The only place in New York City that gives Bed-Sty a run for its money on the Police Department’s stop and frisk initiative is The Bronx. You know the place, Yankee Stadium. The Grand Concourse. Blacks and Hispanics. Drugs.
And like any good police initiative that just happens to focus on people whose skin color is a shade or two darker than white folks, we can rest easy knowing that New York’s Finest are there to protect and serve, and they would never, NEVER, make stuff up about busting some kid on the street. Except when there’s video.
Via NY1 :
Officers swore they witnessed bags of crack and marijuana being carried by [Jateik] Reed. In the criminal complaint one officer is quoted as saying, “He observed the defendant to have on his person, in his hand, one (1) clear plastic bag containing a white, rock-like substance, which he threw to the ground. In his hand, two (2) clear plastic bags, each containing a dried green leafy substance with a distinctive odor, in public view.”
Surveillance video from a nearby building shows Reed walking with his hands out, no drugs in view. John Eterno, a retired New York City Police Department captain, says it appears Reed shouldn’t have been stopped.
But the officers swore. They swore. Doesn’t that mean anything?
And if the lie isn’t reason enough to watch the video, the gratuitous kick at the end is icing on the cake. There’s nothing like a fun little kick of a handcuffed perp on the ground to cap off a busy day, right? And see all the other officers rush to stop the kicking cop? Neither did I.
The allegations against Jateik Reed are about as ordinary as they come. It would hardly be surprising if they have a change-the-name form on the computer in ECAB to save time. Naturally, street level drug dealers walk around the Bronx flashing packages of drugs in their hands to everyone in sight. At least that’s what cops say, and prosecutors and judges believe.
Yet again, a lie is exposed, and a defendant walks free, because a video showed that the police lied. The cops are on paid vacation while the matter is sorted out, since lies by police officers require massive, lengthy investigation, although lies by civilians are dealt with swiftly and harshly. But then, civilians don’t protect us at night, and therefore aren’t deserving of our respect and admiration. And the benefit of the doubt.
And without the video? Take a guess at what would have happened to Jateik Reed. And the fair maiden officer who booted him would have put in for permanent disability at full pension for the injury to her toe. it’s a very dangerous job, police officer.
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“people who’s skin color is a shade or two darker than white folks”
…Italians?
When someone next asks me how I can defend “guilty people”, I am going to send them this video.
It sounds like you’re saying you’ll defend “guilty” people because you believe they are (or could be) innocent.
I always thought lawyers were supposed to defend guilty people because even guilty people are people, have rights, and deserve representation.
I thought I read that the police went through the phone book and prepared warrants for every name they found. Just in the name of efficiency, of course.
Not even NYPD has the money to buy that many RAID-5’s. Though if they’d stop doing bad things they could repurpose the line item in the annual budget that pays police wrongdoing claims…
Uh, yeah.
Leo is still new to the cocktail party circuit. He’s working on his elevator pitch. Give him a chance to get it down.
Still, I would be more comfortable if John stopped giving them ideas.
Sorry! I’m spending my quality censor time on avoiding giving details of terrorist plots. As I’m not in NYC, I have far less fear of the NYPD than I do of DHS.
Don’t you think that’s a bit selfish of you? Must it always be all about you?
Why do they need a warrant they have probable cause based on imaginary behavior.
Strangely, nobody has ever asked me this question. Maybe they take one look at me and just assume, “Yeah, naturally that guy represents guilty people.” It must be my beady eyes and rat-whiskers.
My trouble with the “every defendant deserves his day in court” line is that it always seems like a necessary but insufficient reason. Okay, they ought to have a lawyer. But why’s that lawyer gotta be you?
My answer to that is that partially, I’m sick of all this Law and Order police state bullshit, partially I like to fight and get knocked around a lot, but mainly, when I get somebody out of jail, for about thirty seconds I feel like a hero for once. And maybe I actually can help somebody who’s in one hell of a jam.
But yeah, showing the video would help deflect some of that too. If it ever occurred to anybody to ask.
It is a mistake NOT to refer to police officers as civilians. I don’t know which term is appropriate to distinguish police from non-police, but ‘civilian’ aint it.
It’s one of the terms used by cops to refer to non-cops, which is why it’s used here. I kinda like using their language in posts relating to abuse and misconduct, as a little extra tweak on my part.
Most of the people who ask this fall into two categories:
1) Generally conservative people who think that authority is good, and an arrest means that you’re guilty; or
2) Generally liberal, yet sheltered people who have never dealt with police before and still have that idealized Officer Friendly from Kindergarten memorialized.
Both types often believe that all police are beyond reproach by virtue of their job, and that police will never lie. It’s also been my experience that they don’t grasp (or refuse to accept) the meta/lawyer argument about civil rights, even as they’ll debate you about the 2d amendment or states’ rights.
A video of a person being arested by police, for doing no wrong, has a bit more weight to many than my “shysterish” “moralizing” about our Constitutional rights.
Just say “You’ve probably heard some rant about filthy defense lawyers getting their clients off because of ‘loopholes’, but those ‘loopholes’ are almost always egregious violations of constitutional rights or outrageous and illegal conduct on the part of the police. A competent defense lawyer makes modern criminal cases almost fair – mostly stacked in the government’s favor instead of totally.”
Okay, but what about the sheer amount of police-friendly propaganda on TV? I seem to recall juries having to instructed on how forensic investigation REALLY works. I blame shows like CSI for this.
Ever since I remember, police have always been portrayed as the good guys on cop shows. They always got their man, and never went after the wrong guy, because their case was air tight.
I don’t know what the current TV climate is now as far as cop shows because I don’t watch TV anymore, but I’ve seen a few shows of CSI that were blatantly police positive.
I used to be one of those who questioned the necessity of defense counsel, or at least disparaged the profession to the point of equating it with that of, say, professional puppy kicker. Weren’t cops the good guys at one point in time? Weren’t they the ones who would find the guilty party, arrest them, and bring them to trial where they would be dutifully found guilty? Of course reality has that annoying habit of interfering with perfect preconceived notions. My sister was accused of a crime that she simply couldn’t have committed. It went totally against everything I knew of her temperament. She wasn’t known to the victim. In fact, she wasn’t even in the same state at the time of the incident. Or even in the same country. But it still took a defense counsel four months to get her out of jail. The prosecutors were running full bore with the case, the judge was suppressing motions before defense could even write them out, and the police lied on stand. As in, they personally witnessed my sister, who was in Brisbane, Australia, and NOT in Texas, commit a crime. My sister was Caucasian. The actual perpetrator was African American. So now, thanks to videos like these, I can redirect people who ask me why I want to work as a defense attorney.
That’s because most cop shows and lawyer/legal shows are blatantly reality negative.
Though CSI does make for a good comedy. DNA in under 60secs.. WOOT!
Welcome to the real world of police operations: A crime has been committed, someone needs to be punished for it. That the police match the crime to the one who actually is responsible for it is largely a matter of coincidence.