from a law enforcement agency of $200k but our Sheriff, well, he regularly settles out of court for much more than that. It is a way to keep the misdeeds of his deputies from ever reaching the light of day. You know, because these settlements, they are all confidential. I could on�y imagine how many millions are paid out in confidential settlements every year. The taxpayer would cry I am sure.

Jeffery Schultz: Get things done?

Deputy Sheriff: Yes. Sometimes we have a guy running his mouth. Or, um, Sometimes we get a tricky situation where no one has broken the law but you know if you leave, well, you will know you just be right back trying to resolve the problem, like at domestic despute. It happens all the time and you can�t force either party to leave but you know violence is imminent after you turn around and go. Well, and then sometimes we get a guy who keeps getting off but we know is guilty for something so deputies get things done. They might find a baggie of narcotics on the suspect and take him in. It�s done every day here and no one asks questions. We get complaints to IA on it all the time but they always make it go away. It�s a team effort and like they say, you can beat the rap, but you can�t beat the ride.�

Jeffery Schultz: You mentioned specifically �implicating a black person.� Does your agency target based on race?

Deputy Sheriff: I wouldn�t say target based on race but is is, you know, um, it is much easier to do this on a black person because they have no credibility anyways. The charges stick better to blacks than to a rich white guy that can afford a lawyer. That is one school of thought. Then you still have the deputies who like doing it to the rich white guys because they say it removes the smug look from their faces. They get their kicks from the power like its a game. Most cops though, they, um� do it to get bad guys off the streets. The last group of deputies do it for personal gain.

Jeffery Schultz: Personal gain? Like what?

Deputy Sheriff: Sometimes a deputy will use the threat of planting, you know, dope on a person to get some cash or something from the perp. Uh, like a few hundred bucks can make the problem go away. It�s pretty rare but it happens. Usually it�s the deputies that live large and need supplemental income. They tend to keep it really quiet because that�s like, you know, really bad stuff. We even had a guy put the suspect in the back of his green and white [patrol car]to drive him to an ATM machine. We were all like �what the hell is he doing?� And another time a deputy arrested a guy for possession after he said he found the baggie on the guy�s floor board. Then he, um, he didn�t charge the guy in exchange for oral sex from the guy�s wife. I thought that was, you know, really wrong. Taking things just too far. Way to far. But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don�t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more.

Jeffery Schultz: This is terrible stuff they are doing. Just terrible.

Deputy Sheriff: Yes, um it can get pretty bad. Most of our deputies wouldn�t ever think of doing that or going that far but a few, you know, there are a few bad apples in every bunch.

Jeffery Schultz: You said �Beat the ride?� What does that mean?

Deputy Sheriff: Yes, it means you might be able to beat the charges against you but you can�t beat spending the night in jail or the trouble of going through the legal system.

Jeffery Schultz: But what about the innocent people? The ones who have had narcotics planted in their possession by a deputy who end up in jail because of it?

Deputy Sheriff: These people aren�t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don�t really interact with members of the law abiding public.

Jeffery Schultz: Are there any red flags that would indicate someone had been arrested for drugs they didn�t possess or that officers were planting evidence?

Deputy Sheriff: Not really. Planting evidence is done in such a way it can�t be disputed. Before we write our reports, we can review all the evidence. When our fellow deputies write their supplemental reports, they usually wait until the primary officer writes his report and then uses the facts from those reports. There is no independent recollection ever, and this is standard procedure everywhere. Chances are, if you are reading a police report, you are reading a well thought out, well-rehearsed story that has little in common with what actually took place.

Jeffery Schultz: How does this Sheriff keep his job? Don�t the people in your county become outraged?

Deputy Sheriff: The people in our county wear blinders. They don�t care what we do or if deputies are planting evidence as long as they keep believing the lie their crime is going down and they are protected. They only care about themselves and pretty much, that is fine with us. We get some of the highest salaries in the country, incredible benefits and cars that we can use for our personal use any time we want. No matter how bad our deputies think Sheriff Bradshaw is, money talks and as long as it keeps flowing into our bank accounts, we aren�t going to make any waves. And um, it is quite the opposite. Almost every civilian employee of the Sheriff�s Office who voluntarily worked on the Sheriff�s campaign got a nice, shiny unmarked county take home car they use when ever they want and gas paid for by the tax payer. We�re talking like 150 cars or something completely obscene like that. Who is going to want that to go away?

