It Finally Happened: Police Officer Caught Planting Evidence BY HIS OWN BODY CAMERA
This week an officer was caught red handed planting drugs on the property of a suspect.
In the video, taken from the police officer's own body cam, one can clearly see him placing a tin can in the yard and then walking with the other officers back to the front of the residence. At this point, the officer appears to try to "turn on" his body cam. He immediately walks back to the spot where the tin can was placed and 'eureka!' he found drugs.
Watch it here:
This is not something new. This is not unique. It is a story as old as time.
For most of history, if you had something the king/governor/tax collector wanted, it was easy enough for him to take it from you.
Oh sure, he could buy it from you - but that could be costly. And what if you didn't want to sell?
No, the better way was to send the police. He'd give them a story to tell of how you resisted them, and he'd tell them to kill you on the spot.
For the governor, it's a win win. He gets your stuff, and keeps his money. Even better, he can proclaim to the rest of the citizens that a traitor has been caught and punished. Fear of the magistrate would increase and so would his power.
Now what I provided above is a specific example, but it is the pattern that matters. The systems of government allow for those in power to exploit the citizens. The justice system is broken in this kind of society. Security can only be found in pleasing the local authority and in being lucky they don't kill you anyway.
The founding fathers knew that this was a problem and they came up with a solution. The Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments to the Constitution.
In that document are enshrined the rules that government must abide by when punishing criminals. And if you are unaware of the history of government exploitation, then it may seem overboard.
In fact, it does seem overboard to a large number of modern Americans. These people see no problem in sacrificing the Bill of Rights if they are promised to be made more secure in the process. In what ways are we losing out Constitutional rights?
The government must give you a trial before locking you up. But not if you're being held in Guantanimo Bay.
The government must suspect you of a crime before searching you. But not for "stop and frisk". Not for "no refusal weekend". Not to be spied on by the NSA.
The government must convict you of a crime before depriving you of property. But not when it's civil asset forfeiture.
The sad fact is that your Bill of Rights protections are being sold down the river by well meaning idiots. These sheep have been programmed to fear. Fear. Fear.
They fear their own shadows. They fear terrorists. They fear guns. They fear drug users. They fear everything and because they fear - something must be done! You must sacrifice your liberties.
But that is not the American way. That is the cowards way. And it ends in the death of liberty.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security will lose both and deserve neither."
If we keep going in this direction, we are going to see more and more corruption. More cops planting evidence. More abuse of authority. But we wont SEE it, of course. They will get rid of the body cams. They will arrest you for filming.
But we will suffer it. When you are in court fighting that 5 years sentence for the cocaine they found in your yard - it will be your word against an officer of the law. He will have a better lawyer. He will have a badge and a uniform and the jury will have had years of conditioning to believe him over you.
This is the future we can expect if we don't turn the tides on fear. We need to convince our fellow man that Thomas Jefferson was right when he said:
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
I encourage you to stand with me and fight the fear. Fight the knee-jerk reactions. Fight for liberty.
The battle is not over. The battle is NOT OVER. We must persist. We must educate the uninitiated. We must organize behind the banner of freedom. And we must do it now - before it's too late.
But how do we do it? How do we make people understand what the Bill of Rights truly means and why it must be preserved?
I'm honestly asking. What is the best way to get this point across?
Please comment below with suggestions.
Civil fuckin WAR!
Oh man, I get the sentiment. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But I sure hope it doesn't come to that. Telling friend from foe would be awfully difficult.
This was their intent. Look at all the social issues. It is not because people need to be recognized, for that, instead of recognizing every group separatley, they could have simply had streamlined rights amd protections for all citizens, period. But they want to keep the people divided, always arguing or in conflict so when the time comes for the tyrant to be removed, the people are too lost fighting eachother.
Meh.. it's outside. Don't know about US courts but in Canada that probably wouldn't fly. Anybody could have dropped the drugs there since it's outside, which causes sufficient doubt. There's probably a different explanation for the video, or the cop is just an idiot.
A different explanation? What do you mean?
I don't know? Is it possible that there could be another explanation? Do we have all the information at our disposal to come to a conclusion that the only explanation was that this cop planted the evidence? Or is it possible that we're missing something that could explain the actions in the video? Just playing devil's advocate...
