All these bad apples are getting rather tedious.

[Savannahmann]

We keep hearing how the occasional Bad Apples are screwing things up for the good cops. While we don't see many of the good cops with a few notable exceptions, we're told they're really in the majority.

Today's instalment in the Bad Apple parade starts with a man who was finally exonerated after 21 years for a murder he did not commit. Let me say that again, he spent twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit. The reason he spent all those years in prison is that the Detective pressured the witnesses to lie. I know, how astonishing is that? That the police would frame an otherwise innocent black man.

A man who spent 21 years in prison for murder had his conviction overturned today - and says he lost decades behind bars because of a crooked cop.

Derrick Hamilton, 49, was imprisoned for supposedly murdering Nathaniel Cash in 1991, but has always been adamant he had nothing to do with it.

Instead, he says, he was locked up because former NYPD detective Louis Scarcella intimidated a woman into claiming she witnessed him shoot Cash dead.

Makes one wonder how the retired NYPD officer who explained how completely out of touch he and his mates are and how they feel about society and the public at large feels about an innocent man doing 20 years in prison for a crime he did not actually commit.

Oh well. One bad apple. Nothing to see here. Move along.

An LAPD officer was exposing himself to people in a nature preserve. I guess he thought they wanted to see his miniscule grasp of nature.

The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department saw one of their own, a man described as an Eagle Scout and presumably a damn fine human being was sentenced to eighteen months for hiding a prisoner who was willing to talk to the FBI about the conditions at the LA County Jail.

James Sexton, a former Eagle Scout who earned his master's degree at USC last year, was found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in September. It was the 30-year old Alabama native's second trial. Jurors in his first trial were "hopelessly deadlocked" - and unable to reach a verdict. Prosecutors decided to retry Sexton after winning convictions against six of his co-defendants in a separate trial.

So cops and cop lovers out there. Do me a favor. Try and weed out these darned bad apples a little sooner. It is starting to get a little tedious.

Oh, this just in. (It's not. But it is truthfully awesome. I wanted to end with some humor, besides the obvious sarcasm in the few bad apples meme.)

[obxhead]

1. When the good apples remain silent

They become bad apples.

There are very few good apples in the cart, and most of those are only good because they were just hired.

[G_j]

2. Ask Frank Serpico...

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160.html

The Police Are Still Out of Control, I should know.

By FRANK SERPICO October 23, 2014



In the opening scene of the 1973 movie “Serpico,” I am shot in the face—or to be more accurate, the character of Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, is shot in the face. Even today it’s very difficult for me to watch those scenes, which depict in a very realistic and terrifying way what actually happened to me on Feb. 3, 1971. I had recently been transferred to the Narcotics division of the New York City Police Department, and we were moving in on a drug dealer on the fourth floor of a walk-up tenement in a Hispanic section of Brooklyn. The police officer backing me up instructed me (since I spoke Spanish) to just get the apartment door open “and leave the rest to us.”

One officer was standing to my left on the landing no more than eight feet away, with his gun drawn; the other officer was to my right rear on the stairwell, also with his gun drawn. When the door opened, I pushed my way in and snapped the chain. The suspect slammed the door closed on me, wedging in my head and right shoulder and arm. I couldn’t move, but I aimed my snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver at the perp (the movie version unfortunately goes a little Hollywood here, and has Pacino struggling and failing to raise a much-larger 9-millimeter automatic). From behind me no help came. At that moment my anger got the better of me. I made the almost fatal mistake of taking my eye off the perp and screaming to the officer on my left: “What the hell you waiting for? Give me a hand!” I turned back to face a gun blast in my face. I had cocked my weapon and fired back at him almost in the same instant, probably as reflex action, striking him. (He was later captured.)

When I regained consciousness, I was on my back in a pool of blood trying to assess the damage from the gunshot wound in my cheek. Was this a case of small entry, big exit, as often happens with bullets? Was the back of my head missing? I heard a voice saying, “Don’ worry, you be all right, you be all right,” and when I opened my eyes I saw an old Hispanic man looking down at me like Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan. My “backup” was nowhere in sight. They hadn’t even called for assistance—I never heard the famed “Code 1013,” meaning “Officer Down.” They didn’t call an ambulance either, I later learned; the old man did. One patrol car responded to investigate, and realizing I was a narcotics officer rushed me to a nearby hospital (one of the officers who drove me that night said, “If I knew it was him, I would have left him there to bleed to death,” I learned later).

The next time I saw my “back-up” officers was when one of them came to the hospital to bring me my watch. I said, “What the hell am I going to do with a watch? What I needed was a back-up. Where were you?” He said, “Fuck you,” and left. Both my “back-ups” were later awarded medals for saving my life.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160.html#ixzz3NFgBNnZ5

[cwydro]

3. I remember being deeply shocked by that movie.

I was about 15. Great movie.

But awful.

[B2G]

4. You don't hear about the good cops

because they don't make the news.

There are 10s of thousands of cops out there serving their communities with honor. But it's OK around here to point to the headlines and then state that all cops are bad...either because they truly ARE, or because the good ones aren't 'speaking out'.

I could make that exact same statement about Muslims in general and radical Islam, but that would be...frowned upon here.

Go figure.

[Savannahmann]

7. OK, let's play what if.

Let's say that a man commits a rape. He brutalizes a woman, and puts her in the hospital. During the trial, I sit on the stand and say it is impossible for him to have committed the rape, because the accused was with me the whole time. We were fishing that evening, running Trot lines in the local river. I say it knowing it is a lie, but I say it in a most believable manner. The Jury comes back with not guilty.

Now, I just lied to protect my friend. I just committed perjury to help out a friend who did the wrong thing. He goes out, and rapes another. The police don't prosecute him despite DNA evidence because of my earlier lie. Perhaps there are two people with similiar enough DNA to screw up the test.

I'm not a rapist. I never raped anyone. I never personally victimized anyone. Am I a bad guy in this scenario? I only told one lie. Just one lie, to protect a friend. Sure, a woman got beat up, brutalized, and raped, but Bob is a friend, and a goes to my church, and I know his kids. I can't let them grow up without a Daddy. Besides, Bob is one of the best hands with a welder, and who would fix my mower and other metal things if he went to prison. He's a good guy, and just made a mistake.

Am I a bad man if I go an lie under oath to protect a friend? It was only one lie after all, and how much harm could one lie do? What if I don't lie under oath, but I write down the lie on a piece of paper and turn it in as evidence, and the charges are dropped because of my affidavit? Am I still a bad man, or am I just a good friend who is taking care of a friend, and neighbor?

Let me say, now for the record. I have never had a friend accused of a sexual assault. I have never lied to protect anyone, including myself. I am offering this as a hypothetical only.

[madokie]

5. We've had several freed here in Ok

over the last few years because of police or prosecutor misconduct. they ought to put the cop or prosecutor in the cell that the innocent person lived in to finish out the innocent persons term. it would go a long ways to stopping this kind of shit

[Savannahmann]

6. Would you like to know the fastest way possible to end that kind of thing?

Simple. Take the dirty cops pension and pay it to the one who was wrongfully convicted. IF the DA knowingly proceeded with evidence he/she knew was tainted, take their BAR license, and their pension. All that work, all those years of effort down the tubes in one fateful decision. The cops would scream bloody murder. The police unions would scream to high heaven, but it is fair. The dirty cop took from the accused and should pay back, personally.