Deputy Joe went on to say how the leaders, at the Palm Beach County Sheriff�s Office, including Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, threatens street cops if they don�t make enough stop-and-frisk arrests, �but also tell them not to take certain robbery reports in order to manipulate crime statistics.� He continued, �Places like Wellington and Boca Raton and other places under contract need to show how the Sheriff�s Office reduces the crime and manipulation of the crime codes is an easy way to do it.� Joe also stated how command officers routinely call crime victims directly to intimidate them about their complaints.

It should be noted in addition to interviewing �Joe the Deputy,� we performed independent research and linked to documents and articles that support his claims. Be sure to check the included hyperlinks throughout the article.

NYPD got busted for something similar so this seems to be common among a lot of different departments. In addition to the injustice inherent in doing the deed, this behavior actually makes crime worse, regardless of what the manipulated statistics say. People in these communities know what the police do and they don't call the police when things happen because the police in this situation are just another gang. It creates resentment and hostility and even encourages violence against police.

It is really disappointing to me because I like and respect police. I used to want to become one. I've been helped by police in the past but then again I am a white woman. Most police get in to the job because they want to be a hero. The phrase "a few bad apples" gets tossed around without the full quote. "A few bad apples spoil the bunch. " As in a few bad apples corrupt the entire culture of the department. This is most certainly a failure of the leadership. Quotas are not the way to ensure police are not sitting around wasting time. Quotas are a way to guarantee police cut corners and crime goes unpunished.

Mandy Thompson fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Feb 21, 2015

# ? Feb 21, 2015 19:57

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 00:32

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

i live in palm beach county and the cops have never bothered me

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:05

Luigi Thirty: Apr 30, 2006; Emergency confection port.

poo poo, at least they actually brought them down when it happened here in the 90s.

quote:

Delta agents got a bogus search warrant for a Manatee County duplex and planted crack cocaine there. A woman visiting the home was arrested. As a result of her felony conviction, she lost custody of her child. Before her encounter with the Delta squad, she had no criminal record. Eventually, her conviction was overturned and her child was returned.

Delta officers conducted an illegal search of a Bradenton motel room and stole $9,000 from a man, who filed a complaint with the Sheriff's Office. Later, deputies planted crack cocaine in the man's car as retaliation for the complaint.

Delta agents routinely obtained search warrants based on lies: If drugs had been bought outside a house, Delta officers would say the buy had taken place inside the home and get a search warrant for the house.

The officers brought crack with them on busts. If they didn't find any in the homes or pockets of the people they were trying to arrest, they would plant it. Fabricating cases wasn't the only aim. The agents wanted to use seizure laws to take cars and other property from their victims.

Sometimes the agents would give crack cocaine to people who were helpful to their investigations.

One agent bragged that Delta operated under the "good old boy" system and didn't have to abide by rules to which other deputies were subjected.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:13

withak: Jan 15, 2003; Fun Shoe

Darkman Fanpage posted:

i live in palm beach county and the cops have never bothered me

White person spotted.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:14

Thundercracker: Jun 25, 2004; Proudly serving the Ruinous Powers since as a veteran of the long war.; College Slice

This is another thing body cams would really help with.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:30

PostNouveau: Sep 3, 2011; VY till I die; Grimey Drawer

Duh

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:33

tsa: Feb 3, 2014

quote:

But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don�t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more.

Huh, literally everyone having at least a little something to hide is an interesting take on the blue line problem. You make sure that no-one can come forward without incredible risk to their own well-being.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:36

Pohl: Jan 28, 2005; In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

withak posted:

White person spotted.

I got pulled over when I was 15 and racing and drunk. The cop told me to go home. I had like 8 people in the car.

Being white is great.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:38

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN: Jun 26, 2009

And another time a deputy arrested a guy for possession after he said he found the baggie on the guy’s floor board. Then he, um, he didn’t charge the guy in exchange for oral sex from the guy’s wife. I thought that was, you know, really wrong. Taking things just too far. Way to far. But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don’t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more.

