Remember when that Baltimore, MD cop got caught planting drugs at a crime scene last month because of his body cam? As a result, a whopping 34 drug or weapons cases related to the police officers in that video were dropped or dismissed.
Now it appears that body camera footage might have caught Baltimore officers in the act once again. The Office of the Baltimore Public Defender recently flagged a new suspicious video that they say appears to show police conspiring to manufacture evidence. The Baltimore-Sun reports:
The office on Monday said the video “appears to depict multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence.” On Tuesday, it said the footage — which is a series of body-camera videos — shows multiple officers thoroughly searching a car, including the driver’s area, and then turning their cameras off and back on in an unexplained way.
“When the cameras come back on one officer is seen squatting by the driver’s seat area. The group of officers then wait approximately 30 seconds,” the public defender’s office said in a statement. “Shortly thereafter, another officer asks if the area by that compartment has been searched. Nobody responds, and the officer reaches in and locates a bag that appears to contain drugs right by where the prior officer was, and where the car had been thoroughly searched about a half an hour prior with absolutely no results.”
Now we’ll have to wait to learn more as the investigations are underway. Meanwhile, the latest body cam video seems to already be making waves: charges against one of the clients involved were dropped on Monday. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was foul play involved—earlier this year, the city had to drop 50 cases connected to arrests by indicted cops.