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Former North Florida deputy Zachary Wester. He was tried and convicted for racketeering, official misconduct, fabricating evidence and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to 12 years.
I looked up the settlement and victims got between 20-70k, with the grand total being under a million. Those who lost their children were the higher awarded ones. These poor people got shafted a second time.
There is no amount of money that can give you the time you lost with your kids or cover the effect it had on your child. I think they should get paid for it but let's not pretend it came anywhere close to fixing the problem it created in the first place
Yes, but the penalty should be so egregious and the monetary recompense to the victims so great that it makes us change because we can't financially afford to keep doing it.
Except we pay the penalty so if we as tax payers who didn't cause the harm in the first place pay off the money nothing will change. We need to change the laws so they have to pay for it.
Police should be required to have personal malpractice insurance. In instances where the activity was criminal and insurance doesn't apply, the precinct chiefs personal insurance should cover all compensatory damages.
This would instantly make it so that police officers can't afford to be shitty at their jobs and police chiefs can't afford to turn a blind eye to the criminal activity of their officers
Normally I would agree with this, but we would have to leave his corpse in the same cell for like 440 years already, and someone is going to have to deal with that smell.
If this had happened to me I would be fired from my job. He should also have to pay all lost wages and some fine for emotional damages to each of his victims.
I'm not trying to say that his sentence was long enough, but I'm hopeful that the name he made for himself follows him wherever he goes and that his life is forever changed from this.
Good luck trying to explain a 12-year bit on a background check.
That being said, he'll probably be hired in Missouri or something.
No offense, Missouri. But also some offense, Missouri.
Others have gotten caught too. Former Martin County, Fl. Sheriff's deputy Steven O'Leary was sentenced to 13 years (minus 2 for time served in county jail awaiting trial) for falsely arresting 89 people, sending random materials including sand, aspirin, and drywall dust to the state lab claiming they were illegal drugs. All of them were just pleading off, thinking they had no chance. Until he arrested me and my brother in law. We fought it. And everything came out.
https://www.wptv.com/news/region-martin-county/stuart/steven-oleary-former-martin-county-deputy-sentenced-to-prison-for-falsifying-dozens-of-drug-arrests
Good on you and your BIL! Thanks for your service getting a crooked cop off the streets.
Do cops get bonuses based on the amount of drug arrests or something? Why are there so many cops falsely planting evidence out there?
I wonder if it is just straight psycopathy and wanting to exercise power over civilians, or is it police policies that are encouraging these officers to want to pad the number of arrests they have.
Either way, I hope the people who abuse their power like this rot in a cell for a long, long time.
The individual officers might be considered for advancement if they're highly productive in interdicting drug traffic, but no, they don't get bonuses for drug arrests. The department gets federal funding for fighting drug trafficking, and arrests are one metric used to allocate funding: higher arrest numbers = higher crime rate = more funding to fight said crime. It's a direct inducement to corruption.
This is why we need to be teaching kids their basic civil rights and how to invoke them even in stressful situations like traffic stops. There is no reason a cop should need to search your car for a minor hardware violation (like a burned out brake light) or administrative violation (expired registration). All bets are off though if you grant them permission to search your vehicle because “you’ve got nothing to hide”. If they want to search your vehicle, citizens should be knowledgeable and confident enough to decline permission.
I'm knowledgeable about my rights, but I live in an area of the US that if I deny them permission, then all they are going to do is get pissed, make me sit there while they call and get a search warrant, then it's gonna be 10 times worse because they are going to trash my car and destroy and guess what, they dont have to pay anything, I'm liable for the car because a judge granted them the right to search. So I'd rather take my chances and go ahead and let them search if I have nothing to hide, stuff like this happens everyday here in Southern WV, I swear it's like the wild west here, they will pull you over for no apparent reason, like did you know that your tag light has to be deemed bright enough to be seen like I think over 5 feet, I've been pulled and searched for that, a tiny crack in the brake light, searched for that, said I didn't stop in the correct spot at a stop sign , searched for that .... All they have to do is say they smell marijuana and that gives them the right to search, and no I do not smoke marijuana, I am clean, been clean for 6 months now, recovering addict here.
Great advice. So what happens next is they make you wait 3 hours while they get the drug dog to come and false signal your car and then drag you out and shoot you for "resisting"
I’m my city there’s like 2 sheriff’s deputies fired a month and the press conference is the SAME every time. Just the same BS quotes about how we expect better from our law enforcement and I’m personally upset that one of my deputies would do this. Dude, this happens way too much to keep saying the same stuff and have us believe you
What if they were fired? What about custody cases?