But a few, you know, there are a few bad apples in every bunch.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:36

SpiderHyphenMan: Apr 1, 2010; by Fluffdaddy

I am so angry that I momentarily forgot about the existence of phones.

SpiderHyphenMan fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Feb 21, 2015

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:48

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Remember when arbitrary detention or being stopped and asked for your ~~papers~~ identification was considered the hallmark living in a police state?

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:17

Pope Guilty: Nov 6, 2006; The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

Well, it's, uh, nice to have this in the open, I guess.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:58

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

I'm not entirely sure "posting completely anonymously" means what they think it means.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:06

KiteAuraan: Aug 5, 2014; JER GEDDA FERDA RADDA ARA!

"Deputy Sheriff: These people aren�t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don�t really interact with members of the law abiding public." This is really telling as far as police attitudes go. Everyone they contact is scum, guilty and therefore sub-human. I've heard exactly these words from multiple LEOs on the other side of the country, it's a common attitude.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 08:37

Pohl: Jan 28, 2005; In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

KiteAuraan posted:

"Deputy Sheriff: These people aren�t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don�t really interact with members of the law abiding public." This is really telling as far as police attitudes go. Everyone they contact is scum, guilty and therefore sub-human. I've heard exactly these words from multiple LEOs on the other side of the country, it's a common attitude.

The job I qualify most for seems to be a cop or sheriff or whatever. My neighbor thinks I should apply for all the "cop" jobs so I could make a difference or change the system.
It has been 3 weeks and I'm still loving laughing.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 08:55

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

katlington posted:

And another time a deputy arrested a guy for possession after he said he found the baggie on the guy’s floor board. Then he, um, he didn’t charge the guy in exchange for oral sex from the guy’s wife. I thought that was, you know, really wrong. Taking things just too far. Way to far. But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don’t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more.

But a few, you know, there are a few bad apples in every bunch.

"Using a baggie to extort money or sexual favors is totally out of line, but arresting them because they're guilty of being black? That's A-Okay!" Seriously, American police are some of the worst examples of humanity in first-world society. I'm sad that the reporter didn't immediately say the full "One bad apple spoils the bunch". I mean, gee, if only they didn't have a system of planting evidence that was fully supported by the higher-ups that was used on a regular basis, maybe police wouldn't be able to use said system for personal gain.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 13:00

peengers: Jun 6, 2003; toot toot

KiteAuraan posted:

"Deputy Sheriff: These people aren�t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don�t really interact with members of the law abiding public." This is really telling as far as police attitudes go. Everyone they contact is scum, guilty and therefore sub-human. I've heard exactly these words from multiple LEOs on the other side of the country, it's a common attitude.

My wife and I have problems with a neighbor that's former LEO that decided he didn't like us living next door. The fact that we have him on camera committing vandalism and doing poo poo like throwing nails in our driveway means nothing because he worked under the current sheriff. In the past when we were naive we called the police to make reports, and the officer would shrug and say "well I didn't see it happen" and when video is shown it's "well it's not obvious it's him" and they don't take a report and then go across the street to catch up on old times with their old buddy. And I hear exactly that when I mention it to other LEO, "you must have done something."

And that's what opened my eyes to law enforcement. Neither my wife or I trust police, talk to police, or call police when there's a problem.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 13:35

treasured8elief: Jul 25, 2011; Salad Prong

Randalor posted:

"Using a baggie to extort money or sexual favors is totally out of line, but arresting them because they're guilty of being black? That's A-Okay!" Seriously, American police are some of the worst examples of humanity in first-world society. I'm sad that the reporter didn't immediately say the full "One bad apple spoils the bunch". I mean, gee, if only they didn't have a system of planting evidence that was fully supported by the higher-ups that was used on a regular basis, maybe police wouldn't be able to use said system for personal gain.

Bless him for speaking with the reporter, at least. Secretly talking to journalists has to be one of the best ways to quickly reform such crooked departments.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 13:56

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

I'm not entirely sure "posting completely anonymously" means what they think it means.

