Officers caught on tape torturing suspect for search consent

That's very disturbing. I wish I knew more about the source organization to which you linked, though. It sounds almost too bizarre to be believable. Not that the cops did it, that's beieveable all right. But it's hardly credible that not a single "mainstream" news organization picked up on it after the FBI was brought in. There has to be more to the story than that.

I won't listen to the tape, but I get the "drift" by reading the story. IMO, this was the story of a number of rogue cops, who ended up getting their just desserts. Yeah, it is disgusting, but I think that we all need to keep this story in perspective. The cops in question were fired, in addition to serving jail time.



http://www.wbir.com/printfullstory.aspx?storyid=27204

I thought the same thing. Here is a mainstream news source link about it:


Knoxville news (click)

I wonder how often this kind of thing happens... I'm supposing most criminals' wives dont have a cassette recorder at the ready. Top of the iceberg, then?

I strongly suspect it is just the tip of the iceberg, nimh. Remember the Rodney King incident in 1991 which set off large scale rioting in Los Angeles when the accused police officers were acquited? There, again, the cops overstepped their bounds because they didn't know that a neighbor with a videocam was taping them. The problem is that, absent the kind of evidence provided by recordings, it's very hard to bring charges against police. It's the suspect's word against theirs and most people will believe a police officer before they believe a drug dealer.

Most people will not report police violence in fear of retribution, so it can be safely assumed that not many people victimized will not report it. That somebody had a tape to show the DA and other law-enforcement personnel, he might have half a chance of getting justice.

Not good.

Where's Brandon to shed some light on this subject and defend these gallant law enforcement officers?

Sounds like South central L.A. in the 80's. I listened to the whole thing. I've read alot of torture testimonials but i've never heard one. Once you have read so much about these things (and seen them) it becomes old hat. Another torture case another innocent death. It's one in millions.

Did anybody hear that cop joke when he said "Wheres the camera at?"

It's a tape pig. Their rich!!!!

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October 12, 1996 Javier Francisco Ovando, 19 years old, was walking down the hallway of an apartment building in the Pico-Union when two cops, Rafael Perez and Nino Durden, stopped him. They forced him to his knees, handcuffed him and shot him in the face. Ovando slumped to the floor. The cops took off the handcuffs and planted a rifle in his hands. Ovando lived--but he is paralyzed and will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. link

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The story told by the officer was nothing new to the homeboys on the streets of Pico Union, East LA and South Central. But it stunned those citizens who, relying on television images of the "thin blue line" defending middle-class civilization, had blindly supported CRASH since its inception in 1979. Perez revealed that he and his partner shot an alleged teenage gang member, Javier Francisco Ovando, in the head, planted a gun on his body, then arrested him for threatening to kill them. When Perez's story checked out, the wheelchair-bound Ovando was released, but that was only the beginning. It turned out that CRASH units engaged in self-recruitment like armed fraternities, "jumped in" (hazed) their own members and engaged in shooting, beating, framing, planting false evidence and turning immigrants over to the INS for immediate deportation and held awards parties at the police academy afterward. Like Ovando, some of these CRASH targets were never convicted of a crime. More than 3,000 convictions have been tainted by the dubious testimony of crooked cops, and the projected cost of lawsuits to the city is at least $200 million.Link