According to a report, a group of NYPD officers in Brooklyn planted guns on as many as six people in order to arrest them unjustly.
The New York Times zeroed in on the arrests of John Hooper, Eugene Moore, and Jeffrey Herring, who were all apprehended under similar circumstances:
The suspects said the guns were planted by the police.
There were other similarities: Each gun was found in a plastic bag or a handkerchief, with no traces of the suspect’s fingerprints. Prosecutors and the police did not mention a confidential informer until months after the arrests. None of the informers have come forward, even when defense lawyers and judges have requested they appear in court.
Taken individually, the cases seem to be routine examples of differences between the police account of an arrest and that of the person arrested. But taken together, the cases — along with other gun arrests made in the precinct by these officers — suggest a pattern of questionable police conduct and tactics.
Herring is scheduled to appear in court on Monday. Hooper spent close to a year in jail before eventually pleading guilty and agreeing to a sentence for time served. Moore had his charges dropped, but not after spending a year behind bars himself.
Debora Silberman, Herring's attorney, suggested that police either falsified the arrests to meet quota demands or take the reward money for the NYPD's Operation Gun Stop program. The initiative presents informers who assist with gun arrests with $1,000.
A police spokesman said that the behavior of the officers involved will be reviewed by its Internal Affairs division.
[via New York Times]