I'm pretty sure I know which "totally anonymous forum" they're talking about (LEOAffairs.) I'd recommend anyone to give it a brief read, just pick a random agency, since the site itself is mostly geared towards agency-specific forums. The thing that surprised me most about cop discussion forums isn't open discussion of illegal and corrupt activity, which isn't commonly seen, but the intensely petty levels of middle school type catty drama and people bitching about their supervisors and coworkers.

To the guy who mentioned body cams helping to rein this in, it will, but only with the appropriate use policies, which are set by the departments themselves. If officers have the authority to turn them on or off at will, they'll be less than useless, but thankfully in our state most of the agencies use an always-on policy.

I'll also add that, for better or worse, juries don't really have the blind trust for officer testimony that they did in the past. It's less that cops are seen as liars (with the exception of college libertarian types, which is the only group of people I will strike from a jury pool literally 100% of the time) as they are seen as lazy and incompetent. The best way to attack officer testimony in court is by accusing them of doing in incomplete investigation and misremembering what happened because they didn't bother to record it properly. Most people in a jury pool haven't ever had an officer lie about something they know personally to be true in court, however, many of them have had experiences where they themselves have been victimized by crime in the past, where the cops failed to catch the perpetrator, and they still feel bitter and resentful about it and feel that the police didn't give a poo poo about their situation. I've seen this sentiment exploited very effectively even by otherwise incompetent defense attorneys.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 14:25

Mc Do Well: Aug 2, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Things like body cams will only work 100% if you have a national reorganization/standardization of police forces. You consolidate administration and jurisdictions to the county level and have Federally-established Information Systems for dealing with all the videos / reports.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:04

Chamale: Jul 11, 2010; I'm helping!

prussian advisor posted:

I'll also add that, for better or worse, juries don't really have the blind trust for officer testimony that they did in the past. It's less that cops are seen as liars (with the exception of college libertarian types, which is the only group of people I will strike from a jury pool literally 100% of the time) as they are seen as lazy and incompetent.

Has there ever been a defence attorney who uses the strategy of pointing out that there's always a reasonably doubt that his client accused of possession was framed by police, since there's so much testimony like this? I imagine that juries declining to convict on any drug charges because the police fake evidence so much is something that would at least take that tool away from police officers.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:06

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

Chamale posted:

Has there ever been a defence attorney who uses the strategy of pointing out that there's always a reasonably doubt that his client accused of possession was framed by police, since there's so much testimony like this? I imagine that juries declining to convict on any drug charges because the police fake evidence so much is something that would at least take that tool away from police officers.

I'm sure it's been used successfully in the past, but every time I'm seen a defense attorney claim directly to the jury that the cops framed his client by planting drugs on him, it has crashed and burned. If the facts of the case are bad enough that that could be argued with any real chance of success, though, any halfway-competent prosecutor would've dropped the case a long time ago. You also can't argue the facts of other cases even in a general sense during a criminal trial, like it seems like you're suggesting. This is a good thing, since it would open the door to all sorts of unethical bullshit from defense attorneys and prosecutors both that don't belong in the criminal justice system. If the jury decides that all cops are liars entirely on their own, without prompting from the defense attorney, that's another matter entirely.

Of course, police testimony and its credibility isn't really that critical to many significant criminal trials. It's usually only drug cases (and other similar vice crimes) where the sole interactions is between law enforcement and the defendant--the credibility of civilian witnesses of various types is usually far more important. At least, that's been my experience.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:22

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

McDowell posted:

Things like body cams will only work 100% if you have a national reorganization/standardization of police forces. You consolidate administration and jurisdictions to the county level and have Federally-established Information Systems for dealing with all the videos / reports.

I don't know about other states, but I can tell you that Florida has a consolidated state police-like agency (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE) that is a weird mashup of FBI-style special agents and crime labs, the protective detail duties of the Secret Service, and a sort of standards & professionalism bureau that certifies agency conduct as a precondition to access to resources like various criminal databases. It's statewide agencies like these, which I understand to be pretty common throughout the US, that are going to probably be the vehicle to ensure that body cam use is consistent and sensible. There will never be a national reorganization of police forces in the foreseeable future.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:29

Mandy Thompson: Dec 26, 2014; by zen death robot

What is your position Prussian Advisor?

# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:50

Luigi Thirty: Apr 30, 2006; Emergency confection port.

prussian advisor posted:

I don't know about other states, but I can tell you that Florida has a consolidated state police-like agency (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE) that is a weird mashup of FBI-style special agents and crime labs, the protective detail duties of the Secret Service, and a sort of standards & professionalism bureau that certifies agency conduct as a precondition to access to resources like various criminal databases. It's statewide agencies like these, which I understand to be pretty common throughout the US, that are going to probably be the vehicle to ensure that body cam use is consistent and sensible. There will never be a national reorganization of police forces in the foreseeable future.

Oh, you mean that thing that Rick Scott's trying to destroy and/or turn into his personal gestapo for use against political opponents.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 19:02

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

Mandy Thompson posted:

What is your position Prussian Advisor?

On what exactly? On police criminal misconduct, obviously it is bad and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I and several of my colleagues have prosecuted LEOs and COs for crimes ranging from taking bribes, smuggling drugs into prisons, beating people in custody, all the way down to raping people. Results, as I'm sure you can imagine, are mixed, because most juror skepticism of cop credibility goes right out the window when you take them out of the witness stand and put them behind the defense table. Sometimes they go to prison, sometimes the judge gives them a light sentence, sometimes they walk. Doesn't mean we don't stop trying.

On body cams, they're an unqualified good thing. They minimize police abuses when implemented properly, and can help shield good cops from bullshit complaints by both civilians and coworkers. A big issue going forward will be manpower, however--there just isn't enough hours in the day for a felony prosecutor or public defender to watch all the vide from every cam for every offense. There needs to be major funding increases for both sides for it to make a meaningful difference at the trial level.

And Scott's attempts with FDLE are going to fall flat on their face, in my opinion. He is a weak governor in a notoriously weak gubernatorial office--the FL governor can't even grant executive clemency without the consent of the independently elected cabinet.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 20:42

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

A further note about FDLE being political heavies...the Florida governor is deliberately prevented from having the ability to use the criminal justice system against opponents. The governor's control over FDLE is limited, and that agency's actual law enforcement resources are pretty stunted, the Highway Patrol effectively doesn't even have investigators, and Florida doesn't have a conventional state police. More to the point, even if the governor could pressure FDLE to arrest someone, it would be much harder to have them prosecuted. Florida'a State Attorneys (DA-like office that handles 1-6 counties apiece) are directly elected by their constituents and the governor has no authority over them whatsoever. The Statewide Prosecutor is appointed by the state AG, who is an independently elected cabinet official. Thats it for prosecuting authority in the entire state court system.

Not saying Scott's fuckery isn't cause for concern, but anyone with an ounce of sense has been concerned about Scott long before this. I'm just saying it's guaranteed to fail.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 20:51

Mandy Thompson: Dec 26, 2014; by zen death robot

I meant like, what is your job, are you a judge? a prosecutor?

# ? Feb 22, 2015 23:32

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

Mandy Thompson posted:

I meant like, what is your job, are you a judge? a prosecutor?

Prosecutor.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 23:42

Prof. Faggot: May 4, 2006; Working intently on advanced Faggo-dynamics

Wow, though I'm not horribly surprised. Two things struck as me as kind of weird about the interview, though:

quote:

It is not something we advertise because we have some supervisors that are angels and don�t have what it takes to do the job. Besides, we don�t brag about what we do because you don�t want those rumors out there.

... so why the heck is he giving this interview? I guess he's had a change of heart, though the interviewer doesn't ask anything about his motivations (which would be really interesting to hear!).

The lead-in to the interview is fairly misleading, in my opinion:

quote:

One of our editors stumbled across a web site where local law enforcement deputies are free to post, and do so with 100% anonymity. In this web site, they exchange tactical information, procedural tips and methods to use to gain compliance of subjects or to arrest them for being difficult.