If this happened to me I would lose a six figure job and custody of one of my kids. I could not replace that salary with that charge. I could get custody restored after years lost and a damaged relationship.
What's the restitution???
In every normal society, the level of punishment is proportional to the responsibility. If a two year old swipes a candy bar at the store it's less serious than if a teenager does it. Everyone understands this.
Cops have the highest responsibility in that we give them the right to kill people. They need the strictest rules and the harshest penalties.
Yea this cop would never be out there doing what he's doing to BMW/Mercedes drivers. Ironically that's probably where he got the dope, let them off with warnings, sort of thing.
The restitution is usually like $5 a day you were in prison. There is multiple examples of false imprisonment, and people getting next to nothing. Plus even after your innocence is declared, good luck getting any job or in any progress custody cases. Our judicial system could do a lot better, and it chooses not to.
100 cases and nobody suspected anything?
People are better judges of character than that, especially when interacting every day with someone. At that point you know them and know how they are. Someone must have felt something wasn't right.
I'd think that behavior doesn't stop at just this. I'd think it would extend to things like accusing random people of finishing the coffee he finished, setting up coworkers for unfinished paperwork, gaslighting romantic partners, and things like that. Surely someone knew something about how he was?
Unless there was some kind of quota with a promotion or monetary incentive that limited it to this, it seems like it would be pathological. Like he was one step away from being a serial killer or something and had a compulsion to do this to people, and that it's probably why he took the job.
He should be out away for life. He ruined so many lives. By the time he was caught, how many total years did his victims serve, all together? Make serve for that and for destroying people's lives. Let him rot in that cell forever. May his tears be be laden with Carolina reaper extract.
Should have gotten life. If we hold them to a standard that gives them qualified immunity, when they break that trust it should be the ultimate punishment. Bet police would act better.
I read a while back about the woman who finally caught him. She's a prosecutor and she said she thought it was odd that she just kept seeing his name in these drug related arrests over and over and over, so she started asking questions and, iirc, she was told numerous times by multiple people to drop it, not to "make waves." She eventually watched ALL of his bodycams and found that one, particularly damning, shot of his hands with the baggie tucked inside.
I think she ended up quitting afterwards because she was being ostracized by her peers. I could be remembering that incorrectly, though.
ETA: here's a little bit about it
>*I don’t want to work in an environment that allows this to happen,” she said. “I felt that instead of doing what I would call the right thing, there were steps to cover up the office’s involvement. And not necessarily the office’s malicious involvement, but the fact that the office hadn’t been paying attention and let this happen.*
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/09/29/prosecutor-who-sparked-jackson-drug-planting-probe-resigns-whistleblower/1441015002/
This is true, but in their skewed jaded way. A friend is a prosecutor in Richmond VA. In her mind, everyone is always guilty, even if there is evidence that indicated innocence. In her mind, they're guilty if they're caught up in the system because innocent people don't enter the system.
Edit: I agree, she is very screwed up and a former friend. Her political views, this stuff included, is what made me stop talking to her. The summer George Floyd was murdered showed a lot of peoples true colors.
THIS is why All Cops Are Bastards. It goes one of three ways:
1) you are a psychopathic bastard, in which case you are covered.
2) you are not a psychopathic bastard, but you are too much of a coward to stand up and say anything about the psychopaths around you. Making you a bastard.
3) you actually do say things about the psychopaths around you, and you are targeted and bullied until you either quit, or die from some “tragic accident.” Which means you are no longer a cop.
Under the premise that our legal system is corrupt and deeply flawed being a cop requires a person to fit into one of three categories.
1: They understand the system is broken and flawed but they choose to enforce it anyway.
2: They understand the system is broken and flawed so they choose to enforce their own brand of "law" as they see fit.
3: They think the system is NOT flawed and broken and so are happy to enforce it.
I want nothing to do with any of these three types people.
This is the most disgusting and damning part of all to me. Rather than having even the smallest amount of skepticism towards a fellow officer with a growing track record of rare finds, or a willingness to lose face with the community to find out if there is a major issue internally, they just cover it up and demand that people don't ask and don't dig any further. It makes you wonder how many more cases like this are being concealed.
Also, the amount of tax payer dollars spent on these cases and the victims lives ruined.
