Video reveals NYPD allegedly fabricating drug arrest
Undercover NYPD offices in New York arrested brothers Jose and Maximo Colon for selling cocaine in a night club. The men would almost certainly be serving lengthy prison sentences if it weren't for the fact that a surveillance video camera in the nightclub shows that the police made the whole thing up.
Paperwork signed by "UC 13200" — Officer Henry Tavarez — claimed that he told a patron he wanted to buy cocaine. By his account, that man responded by approaching the 28-year-old Max, who then went over to the undercover and demanded to pat him down to make sure he wasn't wearing a wire.This isn't an isolated incident, either:Max collected $100 from Tavarez, the report said. The officer claimed to see two bags of cocaine pass through the hands of three men, including Jose, before they were given to him.
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What the tape doesn't show is striking: At no point did the officers interact with the undercovers, nor did the brothers appear to be involved in a drug deal with anyone else. Adding insult to injury, an outside camera taped the undercovers literally dancing down the street.
On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.Is it any wonder that police all over the world are trying to stop people from videotaping them?
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every jurisdiction that tries to criminalize public documenting of police activity should be pressured to bring in gun and badge cameras then. They'll try to cheat anyway, but the holes in the records will make that clear. Lots of precedent with dash cameras. Weekly drug screening for steroid monkeys is another must too.
See now, if we'd had the foresight that England showed when they made it illegal to photograph police officers then we could have avoided this whole mess.
(I assume they have some kind of technology over there that makes the ubiquitous security cameras turn off in the presence of an officer, right?)
Awesome.....
I'm sure that the adult in me would see this as an interesting and poignant commentary on modern police operational culture, but the kid in me can't get past the name "Maximo Colon".
At this point, the whole War on Drugs is just an opportunity to perpetuate a legal system with not all that much else to do. Aside from targeting dangerous criminals, of course.
The War on Drugs is a war on a peaceful American public. Wake up, people!
this just in: "DRUGS WON!"
Rather than lauded, we should probably make the police feel bad when they catch a criminal. Because it means they failed to prevent crime in the first place.
Isn't this because NYPD cops get paid like 6 dollars an hour?
@8:
So, you are saying that the cops don't choose that career for the money - just for the power trip. And so, those who start aspiring to more money should simply be given more money and allowed to retain their power cravings?
Touché!
Anonymous @8, starting annual salary at the NYPD is $36k, with veterans getting over $60k. Not a fortune, but hardly $6/hour.
@#8:
According to this infographic:
http://nypdrecruit.com/NYPD_BenefitsOverview.aspx
A NYPD officer that has been on the job for 5.5 years makes $45/hour for non-overtime hours. That's in addition to the list of benefits that would be unheard-of in the private sector...
So, no. They don't make $6/hour. And even if they did, would that be an excuse?
Again, not that it's an excuse, but where do you get $45/hour? Is that by calculating the value of benefits (which I know are substantial)?
At face value, NYPD salaries are oddly low. Cops in surrounding, mostly suburban counties can make literally several times what NYPD do, even though their cost of living is quite a bit lower and their jobs are presumably quite a bit easier and less dangerous. I don't understand the discrepancy. Does, say, Suffolk County just have a ridiculously powerful police union? Are NYPD flooded with cops who couldn't get jobs elsewhere? Is there an enormous difference in benefits? Does NYPD make up for the difference in corruption? Are more New Yorkers more motivated by non-ecnomic factors, like power trips and/or civic duty?
Even beginning salary is more than teachers make their whole career.
I love you, BB, but let me make sure I have this straight...
Today is one of the days when we celebrate CCTV surveillance because it helped the side we want to root for?
But tomorrow we go back to the usual of complaining about its ubiquitous nature because it serves no purpose other than allow the government to keep tabs on us when we have done nothing wrong?
/jus' sayin'
bbonyx,
Are you chiding BB for reporting stories with conflicting political bents? I think that it's a good thing.
If you are a cop you can do what you want with no consequences.....
@bbonyx
umm yes it was cctv but it was privately owned cctv not government owned and I believe that is a big difference.
@13 Phikus -
Are you saying that teachers in your area don't make $36k in their entire careers?? Even if you use the $45/hr number, that's $93,600.
Do your teachers have unusually short careers/life expectancies? Like only 4 years?
I also think teachers are vastly underpaid, but I'm pretty sure they make more than $36k over the course of a 20-30 years career.
empire chick, you can't possible be that silly.
But since you need it spelled out - police officers starting salaries are higher than many/most career teachers (20+ years experience) salary.
Police are also often rewarded to a greater degree than teachers for pursuing higher education after being hired.
Case in point. The Canine officer (with his M.A. in public administration from a diploma mill college) in my town makes $35K more annually than the PhD educated (Oxford, yes, the one in England) head of the high school English department (1400 students).
but maybe you are that silly.
How many dirty cops are still out there, enabled by dirty police chiefs, dirty prosecutors and dirty judges?
Probably most of them, thats my guess.
For every thug with a badge caught being a thug there are dozens, even hundreds of pigs who rape, steel, and plant drugs on minorities and other "undesirables" that go about their day in need of a good hanging. Even when they are caught, actually prosecuted (rare enough to make nationwide news, that), and put in a cage- they get only a small fraction of the sentence a mere civilian would for the same crime.
What's the current state-of-the-art for personal counter-surveillance systems? I'm assuming there should be several designs out there. There are entire segments of the population that i'm sure would like the peace of mind of having a tiny camera on them recording their encounters with police.
I was asked by a friend to let one of his friends ride along with us to a concert, so he wouldn't get pulled over for 'DWB'(driving while black). Really disheartening to imagine having to live like that.
this just in: "DRUGS WON!"
Drugs FTW!
a) I should think that the upstanding police officers should be glad to be filmed: it would prove they are doing their jobs well.
b) What do those who don't want to be filmed have to hide?
c) Do these points not apply to others in the society?
d) The answer to 'C' is that the police on duty are acting in an official capacity. As such I should think they have no reasonable expectation of privacy; their every on-duty act is a public act.
e) Since I believe that my Savior and Lord, Jesus, is an observer of all I do anyway I'd be fine with being filmed 100% of the time-- as a cop or as a citizen.
Granted, the nosepicking would cause me mild embarassment....
@19 MDH
Phikus said "Even beginning salary is more than teachers make their whole career."
Yes, I commented on the literal statement that was made. But economics are clearly very different in your town than mine.
The starting salary for teachers in my local school district (Western Pennsylvania) is $36,399. Our longest tenured teachers with MA's earn $71,319.
The local police chief earned $49,740 last year.
Granted, I am in the suburbs, and I know that city police make far more than our local force. But other school districts get paid far better too.
Perhaps in some areas "Police officers starting salaries are higher than many/most career teachers (20+ years experience) salary", but certainly not in all. To claim your town's experience as indicative of the country as a whole is, well, silly.
I think thhe person who brought up the NYPDS ppor pay was thinking of what they were being paid less than a year ago. When my fiance first started he was making a measly 25k...
Also NYC school teachers start at a higher salary than NYPD and can stand to make up to 110K after 7 years if they have a masters ans a 30 credit cert.
Lastly whoever got $45/hr for NYPD officers failed to realize that the number of 96,000 includes the very costly uniforms they have to buy and the holiday pay they recieve. Their base salary is only in 76K making that hourly number muuuuuuuuch lower and you also fail to realize that they do not work simple 40 hr weeks. Their shifts are 8 hours and 35 minutes that extra 35 minutes a day is in the base salary as well so they hourly number you mentioned is way above reality.