The New York City Police Department was hit with a serious body blow on Tuesday.
A top federal judge said the Department is plagued by widespread falsification of arrests.
There is new meaning to the phrase “NYPD Blue.”
Federal Judge Jack Weinstein said the highly respected department has a number of bad apples ready willing and able to make phony arrests.
“Informal inquiry by the court has revealed anecdotal evidence of repeated, widespread falsification by arresting officers of the New York City Police Department,” Weinstein said.
“That statement is very disturbing,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
Weinstein delivered the bombshell finding in a decision refusing to throw out a multi-million dollar false arrest suit filed by Jose and Maximo colon, who were busted on bogus drug charges.
The cops claimed the Colons sold them drugs, but a surveillance tape inside the bar where the bust took place showed there was never any contact between the Colons and the undercover cops.
The police commissioner stressed that the majority of police officers don’t fake cases.
“We take very quick and aggressive action against anyone found to be perjuring themselves,” Kelly said. “We’ve had some cases in the recent past and, unfortunately, it seems to happen not for personal gain but some officers will do it as a matter of convenience.”
But Rochelle Berliner, the attorney for one of the Colon brothers, sees it differently.
“I think it happens more often they we know about. Frequently within a narcotics team the more arrests that are made the more overtime there is,” Berliner said.
The arrests ruined the brothers’ lives. They lost their business and suffered emotionally.
When asked if they will ever be able to trust the police again, Berliner said, “I doubt it. I doubt it.”
If there’s no settlement the case will go to trial in mid February.
The two cops who arrested the Colons were indicted on 42 counts of unlawful arrest.
(Source: CBS2 HD)
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7 Responses
This reminds me of the case in the Bronx in the 1980s when a young man called the police for help after being threatened by someone with a knife, and the nearest payphone found was actually in the next precinct.
The two very unfriendly police women who came to the location refused to help.
Concerned by their unhelpful attitude he tried to read their badge number and write it on a scrap of paper, which they didn’t allow him to do, by brandishing their weapons ready to fire if he failed to comply with their order to turn around and walk away.
It was outdoors and daylight, and easier to see than inside a bar.
Usually in cases like this, a retired police officer explained, the cops shoot the person and then plant weapons to justify their actions, and can even be given an award.
The young man received no compensation for this traumatic event, not even an apology from higher ups within the police department.
Now the cops have a new target. Judge Weinstein….
They can even arrest gim for OGA (Google it) the default charge when nothing else sticks.
This is a botched court case that the Feds corrupted. I dont believe cops would not think about surveillance tapes recording things. Maybe surveillance tapes did not cover where the alleged drug transaction occurred.
Further, if this is true, two cops dont justify a headline about the “NYPD”.
Dont alienate police departments, as a whole.
I dont believe the story. Cops would realize there would be a surveillance camera. Maybe they failed to prove or show where the alleged drug transaction occurred. The fact this came down from a Federal judge, also is suspicious. Nonetheless, two cops do not make it an NYPD problem. Dont alienate police departments.
Ooops. Sorry, thought one of the posts did not take as a long time passed.
Sorry, all you fans of the New York Police Department, but the NYPD does have some very bad apples. Remember the Louima case? The Diallo shooting? The mentally ill young frum man who was gunned down in broad daylight in front of his neighbors in Boro Park (right around the corner from where friends of mine used to live)? The problem is not the bad apples – every group has them. The problem is the “blue wall of silence.” Police won’t report other officers no matter what the crime. Incidentally, the officer who testified in the Louima case (which was of such a nature I can’t write about it here) was a religious Jew who consulted with his rabbi first, because he knew he would be in trouble big time for testifying.
Every decade or so the department is hit with a corruption scandal of some sort, there is a general housecleaning, and then after a few years things begin to slide again. Our thanks to Judge Weinstein for doing the job this time around.
#6, Of course there are bad apples. Of course we remember the Louima case, the Diallo shooting, and the mentally ill frum man gunned down. Terrible situations. But in between those events, and as we speak, do you realize in a 24 hour period what the NYPD does to protect and rescue people? The sheer quantity of work they do for us is mind boggling. It’s is like filling the Empire State Building with apples and finding some rotten ones on the 57th floor, only then to say the Empire State Building, as a whole, is called onto the carpet for a rebuking. Yes, I remain a fan of the NYPD!