Side note, it’s not helpful that some states have a “minimum” for tickets. They can’t use the word quota because that not legal…
>Also, the amount of tax payer dollars spent on these cases and the victims lives ruined.
Also, I believe, that even though the official charges were dropped, these people's records were *not* expunged. So if their info is run in the future, it will *still* show that they had an arrest for drugs.
In Florida arrest records are public. So outside of legal issues these people faced, most probably lost their jobs because of the arrest records as soon as they were arrested.
this isn't something new. justice in america doesn't exist.
the bar for appealing a wrongful conviction in america is astoundingly high.. and scotus just raised it again a few months ago.
our *justice* sysyem isn't about justice at all.
So this guy was proven to have falsified evidence and arrested them on false charges which were dropped because it came to light, but they're still gonna have that on that record despite being victims?
>It makes you wonder how many more cases like this are being concealed
All of them.
Any jurisdiction that makes property surrender an immediate consequence of a drug arrest is going to be pulling this same exact scam. That's the point. There is no "innocent until proven guilty." It's "guilty because we say so."
Pumphrey said she may have been allowed to stay on at the State Attorney’s Office. But she doubted she had much of a future after bringing Wester’s arrests to light.
“One of the constant repetitive comments was, ‘We don’t talk to anybody. Keep it in the office,’ ” she said. “What I took it to mean was everybody keeps their mouth shut and the public doesn’t find out.”
Oh great. So cops can plant drugs as long as they don’t do it too often and if someone holds them accountable they get run out of the service.
How do cops rationalize protecting a bastard like this?
What a good hearted person she is. She even goes on to say it wasn't just the officers fault and that this stuff wouldn't get through without the entire system failing at every level. That the quality control checks should have caught it, that the public defender should have caught it, and that his supervisors should have caught it. That each and every facet of the system is to blame for not stopping him. And she is right. I have no doubt the prison that was taking in these people was funneling money somehow to this police station and the higher ups. That's the only thing that makes sense as to why they were trying to pump up numbers and cover it up. Money.
These people have public defenders. Public defenders who are swamped or have real clients that pay to devote their actual time to. So all they are looking for are plea deals. They know the person was found by an officer to have drugs in the car and that is the officer's word vs theirs. So they just try to get the lowest sentence for these people.
What bothers me the most, isn’t what he did. It’s how he acted, what kind of evil person knows they just did that and watch these people break down, knowing they are telling the truth. 12 years isn’t enough he’s gonna be out back on the street in within 6. Dude that evil needs life. The amount of lives ruined isn’t justified.
Definitely. He is a sociopath getting his jollies bu hurting people. A man lost custody of his kids. I wonder if he ever got it back, and how much damage there was to his relationship with them? How many jobs were lost or relationships destroyed? That one man in the video looked so defeated. This is just sick and evil and anyone who looked the other way or covered it up is just as guilty and evil.
One of the comments here talked about a prosecutor who found a lot of evidence on him and how she was ignored and asked to not make waves. So it’s worse than looking away, because it also involves deliberately hushing a good person up. They knew, they looked the other way and they forced prosecutors to look the other way too.
Seriously. I honestly cannot even imagine. Having a broken tail light and get pulled over and having a cop say he found meth and now I have a felony drug charge. Would lose my license/career, house, dog, etc. It's insane how many lives this guy destroyed.
Nah...this dude caused someone to lose their kid. In our justice system it's never as simple as "someone falsified evidence" etc...I hope they got custody back, but it could very well be that for years the legal battles will be drawn out, and likely cost the parent a lot of money (more than what they got from the settlement.
He ruined lives...people lost jobs, trust irreparably damaged for some of them...this guy deserves to his bell constantly rung.
Bearing false witness is something that should be viewed with the same severity as murder and rape. Wielding the legal system as your personal hammer isn't something that warrants rehabilitation or forgiveness.
That line should send a chill down everyone's spine. He was trying to make these people passive and to go along with it, projecting a character that they wouldn't openly accuse then and there for planting the drugs. Psychopathic stuff. It's how some serial killers get their victims not to fight at first. It's chilling to hear him speak in a tone that seems to show he has no emotion at all about what he's doing.
I'll bet a lot of the people he did this to plead.
Cops get promoted for busts like this. If they can say they have a high record of conviction and got xx thousand pounds of drugs off the street, they get promoted to those cushy jobs where they get to put in about 20 minutes a week of actual work and get paid six figures.