To me it seems like a lot of trouble to plant evidence outside when there's probably plausible deniability by the suspect. All he would have to say is that his yard is open to the public and that he doesn't know if anyone has accessed it. Judging by all the crap in the back yard, it seems like a dumping ground of sorts. A jury would probably find there's sufficient doubt. Like I said, I don't know if this is good enough evidence for a US court, but it would likely not fly in a Canadian court.
In fact, when I look at the video again, you can see the cop dropping something... a baggie as far as I can tell and then covering it up with a ladder or something. Is it possible that the officers went looking for evidence without having their camera's on (or thinking they had their cameras on), found some evidence and then replaced it in order to find it again with their cameras on so they could document it properly for court purposes? This way they can show where they found the evidence. Not the best or the right method, mind you. They should probably document as they initiate their search so that any evidence found could be documented at the outset. Regardless, this kind of approach is quite common. There is no audio in the clip which is unfortunate since that probably would have confirmed if this was a nefarious planting of evidence or something else.
Yeah, it's possible that there is another explanation. The only thing I've heard is that type of body cam is always on and retroactively "saves" the minute before the record button is pressed. But since it was speculation I didn't include it in the article above. If you want more context to what was happening, I found this:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/bodycam-video-appears-show-baltimore-police-officer-planting/story?id=48723372
And you're right about the evidence planted outside. A principled justice system would invalidate any evidence obtained as a result of the illegal search. I'm not sure why the police took that risk. Did they suspect that the justice system would overlook it? Did they expect their victim to be working with a bargain lawyer who would not pursue that angle? It's hard to tell. But I agree - if you're going to plant evidence, the back yard is probably not the best place to do so.
Sometimes cops just get lazy and do sloppy investigations. If that's the case here, then they have some explaining to do. Of course, cops have planted evidence in the past, and the will do so again - no doubt. It's entirely possible that they did in fact plant evidence here. However, my only concern is that people are quick to jump to conclusions when they get a hold of a video showing a police officer doing something seemingly wrong. Sometimes that is the case, sometimes it is not. Video is pretty good evidence, but it is rarely all the evidence in any given case. One can only form an accurate conclusion after having considered all the evidence.
Oh another point :) You might (or might not) be surprised that "illegal searches" are very common in policing. Whether you agree with it or not, it does actually serve a purpose. Sometimes police happen upon evidence (such as drugs) in the course of their investigation and can't legally seize that evidence. For instance, they searched something without obtaining proper consent from the suspect, or suspected that the culprit had drugs in the trunk of a vehicle and conducted the search without first obtaining a search warrant. The end result is that the police are unable to charge that suspect with possession of said drugs, however the drugs were removed from the streets. Now ask yourself this question: since the police knew of that evidence, subsequently searched it and located it, should they know ignore that information and let the suspect go with the drugs (or weapons, or whatever other evidence)? Or should they seize the drugs or weapons and then let the suspect go anyway since they can't charge him for it? What is the best solution?
Good point. As an attorney, I'm aware of this and of the pragmatic argument for this practice - which you laid out quite well. I'm a pragmatist, so I'm amenable to pragmatic arguments.
But pragmatism would also consider other factors and those are the ones which weigh more heavily to me. I think the bigger picture is preservation of the right to privacy, protection against search and seizure, and the integrity of the warrant system. For Americans, these are spelled out quite clearly for us in the Bill of Rights, which is the closest thing our country has to scripture. Just a small portion of the Constitution, but revered as the masterpiece that makes this whole endeavor worth doing. And it has some very limiting rules for the government. It includes protection against search and seizure, the right to a speedy and fair trial before a jury of peers, and the right against self-incrimination.
There are great dangers from handcuffing our government in this way - like when those drugs are not taken off the street. But there are great dangers from not handcuffing the government.
From my perspective, those problems that arise from empowering the government in this way are more concerning to me. The sociopaths who occupy high political office can accomplish great acts of oppression and violence. I prefer to keep their power in check as much as possible. And because the police are agents of the government who may legitimately use violence - they can be for great good or for great harm. But in a system of strictly enforced rules for our police that include transparency and deliberate constitutional action, I think we can mitigate the potential for 'great harm'.
I agree 100%. Very fascinating subject matter and something I love discussing.