Two former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been charged with planting guns at a medical marijuana dispensary when they were on the force in 2011. Julio Cesar Martinez, 39, and Anthony Manuel Paez, 32, were charged with one felony count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice and altering evidence as a peace officer. The charges could result in seven year stints. The two officers allegedly turned off the electricity and a security camera system inside the dispensary as they planted guns later cited as the basis for the arrests.
The officers wrote a report that they spotted a drug deal involving a person with a gun. They said that the followed the suspect, Antonio Rhodes, into the dispensary and found two guns: one near a trash bin and another on a desk next to some ecstasy pills. They arrested two individuals, Rhodes and Johnny Yang, who were charged with possession of an unregistered gun and the second for possession of a controlled substance while armed with a gun. However, a video from inside the dispensary was later found to be “inconsistent” with their accounts — a rather mild way to put it in a gun planting case.
Martinez was a 15-year veteran of the Department and Paez was an 7-year veteran. Prosecutors say that Paez crawled under a desk to shut off a video surveillance system before planting two handguns on top of a desk and withdrawing one from a drawer and placing it on a chair. Martinez allegedly shut off the electricity.
Notably, Yang entered a plea of no contest and was sentenced April 27, 2012, to a year in jail. Consider what would have happened if this video did not exist. Once again, cases of this kind show the value of videotape evidence. We have been following the continuing abuse of citizens who are detained or arrested for filming police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue. The video contradiction of the police account is all too familiar on this blog. Of course, in Dallas, Dallas Police Chief David Brown revealed a new policy that would require officers involved in a shooting to wait 72 hours before making a statement. The policy came after a scandal where a surveillance video showed one of Brown’s officers shooting a mentally ill suspect for no apparent reason. The video contradicted the officer’s testimony and undermined the charge against the victim. Brown’s solution was not greater disciplining and monitoring of officers but to impose a delay to allow officers to craft their statements. I would have thought that such a proposal would have resulted in the termination of Brown but he continues to run a major police department.
Presumably, Yang will now consider a civil lawsuit as well as Rhodes.
We seem to have a fair number of controversies generated by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department or the Los Angeles Police Department lately. Notably, when officers were recently found to have disabled cameras on police cars, the Chief of Police decided not to pursue the officers for criminal charges or termination.
Source: LA Times
http://shareranks.com/994,Highest-Murder-Rate-US-Cities – you will see Chicago tops the list
Paul,
Backpedaling on impeachment, now? Who would have thunk.
That is just a list of cities, list the murder rates.
Paul S
Sure.
Detroit, Kansas City, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philly, Stockton, St. Louis
I bet there are close to ten cities ranked higher than Chicago. And I bet Darren is smiling right now.
So list them. Win your bet.
Not even close on Chicago and highest murder rate. There are several that have a much higher ranking.
Words matter.
John,
Sounds like you’d like to impeach the President. Impeachment is a cinch. The Senate, even if it falls to the Republicans in this Fall, will never convict. But happily, such an effort on the part of the House, would cause the GOP to lose some seats and probably hurt them in the Senate as well. Further, it would assure a Democratic victory in 2016.
So, John, I hope you have a lot of clout. It’s a perfect plan..
The one thing that will save Obama from impeachment is who is VP. No one want Biden as president.
Would you like to list those places that have the higher murder rates?
Frank Rizzo allegedly said that the Philadelphia Police League For Retarded Citizens would put you on the force and train you in every aspect of crime pause – prevention
Maybe they could just ASK criminal applicants if they are truly reformed.
AA has ramifications in education and hiring. But in police hires, it has proven to be fatal. The not doing background checks was the Sgt. Schultz philosophy of making quotas. Now, I have long said, I think REFORMED criminals can make the best cops. But, they need to be truly reformed.
The community I am in actually chips in more on its property tax for more first responders. We have not had an incident of malfeasance so far, but we have had a case where they over-reacted during a drug raid and burned the house down. That cost us some extra money.
It’s very naive to think NOLA’s PD is free of criminals/criminals-in-waiting.
740,
Unless you can afford to hire a well-connected lawyer, you may as well just remind yourself that there IS no justice, there’s just us.
Well, it is freer than it was. 🙂 They were actually hiring without doing background checks.
Is that why you moved to Arizona?
Paul,
When one ceases to hold his faculties together, they have lost, every since then!
When the ‘Police’ themselvesm are the crimminals…. where are we, the citizenry, supposed to go to achieve any justice?
So keebler is wise? I can’t dispute it. He’s never ridiculed any of my comments – unlike some of the other customers here that you might know, or at least are aware of.
The history of police forces show that often the police are/were criminals just as much as the people they caught. Not sure that much has changed. There used to be a theory that police and criminals were drawn from the same social class(es) so they are just two sides of the same coin. Does anyone remember the problems that NOLA had with the criminals on their police force and how long it took to get rid of them?
” If there is no crime, we will create one”
That’s Mr Keebler to you, mind your manners. Plus, that is a very unsocial thing to say. Then again, if you can’t trust yourself it’s probably best.
keebler – Where two discourse, if the one’s anger rise,
The man who lets the contest fall is wise – Euripedes
Are we going fishing ?
keebler – not sure there was a ‘we’ in there.
John, That’s a Costco sized can o’ worms you just opened, bro!
Did not know Costco carried cans of worms and I was just there yesterday. Missed them. Damn!!! Since the current DOJ seems intent on getting more Democrats out of jail than putting them in I have low hope for Lois Lerner ending in jail.