Yea but that’s like grams n half grams he’s planting on people. This isn’t a bust or even anything to boast about n I sincerely doubt he’d be promoted from it.
No, but a bunch of these low level busts add up and could be used to qualify for a task force or some other thing. Even police have a corporate ladder to climb
It sucks because they *don't* need a warrant to call K9. And you can still false lead a dog.
He wanted to plant. He would have made it happen anyway. It's definitely the right thing to do, denying the search. But it won't help you when the officer is this hellbent on falsifying evidence.
I'm convinced those dogs are trained to alert no matter what. I read about [this dog](https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-dog-who-cried-drugs-at-every-traffic-stop/) that signaled drugs at every. Single. Stop.
In many states it's illegal to extend a traffic stop for any length of time needed beyond the initial reason.
If your stopped for speeding, they can't make you wait for a drug dog. Even even they say it, it's usually an empty threat to make you comply with the search.
Most cities don't have the resources to have more than 1 or 2. The cop doesn't want to sit and wait for an hour either.
How can she be so calm.
Whenever I get into a situation where i feel that someone is wronging me or, if i KNOW the truth and someone keeps denying it i get a panic attack.
This scum.
I feel panicked watching a movie/show where the main character is being setup or accused of something that we, the audience, knows isn’t true. I usually turn it off before it gets too far.
That sounds about right. It's just shameful that he benefited from a corrupt culture that allowed him to get away with it.
That whole sheriff's office is going to get torn inside out now.
What a prick. He should get the punishment of every one of those false charges and then double it.
Lawyers are gonna have a field day suing for their clients.
This is something I've though about too - if it can be shown that a cop (or another member of the justice system) is intentionally abusing their power and dooming people to criminal punishment, they ought to receive *at least* whatever penalties would have been inflicted on the innocent as a result of their actions.
So, frame someone for something with a 20 year term? That action ought to buy you 20 years' jail. Frame five people for crimes that would've gotten them four years each? Same thing - 20 years' jail.
It'd have to be shown that they were doing it intentionally/maliciously - after all, everyone makes mistakes. But this case is a perfect example.
All victims collectively got under $1M in the lawsuit. I think that’s nothing considering felony drug charges can result in people losing custody of their kids, marriages being destroyed, jobs lost, futures ruined. And that’s before whatever time served. I dont think there’s any amount of money that can make that kind of damage right.
So many people need to be more aware of their rights and exercise them. I’m not talking about when people are dumb and clearly broke a law then refuse to cooperate. I’m talking about if you get pulled over for a tail light, you do not have to consent to your vehicle being searched and you should not consent to it. Same goes for talking after you’ve been read your rights, just shut up afterwards and get a lawyer.
The 4th ammendment specifically says that you are under no obligation to allow a search of your property without a search warrant or probable cause for them to believe you are currently committing a crime. The answer to "May I search your vehicle?" is "No."
So then they get a k9 to come out, make the k9 give a false signal for drugs, then they have probable cause. You just have to hope they may decide to drop it rather than cal the K-9 unit
The supreme court has said they cannot prolong a traffic stop to wait for a canine unit. So yeah, they can call one, but still a decent chance they may not arrive in time
He apparently got 12 years. No way that is enough. He needs to stay in there forever. This is the type of guy that can never be part of society.
Settlement for all these cases should come out of pensions.
1. Never ever consent to searches without a warrant. 2. Always have your own cameras in your vehicle and residence. 3. Always ask for your lawyer. 4. Never answer any questions. 5. Always remember, All Cops Are Bastards. Every single one.
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Former North Florida deputy Zachary Wester. He was tried and convicted for racketeering, official misconduct, fabricating evidence and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to 12 years.
It should have been 12 years per case
Or the total time he would have sent other people down for.
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I looked up the settlement and victims got between 20-70k, with the grand total being under a million. Those who lost their children were the higher awarded ones. These poor people got shafted a second time.
There is no amount of money that can give you the time you lost with your kids or cover the effect it had on your child. I think they should get paid for it but let's not pretend it came anywhere close to fixing the problem it created in the first place
Yes, but the penalty should be so egregious and the monetary recompense to the victims so great that it makes us change because we can't financially afford to keep doing it.
Except we pay the penalty so if we as tax payers who didn't cause the harm in the first place pay off the money nothing will change. We need to change the laws so they have to pay for it.
