Via Rawstory.
According to CBS-LA, Los Angeles police are now wearing the body cams, but police officials are withholding the videos from the public. However, the station was able to acquire video of one black man being arrested for a hit and run, with the video showing something quite different from what was documented in the official police report.
The report documents the arrest of Ronald Shields, 52, in April when he was taken into custody for a hit and run. According to the police report, LAPD officer Samuel Lee stated that cocaine was found in Shields’ front left pocket
But the body cam of a fellow officer showed one officer picking up the small packet from the ground and placing it in the suspect’s wallet — before making a show of discovering it multiple times for the camera.
This a big bad bowl of wrong sauce, which we will stir a bit further over the flip.
Apparently the cameras used by LAPD are actually always on and recording and specifically save the 30 seconds prior there being manually activated by the Officer. It was during this 30 seconds that the officer is shown on camera picking up the suspects wallet, and then a separate white baggy and then placing the baggy inside the wallet while behind Mr. Shields back and other officers look on.
By the way they clearly all act in silent coordination, using hand signals as this occurs, it’s fairly obvious that this isn’t their first bullcrap ride at the rodeo. Not by a long shot.
Later in court the officers testified that they found the Cocain in his “front pocket”, but the video clearly shows that it was “found” laying in the street and that they placed it in his wallet after frisking him for weapons. Either the officers or Shields brought the drugs to the scene — the defense attorney argues that the officers can be seen handling the square baggie prior to “finding” it on the ground, but the judge said it’s not clear — because it’s fairly implausible that it just happened to be lying there in the street right next to where they had stopped his car for felony hit-and-run. Even though they already had him on the original charge and also having a gun in his trunk, they seemed to go out of their way to manipulate the evidence to remove all doubt on the ownership of the drugs when they already had plenty of evidence against Shields on other charges.
Why?
The sad fact is that Shields might have actually been guilty on the drug charge, and in fact if they’d done their job properly and tested his blood for chemical influences it might have turned hit-and-run case into a felony DUI, but the truth is that even if that’s true the tendency to notch feathers in hat over a Big Drug Bust may have caused these officers to falsify evidence, commit conspiracy and perjury which will likely free Shields on all charges, including those he may be actually guilty of.
Nice job, punks.
This is why sticking your thumb on the scale should always be punished as harshly as possible because sadly, this was the very first body cam video anyone has been able to obtain from LAPD in the first 2 years of their cam program and there’s no telling how many other incidents of evidence manipulation have occurred on camera but never been revealed before — these cameras and videos should not be police property because they simple can’t be trusted.
Who watches the watchers because clearly none of these officers were watching each other.
The cameras themselves and all footage recorded should be automatically sent to a cloud free from tampering which should be under the control of the Public Defenders Office and IMO an independent Public Integrity Enforcement agency designed to replace the current Internal Affairs regimes which instead of working the Police Dept, work for the City and it’s citizens.
When police control the video the issue of misconduct becomes an employer/employee issue which is subject to arbitration and mediation but the police union, placing this information in independent hands which are only accountable to the public changes that dynamic and makes these officers far more likely to be subject to the law, and gives those they accuse a fair and honest hand a defending themselves when otherwise the entire deck would be stacked against them.
Certainly not all officers do this, but then again it’s also clear that there aren’t any officers anywhere that have grown completely comfortable will doing this kind of thing in plain view of their fellow officers and frankly just out of the corner of the suspects eye — because he was standing right there in the middle of them all while it happened.