NYDN: We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

[Larry]

Link. Story dated Th.

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

Follow-up story, dated Fri:

NYDN: Cops made money by fabricating drug charges against innocent people, Stephen Anderson testifies

A corrupt ex-undercover cop says NYPD supervisors paid detectives extra overtime for hard-drug busts, creating a covert reward system for cocaine and heroin arrests.

Undercovers taking down smack or crack suspects routinely got two or three hours of overtime as payback, ex-cop Stephen Anderson testified in a Brooklyn courtroom.

"So giving you overtime for a crack cocaine arrest is a reward for the nature of the crime ... would that be a fair statement?" asked Justice Gustin Reichbach.

"Yes, that's fair to say," Anderson testified last week at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny

One of my thoughts is that, if they can prove this, then you throw the cops into a prison full of innocent people who the cops planted evidence on.

Another thought is that every single person who these cops have ever testified against, is going to demand a new trial. (And I'm not sure they don't deserve one.)

[AsburySkinsFan]

Yeah, saw this yesterday and I was wondering when it would show up here.

Let me just say that this is a disgusting travesty of justice, and any crooked cop that does this needs to be sentenced to every year one of his victims received cumulatively.

Now.....queue the are cops good or bad argument.....in 3, 2, 1.......

[Koolblue13]

But they were targeting drug users. Think of the children would ya?

[Larry]

Actually, one of the thoughts that occurs to me, is to assume that things are vastly worse than proposed.

My reasoning is based on my vast experience watching Law & Order. From that "experience", I've formed the opinion that it's pretty much impossible to prosecute crooked cops.

Because the crooked cop can literally blackmail the DA. By threatening that, if prosecuted, I'll reveal so much dirt that you'll have to release every single criminal that the NYPD has arrested for the last 20 years.

Therefore, the impression I get is that, on those (I assume, really, really, rare) cases where the cops catch a cop planting evidence, what they do is they allow him early retirement or some such, so they can keep it quiet.

To me, the fact that this case is even seeing a courtroom, makes me think that there's a LOT of dirt, here. That nothing less would cause a DA to pull the trigger on a case like this.

[Goingforburgundy]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

[TradeTheBeal!]

This is the War on Drugs and war is hell.

[Larry]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

Like I said, I'm surprised that it's seeing a courtroom.

[Bang]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

No, not at all.

Throw these ****s in the worst block in Rykers. And tell everyone in there who they are, and why they're there.

Then buy a few cardboard caskets.

~Bang

[Teller]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

Yes, quite honestly, I am. Granted I worked in a small department, but I can honestly say I never saw anything that would qualify as corruption.

And while I appreciate the preemptive sarcasm aimed at people who don't just automatically shout "**** the police" every time a cop thread comes up, I hope that every cop who is EVER involved in sending an innocent man to jail rots there himself; and in the hereafter.

[thebluefood]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

Not at all. Gotta make the public feel warm and fuzzy about this splendid little "war on drugs" we've been fighting.

Just like Prohibition, this "war on drugs" is an infeasible, counter-productive nightmare. The only difference is this current "war" has been dragging on for almost a century.

[ACW]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

Sadly, no

Arrest quotas are a bad idea in the first place.

[Larry]

And while I appreciate the preemptive sarcasm aimed at people who don't just automatically shout "**** the police" every time a cop thread comes up,

And while I appreciate the straw man attempt to label every person who is in any way skeptical . . .

----------

Question for the folks who are claiming that this is a result of drug prohibition, though.

Y'all got any basis whatsoever to assume that the same thing wouldn't be happening for any other law?

Any reason at all, to blame the law? (As opposed to the people who supposedly broke it?)

[Thiebear]

My Father was a cop

My Brother is a cop

Both state: Don't let them in without a warrant, Nothing good can happen by having them in your house. Cop/Teacher/Fireman are good by default, individual stranger ones are suspect at best.

[Destino]

Yes, quite honestly, I am. Granted I worked in a small department, but I can honestly say I never saw anything that would qualify as corruption.

And while I appreciate the preemptive sarcasm aimed at people who don't just automatically shout "**** the police" every time a cop thread comes up, I hope that every cop who is EVER involved in sending an innocent man to jail rots there himself; and in the hereafter.

HUMANS are flawed to various degrees. Some worse than others. The larger the group the higher the number of significantly bad you'll get. This is why I've always argued that "benefit of the doubt" is absurd. We live in a work where it is accepted that priests rape kids but somehow a corrupt cops is unbelievable... ridiculous.

[Drew_Fl]

One of my thoughts is that, if they can prove this, then you throw the cops into a prison full of innocent people who the cops planted evidence on.

Wouldn't you let the innocent people out of prison if they've been proven innocent?:pfft:

[aREDSKIN]

Honest question here.

