Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> TalkLeft

Legal Commentary

: TalkLeft

Two Queens Officers Accused of Deliberately Arresting Four Innocent Men

By TChris

It's so much easier to invent crimes than it is to solve them honestly.

Two undercover narcotics officers have been charged with lying about a sting operation in Queens after one of the men they accused of selling drugs produced video evidence showing the officers had had no contact with him or three other men they arrested.

The officers allegedly bought cocaine from two men but claimed they bought it from six, resulting in the arrests of four innocent men.

It's bad enough that the police conduct sting operations -- often creating crimes that wouldn't have happened but for the sting. How lazy does an officer have to be to arrest four innocent people when it's so easy to find actual drug dealers willing to sell their product? And what ever happened to good old fashioned police work: investigating and sometimes solving actual crimes that actually occurred? [more ...]

Here are the collateral consequences of the officers' lies:

The district attorney said all arrests made by the two officers were being reviewed.

How many of those arrests were bogus? Maybe none, maybe most. All we know is that the public can't trust the work of these two officers.

Fortunately, there will be consequences for the officers.

The officers “are accused of knowingly engaging in criminal activity that could have resulted in lengthy prison terms for four innocent men,” [Queens DA Richard] Brown said.

As many TalkLeft commenters have noted in response to similar stories, if the officers are convicted it would be just for them to serve the sentences that would have been served by the innocent men they falsely accused.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 16, 2009 (boomark / email).