Blue Lies Matter
BuzzFeed News reviewed 62 incidents of video footage contradicting an officer’s statement in a police report or testimony. From traffic stops to fatal force, these cases reveal how cops are incentivized to lie — and why they get away with it.
Albert Samaha
BuzzFeed News Reporter
buzzfeed.com
Excerpt:
...For much of modern American history, police officers were considered, by most judges and jurors, to be the most reliable narrators in a courtroom — professional and neutral arbiters of facts. The increasing prevalence of camera footage eroded that bedrock of the justice system, wiping out powers long held by law enforcement. Within the last half decade, a new reality has set in for cops, lawyers, and judges: Videos have replaced police reports and testimony as the most credible version of events, proving time and again, with increasing frequency, that police officers lie.
BuzzFeed News reviewed 62 examples since 2008, including 40 since 2014, of video footage contradicting a cop’s statement in a police report or testimony. Nine of these videos captured high-profile abuses that led to protests, dominated Twitter timelines, and drew coverage from more than a few national news outlets. The other 53 incidents came and went without much attention beyond that from local residents and reporters. In almost every case, the officers lied for the same reason Buckley did: to retroactively justify their actions.
There are no comprehensive statistical studies of police lying — for somewhat obvious reasons: It’s impossible to know how often officers get away with lying. In one quantitative effort published in the University of Chicago Law Review in 1992, Myron Orfield, who is now a law professor at the University of Minnesota, surveyed dozens of prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges in Chicago. Fifty-two percent of them responded that prosecutors “know or have reason to know” that an officer fabricated evidence “at least half of the time.” Nearly 90% of prosecutors responded that they were aware of police perjury in cases “at least some of the time.”
San Francisco officer Buckley lied in his police report, in his court declaration, and in his testimony. He lied about his reason for approaching Simpson, and the video showed that he violated Simpson’s constitutional rights by stopping him without reasonable suspicion and then detaining him without probable cause.
So it didn’t matter whether or not Simpson had a gun. The stop was illegal, Judge Breyer ruled in his dismissal of the case, and so the evidence it produced was legally useless. Prosecutors dropped the charges and informed Buckley’s bosses.
Eight months later, Buckley remains on the force. The department would not say whether he has been disciplined but told BuzzFeed News that “this is still an active and open Internal Affairs investigation.” Federal prosecutors have not charged him with perjury and would not comment on the case.
Lying is “something that has been endemic in the history of the American police system for the last three or four generations,” said Peter Keane, a former San Francisco police commissioner who now teaches law at Golden Gate University. “And why do they do it? The main reason they do it, historically and now, is they can get away with it.”... |
