Body Cam Footage Of A Cop Planting Evidence Leads To Dozens Of Dismissed Cases

from the giving-(drugs)-back-to-the-community dept

It seems as though a Baltimore police officer forgot about one key feature of his bodycam: the fact that it saves the previous 30 seconds of video recorded before the camera is activated. Most bodycams record and dump constantly. The moment it's activated, the 30 seconds preceding the activation become part of the recording.

What was apparently inadvertently captured by the camera was the officer planting drugs in a can and hiding them in an alley. All three officers then retreat to the sidewalk outside the alley before heading back in to "discover" the drug stash.

If it wasn't for the fortuitous discovery (in the legal sense) of the video, the officer might have gotten away with it.

There's controversy over a Baltimore City police body-camera video and whether it shows an officer tampering with evidence. The 90-second clip led to the dismissal of a drug case, and 53 other cases that involve the same officer might be under review. The clip is a snapshot of what appears to be an officer mishandling evidence. The video, which was used in connection with a drug arrest in January, was released Wednesday by the Public Defender's Office.

The term "mishandling" downplays what appears to be happening in the video: a cop generating probable cause for an arrest. There's a small possibility the drugs were discovered earlier but no recording existed, so the officers "reenacted" the discovery and hoped no one would notice their subterfuge. Either way, it's something you just can't do, not if you want to keep your conviction.

As for the other 53 cases under review, many of them appear to be headed for dismissal. And the original estimate of 53 was incredibly low.

Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby identified 123 cases associated with the officers mishandling evidence as seen on the body-camera video. Mosby said 34 of the cases will be dismissed, and 77 others remain under review. [...] "The cases that have been dismissed thus far or are scheduled to be dismissed are felony drug cases or free-standing possession of firearm cases. And we made a decision in every one of those cases after a very thorough review of the facts, that we did not have a case to prosecute without the testimony of one or all of the three officers," said Antonio Gioia, chief counsel at the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office.

Note that the attorney's office is ready to let suspects walk if any of the three officers might be involved in the prosecutions. This is the right way to handle this. The cop who planted the evidence isn't the only problem. It's also his fellow officers who did nothing to stop him. All three are culpable for this act -- whether it was the deliberate framing of an arrestee or a one-act play performed for the camera to make up for the lack of footage during the original find. In a little more than 90 seconds, three cops destroyed their credibility, possibly forever.

And it certainly appears that these aren't the only three Baltimore cops doing this kind of evidence planting. As I was finishing up this post, we got some more breaking news of... more Baltimore cops faking evidence:

Public defenders in Baltimore say charges against a client have been dropped because police body-camera video "appears to depict multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence."

Oh, and that's not all:

Separately, seven other Baltimore officers on a gun crimes task force are accused of faking reports and false detentions.

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think this might not be just one or two "bad apples."

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: baltimore, planted evidence, police, trust