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The testilying 'Bushmen'

At the Dallas News, Tanya Eiserer had an excellent story this week ("Dallas police officer's testimony may taint dozens of cases," May 2) about Sgt. Randy Sundquist, a Dallas police officer officially branded a liar and banned from testifying in court after an administrative judge overturned his firing in the mid-'90s. But over time, apparently, everyone forgot, and he was promoted to supervise a unit responding to drug complaints - an unimaginably poor judgment to put a known liar in charge of such a unit. Now, dozens of cases in which he participated may be tainted.Eiserer's story concludes with an especially fascinating account that suggests Sundquist's lying wasn't just malfeasance by a single officer but actually part of a pattern attributed to his entire unit:In the mid-1990s, Sundquist and other patrol officers were known among prosecutors as the "Bushmen," a reference to the group's fondness for hiding in bushes when conducting surveillance on suspected drug houses in South Dallas...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on May 03, 2009 (boomark / email).