If you visit the link they give to the "Tricks of the trade" thread that prompted the interview, though, you find that site in question bills itself as "PBSOTalk.com -- Exposing the Culture of Corruption under Sheriff Ric Bradshaw - Anyone can post completely anonymously!"

So it sounds to me less like a general forum for cops to exchange tactical information and procedural tips than a political activism forum.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 00:04

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

No story about Florida cops is complete without the hilarity of Miami Gardens' police force:

quote:

Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years.

He�s been searched more than 100 times. And arrested and jailed 56 times.

Despite his long rap sheet, Sampson, 28, has never been convicted of anything more serious than possession of marijuana.

Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing.

Almost every citation was issued at the same place: the 207 Quickstop, a convenience store on 207th Street in Miami Gardens.

But Sampson isn�t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop.

So how can he be trespassing when he works there?

It�s a question the store�s owner, Alex Saleh, 36, has been asking for more than a year as he watched Sampson, his other employees and his customers, day after day, being stopped and frisked by Miami Gardens police. Most of them, like Sampson, are poor and black.

And, like Sampson, many of them have been cited for minor infractions, sometimes as often as three times in the same day.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1957716.html

quote:

Miami Gardens police records reveal broad policy of stopping and questioning citizens: 8,489 kids and 1,775 senior citizens caught up in city�s version of �stop and frisk.�
In the summer of 2010, a young black man was stopped and questioned by police on the streets of Miami Gardens, Florida. According to the report filled out by the officer, he was �wearing gray sweatpants, a red hoodie and black gloves� giving the police �just cause� to question him. In the report, he was labeled a �suspicious person.�

He was an 11-year-old boy on his way to football practice.

A Fusion investigation has found that he was just one of 56,922 people who were stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens Police Department (MGPD) between 2008 and 2013. That�s the equivalent of more than half of the city�s population.

Not one of them was arrested.

http://fusion.net/story/5568/florida-citys-stop-frisk-nabs-thousands-of-kids-finds-5-year-olds-suspicious/

# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:02

Mandy Thompson: Dec 26, 2014; by zen death robot

That's what happens when you have quotas. It makes the statistics look nice in the short term but people just stop calling the police and you get more crimes overall and less cooperation.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 07:07

Randbrick: Sep 28, 2002

prussian advisor posted:

I'm sure it's been used successfully in the past, but every time I'm seen a defense attorney claim directly to the jury that the cops framed his client by planting drugs on him, it has crashed and burned. If the facts of the case are bad enough that that could be argued with any real chance of success, though, any halfway-competent prosecutor would've dropped the case a long time ago. You also can't argue the facts of other cases even in a general sense during a criminal trial, like it seems like you're suggesting. This is a good thing, since it would open the door to all sorts of unethical bullshit from defense attorneys and prosecutors both that don't belong in the criminal justice system. If the jury decides that all cops are liars entirely on their own, without prompting from the defense attorney, that's another matter entirely.

Of course, police testimony and its credibility isn't really that critical to many significant criminal trials. It's usually only drug cases (and other similar vice crimes) where the sole interactions is between law enforcement and the defendant--the credibility of civilian witnesses of various types is usually far more important. At least, that's been my experience.

To echo this, prosecutors are rightly afraid of defenses that hinge on lazy or cursory police investigation. Sloppy policework is great for reminding people of every insulting or uninspired interaction they've had with bottom of the barrel traffic cops, and a great way to get them on board with the idea that the defendant was wrongly or recklessly accused.

There's also a ton of mileage to be had by the state's reluctance to spend money on basic forensics for most cases. Where I practice, the state forensics lab ran out of money ages ago to do much of anything because every single marijuana bust with a competent lawyer required a certificate of analysis on the marijuana. It really is hilarious; the state burns through its standard annual forensics budget in a matter of months every year confirming that weed is weed. So when it comes time to do things in cases the public might actually care about (ie to actually pull fingerprints on a gun with bodies on it), there's no money for it and you can leverage pleas and reductions just by exploiting the self-inflicted budget crisis.

I'm fairly certain operating orders came down through unofficial channels for street level cops to get ballistics tests on handguns before the opportunity arises to do any meaningful forensics. The funny part is that the actual operability of the weapon (the only thing they actually can afford to test) is irrelevant in 99% of cases. But the test destroys and contaminates any potential DNA or fingerprint evidence.

