Richard Prince -“An investigation by The New York Times has found that on more than 25 occasions since January 2015, judges or prosecutors determined that a key aspect of a New York City police officer’s testimony was probably untrue,” Joseph Goldstein reported for the news organization. “The Times identified these cases — many of which are sealed —through interviews with lawyers, police officers and current and former judges.
“In these cases, officers have lied about the whereabouts of guns, putting them in suspects’ hands or waistbands when they were actually hidden out of sight. They have barged into apartments and conducted searches, only to testify otherwise later. Under oath, they have given firsthand accounts of crimes or arrests that they did not in fact witness. They have falsely claimed to have watched drug deals happen, only to later recant or be shown to have lied.
“No detail, seemingly, is too minor to embellish. ‘Clenched fists’ is how one Brooklyn officer described the hands of a man he claimed had angrily approached him and started screaming and yelling — an encounter that prosecutors later determined never occurred. Another officer, during a Bronx trial, accused a driver of recklessly crossing the double-yellow line — on a stretch of road that had no double-yellow line.
“In many instances, the motive for lying was readily apparent: to skirt constitutional restrictions against unreasonable searches and stops.
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Testilying.
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