Cops don't snitch

I saw this headline

Prosecutors Say Corruption in Atlanta Police Dept. Is Widespread

...and said to myself, "Of course." You shoot an old lady, plant drugs on her and everyone backs you up for, what, over a year? Hell yeah there's a corruption problem. I'm surprised they weren't running around with shit-covered plungers.

The prosecutor's office is kinder than I, of course...though I guess I can see the reason for it.

Mr. Nahmias took a moment to dwell on what he said was the unusual nature of the officers’ offenses.

“The officers charged today were not corrupt in the sense that we have seen before,” he said. “They are not accused of seeking payoffs or trying to rob drug dealers or trying to protect gang members. Their goal was to arrest drug dealers and seize illegal drugs, and that’s what we want our police officers to do for our community.

“But these officers pursued that goal by corrupting the justice system, because when it was hard to do their job the way the Constitution requires, they let the ends justify their means.”

Mr. Nahmias said the statement in the plea agreement that officers cut corners in order to “be considered productive officers and to meet A.P.D.’s performance targets” reflected their perception of the department’s expectations.

An indictment is always necessary to bring out the truth with corrupt cops. But this indictment is claiming there's a corrupt organization, that good men are faithfully following corrupt rules.

But here's what they themselves said they did.

The day she was killed, narcotics officers said, they arrested a drug dealer who said he could tell them where to recover a kilogram of cocaine, and pointed out Ms. Johnston’s modest green-trimmed house at 933 Neal Street.

Instead of hiring an informant to try to buy drugs at the house, the officers filed for a search warrant, claiming that drugs had been bought there from a man named Sam. Because they falsely claimed that the house was equipped with surveillance equipment, they got a no-knock warrant that allowed them to break down the front door.

First, according to court papers, they pried off the burglar bars and began to ram open the door. Ms. Johnston, who lived alone, fired a single shot from a .38-caliber revolver through the front door and the officers fired back, killing her.

After the shooting, they handcuffed her and searched the house, finding no drugs....

When no drugs were found, the cover-up began in earnest, according to court papers.

Officer Smith planted three bags of marijuana, which had been recovered earlier in the day in an unrelated search, in the basement. He called a confidential informant and instructed him to pretend he had made the drug buy described in the affidavit for the search warrant.

The three officers, Mr. Junnier, Mr. Smith and Officer Tesler met to concoct a story before talking with homicide detectives, the court filings say.

The problem these guys had was they did it to cover up a death rather than a drug bust. There's no telling how long this has been going on, or how long it would have continued if not for this episode.

And I don't think Atlanta is especially foul in this regard. After all, I still haven't seen the end of Sean Bell's case. Being a Black guy in New York, you can almost become jaded about bad run-ins with cops...which is likely why I'm starting to ramble.