So you can have a ball throwing jury requests at the prosecution with the threat that you'll call their own forensics people and make them concede that the procedures followed in the case were sloppy, slipshod, and actively destructive to potentially defense-friendly forensic evidence. They will generally cave rather than allow their own budget priorities come to light. And these are cases which actually implicate the public safety, often involving guys with robbery and burglary rap sheets found in proximity to stolen handguns.

quote:

A big issue going forward will be manpower, however--there just isn't enough hours in the day for a felony prosecutor or public defender to watch all the vide from every cam for every offense. There needs to be major funding increases for both sides for it to make a meaningful difference at the trial level.

You have to remember that funding and manpower in both PD and prosecutorial offices varies tremendously between states and even between localities in states. There are plenty of prosecutor's offices that actually have the funding to sift through tens of hours of surveilance video for shoplifting cases. I have never heard of a PD's office that has that kind of resources, though, excepting capital defender's offices.

Broadly speaking, though, if you stripped all the truly bullshit prosecutions out of the mix for crimes of no particular importance, I think you'd find that suddenly everyone would have a great deal more time and money to fully investigate things worthy of investigation. When your state budget priorities are driven at the local level by an endless stream of forensics test to verify that weed is weed so that you can hammer teenage boys for being teenage boys, complaining that the budget isn't there to do things of genuine importance rings pretty hollow.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 17:14

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Noted without comment:

quote:

Arrests plummet 66% with NYPD in virtual work stoppage

By Larry Celona, Shawn Cohen and Bruce GoldingDecember 29, 2014 | 11:30pm

quote:

New York City sets record with no murders in 10 days in a row

BY BARBARA GOLDBERG

NEW YORK Thu Feb 12, 2015 9:42am EST

# ? Feb 23, 2015 18:54

Pohl: Jan 28, 2005; In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

Don't be a pregnant woman in Florida.
Luckily for the victim, his shotgun only tried to kill him 3 times. It was his old west handling of a pistol that killed that dastardly pregnant woman.
The victim is really upset and shaken by the event, but luckily, he wasn't really hurt.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/20/this-florida-man-got-a-free-pass-for-shooting-a-pregnant-woman-to-death.html

# ? Feb 23, 2015 19:04

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Pohl posted:

Don't be a pregnant woman in Florida.
Luckily for the victim, his shotgun only tried to kill him 3 times. It was his old west handling of a pistol that killed that dastardly pregnant woman.
The victim is really upset and shaken by the event, but luckily, he wasn't really hurt.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/20/this-florida-man-got-a-free-pass-for-shooting-a-pregnant-woman-to-death.html

Crazy Gun Man Before He Shoots Pregnant Woman: �Left My Gun Alone Today. It Didn�t Kill Anyone,� and the additional caption, �Yep, proving once again that the lethality of an object is entirely dependent on the intent of the operator.�

Crazy Gun Man After He Shoots Pregnant Woman: �I haven�t slept in three days trying to figure out how the hell [the gun] went off. I don�t know. I mean them drat guns. The shotgun goes off when it wants to. I almost blew my drat head off twice.�

so i guess it's not homicide if you operate a weapon at a person with a zen mind

you and i, we both embrace emptiness

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Feb 23, 2015

# ? Feb 23, 2015 19:08

Pohl: Jan 28, 2005; In the future, please post shit with the sole purpose of antagonizing the person running this site. Thank you.

SedanChair posted:

That's right, there are now a few bad apples in every barrel. No sense even looking for an untainted barrel! Now suck my dick.

This is one of the best things I've read in a long time.
The author talks about how police brutality is a lovely little problem no one wants to deal with.
You've probably read it, but it is a great drat read. It is about the homeless situation in Utah.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah

# ? Feb 23, 2015 20:34

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 00:32

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

Helsing posted:

Noted without comment:

Murders and crime have dropped off by huge amounts due to all the snow in the NE explains the latter.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 20:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Florida Deputy: Planting Evidence and Lying is Part of the Game

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