Video shows NYPD officers Kyle Erickson and Elmer Pastran planting weed in a car during a traffic stop.
It's not the first time they've been caught framing someone on camera - @nytimes published body cam footage of them doing the same thing a year ago.
It's not the first time they've been caught framing someone on camera - @nytimes published body cam footage of them doing the same thing a year ago.
This is the @nytimes story from November 2018, also including the body cam footage from that incident.
Both officers have never been disciplined by NYPD and continue to work patrol. nytimes.com/2018/11/19/nyr…
Both officers have never been disciplined by NYPD and continue to work patrol. nytimes.com/2018/11/19/nyr…
In that first case, police arrested the teenage occupant of the car, Lasou Kuyateh, and he was held on Rikers Island for 2 weeks on bail he could not afford. He had no criminal record and yet a prosecutor asked for bail and a judge set it.
In the second case, the person arrested, Jason Serrano, took a plea deal to avoid jail time and didn’t learn of the footage’s existence until earlier this year, when attorneys with the Legal Aid Society showed it to him.
Meaning, yes, an innocent person framed by the police pleaded guilty.
In both cases, police stopped the cars for minor traffic infractions and then claimed to smell weed, using that as a justification to search the vehicles and their occupants.
In the first case, after a judge essentially signaled to prosecutors in an off-the record conference with lawyers for both sides that he believed Officer Erickson had perjured himself during direct testimony, they immediately dismissed the case against Mr. Kuyateh.
In doing this, the judge in effect protected the cop, because he shielded him from cross examination, further perjuring himself & also prevented the defense from determining what the evidence would have shown had they been able to cross examine him.
When the Legal Aid attorney complained, the judge said, “This case is dismissed and sealed. What I’m not going to allow happen is my courtroom to become a political place where these things are brought up.”
Which is pretty much the problem - police misconduct never get litigated or adjudicated by courts. People take pleas, cases get dismissed. So few judges have the courage to call out this everyday misconduct & brutality. Thank God we have media working to hold people to account.
From the lawyers who represented both young men in these cases.
And here is the link to @alicesperi's full article. Like all of Alice's work, MUST READ. theintercept.com/2020/03/18/nyp…
PS. Tweet 10 of this thread should read "police misconduct never *gets* litigated."
