Baltimore's public defenders say they've got more video of local cops planting evidence, and it's already led to more criminal charges being dropped.
The new footage, as yet unreleased to the public, is unrelated to the bodycam video released last month that exposed other Baltimore cops placing drugs at a crime scene.
Mosby also said a second video had been flagged by prosecutors as potentially problematic, but declined to describe that video. She said it had been forwarded to Internal Affairs for review. Police said it “involves two arrests and the recovery of drugs from a car during a traffic stop.”
Police also said there is a gap in the video “before the final recovery of additional drugs” that is now being investigated. They did not say whether any officers had been reprimanded or had their status changed pending that investigation. ... Debbie Katz Levi, who heads the special litigation section in the Baltimore public defender office, slammed Mosby’s office for a “lack of transparency” about the number of videos of concern that have been found.
“The lack of transparency to the public and refusal to disclose to the defense both prejudices defendants and violates the prosecutor’s constitutional obligations,” Levi said. “Hundreds of individuals are awaiting trial on cases that rely on these officers, and hundreds more have likely been convicted based on their testimony.”
It's good that they're getting caught, and a reminder exactly why police must not be able to control their own cams and why the footage must generally be available on-demand to public defenders and the public itself.
