Baltimore cops suspended for planting drugs on black drivers

[MrScorpio]

Baltimore suspends 7 cops after video suggest drugs planted

Thursday, August 03, 2017 - 02:25

The Baltimore Police Department suspended seven officers after body camera video emerged that the city's public defender said appeared to show them planting drugs in a car during a traffic stop, the second such episode in the city in two weeks.


http://in.reuters.com/video/2017/08/02/baltimore-suspends-7-cops-after-video-su?videoId=372240516

[LisaM]

1. What the EFF is wrong with people?

This doesn't even make any sense.

[MrScorpio]

3. Justice Department report: Baltimore police routinely violated civil rights

Baltimore police routinely violated the constitutional rights of residents by conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force, according to the findings of a long-anticipated Justice Department probe to be released Wednesday.

The practices overwhelmingly affected the city's black residents in low-income neighborhoods, according to the 163-page report. In often scathing language, the report identified systemic problems and cited detailed examples.

The investigators found that "supervisors have issued explicitly discriminatory orders, such as directing a shift to arrest 'all the black hoodies' in a neighborhood."

They also found that black residents were more likely to be stopped and searched as pedestrians and drivers even though police were more likely to find illegal guns, illicit drugs and other contraband on white residents.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-doj-report-20160809-story.html

[BigmanPigman]

10. Golly, ya mean I shouldn't trust the police? They would never do such a nasty thing.

[John Barcell]

15. Absolutely nothing has changed

Dave Chappelle's stand-up is still relevant after 19 years. Meanwhile kids be watching Jerry Seinfeld like "what the fuck is a car phone?".

[Xipe Totec]

2. Doesn't that mean the cops were in possession of illegal drugs?

A crime separate and apart from planting false evidence.

It doesn't seem to me that suspension is the way to go.

Charges should be filed for possession.

[MrScorpio]

5. You and I both know that cops are immune from the law in most cases...

And with the current Federal Government that we have, that's even more the case.

Supreme Court Says Police May Use Evidence Found After Illegal Stops

By ADAM LIPTAKJUNE 20, 2016

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used in court if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in the 5-to-3 decision, said such searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment when the warrant is valid and unconnected to the conduct that prompted the stop.

Justice Thomas’s opinion drew a fiery dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said that “it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of scrutiny.”

“This case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time,” she wrote. “It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/supreme-court-says-police-may-use-evidence-found-after-illegal-stops.html

[DK504]

4. Suspended? That's it??? WTF??

Why are they not in jail? God knows black men would be locked up with no bail.

[MrScorpio]

7. Unpaid vacation.

With their police union on the job to get the back on the job and rewarded with lost pay, of course.

[safeinOhio]

9. I think everyone of them should have

all cars, bank accounts, etc confiscated as possible connection to drug activity.
If good for the goose, it's good for the gander.

[rpannier]

19. Probably because there has to be an investigation

It's the responsibility of the DA to press charges
The department can suspend and wait for the DA to act

[GaryCnf]

6. Hence the term

"SYSTEMIC racism."

The idea that shootings, brutality, planting evidence, and just good old harassment is because Cop A or Cop B is a racist is a fiction created by white folks and other people within the power structure to avoid the fact that the criminal justice system from the point legislation is introduced forward has as one of its primary goals the subjugation of black people in particular and people of color in general.

[MrScorpio]

8. Bingo!

And welcome to DU!

[GaryCnf]

12. Thanks

[christx30]

14. A barrell of bad apples can ruin the few

good ones. Best to just get rid of the barrel.

[jb5150]

20. There are 2 kinds of cops ...

The bad ones, and the ones that look the other way. There are NO good cops.

[TheFrenchRazor]

23. it sure looks that way, unfortunately. nt

[Solly Mack]

25. Yes

[brush]

27. This stuff has been going on for forever. Cel phone cams and body cams have just disclosed it...

and some people still think all the cops in the Freddie Gray case were unjustly prosecuted.

[gtar100]

11. Who hires these shit heads?

That's the problem. The wrong people are being hired to do police work for the wrong reasons.

[JonLP24]

13. The Wire is worth watching

The co-creators were a Baltimore homicide detective and a Baltimore Sun police beat reporter and it is prophetic in many ways. Especially in regards how fucked up the department is, very systematic problems.

[TheDebbieDee]

17. I don't think candidates for LEO positions are beating down

any department's doors applying for their jobs...

[TheDebbieDee]

16. I wonder how many thousdands of innocent people are serving hard time

because of crooked cops and their inability to afford first-class legal representation... It just makes me SICK!

[Warren DeMontague]

22. I suppose we could let out all the millions of drug users we've put in prison

for doing naughty, unauthorized things with their own bodies.


...who am I kidding, that'll never happen.

[AllyCat]

18. OMG. This is right out of a bad movie!

What on earth is wrong with cops? This is unacceptable!

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Another Drug War success story!

Well, these sorts of little mistakes are an unfortunate by necessary byproduct of the important work of putting people in prison for the dangerous crime of smoking pot.

[TheFrenchRazor]

24. yet another reason why cops love the WOD; it gives them so many more opportunities to hassle,

intimidate, and shake down the citizenry, not to mention providing job security for themselves. they (cops) will fight tooth and nail to prevent the WOD from ever ending.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Oh, they get to do whatever they want, since the 4th Amendment no longer exists.

The claim of a whiff of weed apparently makes the bill of rights disappear like magic.

Someone's house, their pants, whatever. Nothing's off limits.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/13/in-texas-police-stick-hand-up-womans-vagina-to-search-for-marijuana/?utm_term=.0dfe8539f455

'Course, it helps if that person has the requisite skin tone.

[oasis]

26. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Atty. Gen. Sessions.

[CanonRay]

29. And every case they ever worked is in jeopardy

legitimate or not.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

30. Fortunately - if they don't go to prison -

they won't be arresting or testifying against anyone in the future. If they did, the defense attorney, on cross-examination, would ask them, "Isn't it true that you have previously planted incriminating evidence on people who later had all charges against them dropped by the DA?"