Body camera footage shows officer planting drugs, public defender says
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-body-camera-footage-20170719-story.html
Considering recent history of trouble relating to policing issues in Baltimore, that cannot be good for community confidence in the police.
Awful!!!
I mean, really, what’s it going to change? This is peanuts compared to the fact that officers can shoot black kids and walk free.
I doubt this earns as much as an eye roll from many/most in targeted communities.
However, police use of deadly force and misconduct or errors in doing so, is far less common than other types of police actions and misconduct or errors in doing so. It is most far more likely to encounter police misconduct or errors in other police actions – and such misconduct or errors, while they may not immediately cause someone’s death, could indirectly cause someone’s death (imagine that planted “evidence” causes an innocent person to be put in prison (at great taxpayer expense) and committing suicide or coming out as a hardened criminal who later kills someone).
Our family was just discussing civil asset forfeiture (certain family think that practice is fine) and I brought up the possibility of contraband being ‘planted’ and then you have to fight to get your property returned.
@SouthFloridaMom9 - Interesting point. If the authorities target an affluent party and set them up, it would be relatively easy to take their assets.
I wonder what those family members would think if the police confiscated their assets for something they had been erroneously accused of, not even convicted. Would they be thrilled that the police were basically allowed to steal from them, in order to fund their department? 
Honestly, it is inconceivable to me that any justice loving American could support this. Even if they were convinced it could never happen to them.
The current Attorney General wants to increase civil asset forfeiture. While it may have begun as a well-intentioned program, it’s turned into a form of legal theft. I don’t even know how it’s passed constitutional muster if anybody’s ever taken it all the way to the Supreme Court. Once your property is seized it’s likely gone forever, I don’t think there’s much prospect of ever getting anything back whether or not you’re convicted (or even charged).
From the Washington Post:
"Since 2007, the Drug Enforcement Administration alone has taken more than $3 billion in cash from people not charged with any crime, according to the Justice Department’s Inspector General.
The practice is ripe for abuse. In one case in 2016, Oklahoma police seized $53,000 owned by a Christian band, an orphanage and a church after stopping a man on a highway for a broken taillight. A few years earlier, a Michigan drug task force raided the home of a self-described “soccer mom,” suspecting she was not in compliance with the state’s medical marijuana law. They proceeded to take “every belonging” from the family, including tools, a bicycle and her daughter’s birthday money."
Imagine this: Your kid has graduated and is driving cross country to a great new job in a new, paid for car, with some cash in the car. Something is planted, the kid is accused and all this is taken away. Kid can’t get to the job on time and kid’s reputation is ruined because people still think you have to be guilty of something to be stopped and lose your assets. Blink of an eye. Stand up for what is right. If not just because it is right, then because it could easily happen to you, too.
http://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit lists the Institute for Justice’s ratings of each state with respect to civil asset forfeiture. IJ appears to have a libertarian viewpoint on the issues it is active on: http://ij.org/issues/