Anyone surprised by this?

Not one bit. Somewhere, everyday ,it seems there is a story about corrupt cop(s), judicial authorities etc. It's more prevalent than many would honestly admit.

[JimboDaMan]

My Father was a cop

My Brother is a cop

Both state: Don't let them in without a warrant, Nothing good can happen by having them in your house. Cop/Teacher/Fireman are good by default, individual stranger ones are suspect at best.

Very much this. Made worse by the fact that the bad ones are blessed by the presumption of credibility and a literal license to kill. Think of bad people you know who are not cops, then think of what they'd be capable of with a gun and a badge and the weight of the law on their side.

Not at all anti-cop, I've had friends and relatives on the job, have known smart, hardworking cops with loads of integrity whom I admire very much.

Remember the story of the Maryland mayor (Takoma Park) whose dog was killed and family terrorized at gunpoint for hours during a baseless no-knock drug raid? At one point during the ordeal a family friend from a different police force just happened by. When he realized what was going on he decided to stay on the scene, explaining later (paraphrased) "Not accusing anybody of anything, but these guys did a lot of things wrong and I'm going to stay right here to be sure there are no more 'accidents'".

Everybody should take tb's advice to heart. Respect and honor the police. Treat a stranger as a stranger whether or not he/she's wearing a badge.

[Hubbs]

Any reason at all, to blame the law? (As opposed to the people who supposedly broke it?)

Yes, actually. Drug laws are by far the most common and most severely punished victimless crimes. I'm just going off the top of my head here, so there might be a set of laws that's just escaping me at the moment, but without the War on Drugs, I imagine that framing an innocent person just because you want to throw them in jail would come down to a few things. Either you'd have to frame them for a silly little thing like jaywalking, which wouldn't carry much of a penalty, or a somewhat unrealistic thing like a string of prostitution arrests with your only evidence being your claim that people walked up to you, as a cop, and offered sex for money, or a victimless crime that would require the participation of others, such as hosting casino games, or a crime with a victim, which would, of course, require a victim. Now, I'm sure that if you really wanted to frame someone, you could pay people to claim to be a victim, or claim to have participated in casino games, or claim to have been offered sex for money. But we're talking about cops here. Most of them aren't exactly swimming in cash. And I'd like to think that, in general, most people are good enough that you'd have to dangle a significant chunk of change in front of them for them to be willing to accuse someone who they know is innocent of a crime. On top of that, cops would need to be paying a lot of people if we're talking about consistently meeting a quota. In other words, yes, I think drug laws really do need to be blamed in this case.

[ACW]

The War on Drugs sucks; but let's talk about arrest quotas. What a hideous idea.

[[[ghost]]]

Nothing will happen to the people guilty. They'll get a lengthy buildup, and then they'll be doled out punishment that is mostly just for show so they can say they punished the corrupt. Meanwhile the innocent will continue to either rot in prison or struggle to get the undeserved stigma of a drug felon off their back for the rest of their lives.

[Destino]

The War on Drugs sucks; but let's talk about arrest quotas. What a hideous idea.

Good point. Why the hell is there an arrest quota? Why are cops getting extra cash for making certain types of arrests? You'd think anyone with half a brain would realize the corrupting influence that creates. Self interest isn't always hard to figure out.

What really gets me however is how little Americans care about this. How they ignore corruption in their own government almost like if they refuse to acknowledge the problem it will go away. We see corrupt DA's and corrupt cop cases all the time and no one gives a damn. Even corruption in congress requires the full strength of an opposing party to stay in the headlines.

[Larry]

Response partially to Destino and partially to Hubbs.

Yes, I've noticed that, myself. You read about a case of some guy who's been under a death sentence for 25 years, and now we find out that well, the semen that was used to convict him was his blood type, but it isn't his DNA. And the three witnesses who testified against him? Well, one of them was given a deal on a crime he committed if he'd help the cops nail this guy, and the other two were pressured and coached by the cops into pointing at the guy the cops wanted. And the two people who said that they saw a completely different person leaving the scene, well, their paperwork got lost.

And you get reactions like "well, he's probably guilty of something else", or "It's an outrage that this person wasn't executed 20 years ago. How can we permit these criminals to milk the system that way".

And the DA, who fought for five years to suppress the evidence, and to deny the appeals? He gets re-elected. Because "he's tough on crime".

Yeah, Hubbs, you've got a point that, in the case of drug crimes, it's a lot easier for a crooked cop to manufacture a crime, when there was no crime to begin with. Pretty much the only other crimes where that can happen are prostitution or traffic.

(At least, those are the only cases where one cop can create a crime. If you assume that there's more than one, then all kinds of possibilities open up. To invent a conspiracy theory, how many cops have to be "in on it" to manufacture "we found kiddie porn on his computer"?)