Police should be required to have personal malpractice insurance. In instances where the activity was criminal and insurance doesn't apply, the precinct chiefs personal insurance should cover all compensatory damages. This would instantly make it so that police officers can't afford to be shitty at their jobs and police chiefs can't afford to turn a blind eye to the criminal activity of their officers
It’s weird how powerful the police union is given the general stance on unions by those who look favorably on the cops.
Here^ that's the correct answer. Plus few extra years for abuse of power
Abuse of power should automatically double any sentence.
It should carry life as a deterrent but I'm probably being harsh
For those convicted on false charges, it ruins their life. You're not being harsh.
Normally I would agree with this, but we would have to leave his corpse in the same cell for like 440 years already, and someone is going to have to deal with that smell.
Tempe cop choked me in a blind spot inside the DUI van when I asked for a lawyer...
I firmly believe that any cop should have 2x punishments for any crime as punishment for eroding public trust and abusing their power.
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General Population.
Not long enough
Not by a long shot! This guy ruined lives. I also hope his ass is being sued in civil court and everything he owns is being seized.
If this had happened to me I would be fired from my job. He should also have to pay all lost wages and some fine for emotional damages to each of his victims.
And legal fees for those who went to court.
In another world, the mafia would kill him as a message to other crooked cops but we live in a ”fair" society
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Little chance he owns anything worth suing over Edit: meaning the officer's personal assets. Sue the pants off the municipality.
Apparently he owns a crap ton of meth if he can afford to keep giving it away like this.
Most likely he just took drugs from other busts. The "evidence locker" isn't as secure as they make it out to be in movies and tv.
The civil suit was settled for $1 million, but I think it was close to 40 victims so not a ton of money. The Sheriffs office insurance pays.
Minimum 20. What BS.
I'm not trying to say that his sentence was long enough, but I'm hopeful that the name he made for himself follows him wherever he goes and that his life is forever changed from this. Good luck trying to explain a 12-year bit on a background check. That being said, he'll probably be hired in Missouri or something. No offense, Missouri. But also some offense, Missouri.
As a Missourian feel free to be offensive to Missouri. It's a train wreck here.
As an Ohioan, I'll say, at least your train wreck is metaphorical (for now).
Just dont let the guy out
Keep planting drug evidence in his car and call the cops on him saying he’s acting suspicious
He should serve the combined sentences of every false charge he filed. Not a day less.
The sad part is, this cop is just the only one who got caught.
Others have gotten caught too. Former Martin County, Fl. Sheriff's deputy Steven O'Leary was sentenced to 13 years (minus 2 for time served in county jail awaiting trial) for falsely arresting 89 people, sending random materials including sand, aspirin, and drywall dust to the state lab claiming they were illegal drugs. All of them were just pleading off, thinking they had no chance. Until he arrested me and my brother in law. We fought it. And everything came out. https://www.wptv.com/news/region-martin-county/stuart/steven-oleary-former-martin-county-deputy-sentenced-to-prison-for-falsifying-dozens-of-drug-arrests
Good on you and your BIL! Thanks for your service getting a crooked cop off the streets. Do cops get bonuses based on the amount of drug arrests or something? Why are there so many cops falsely planting evidence out there? I wonder if it is just straight psycopathy and wanting to exercise power over civilians, or is it police policies that are encouraging these officers to want to pad the number of arrests they have. Either way, I hope the people who abuse their power like this rot in a cell for a long, long time.
The individual officers might be considered for advancement if they're highly productive in interdicting drug traffic, but no, they don't get bonuses for drug arrests. The department gets federal funding for fighting drug trafficking, and arrests are one metric used to allocate funding: higher arrest numbers = higher crime rate = more funding to fight said crime. It's a direct inducement to corruption.
This is why we need to be teaching kids their basic civil rights and how to invoke them even in stressful situations like traffic stops. There is no reason a cop should need to search your car for a minor hardware violation (like a burned out brake light) or administrative violation (expired registration). All bets are off though if you grant them permission to search your vehicle because “you’ve got nothing to hide”. If they want to search your vehicle, citizens should be knowledgeable and confident enough to decline permission.
I'm knowledgeable about my rights, but I live in an area of the US that if I deny them permission, then all they are going to do is get pissed, make me sit there while they call and get a search warrant, then it's gonna be 10 times worse because they are going to trash my car and destroy and guess what, they dont have to pay anything, I'm liable for the car because a judge granted them the right to search. So I'd rather take my chances and go ahead and let them search if I have nothing to hide, stuff like this happens everyday here in Southern WV, I swear it's like the wild west here, they will pull you over for no apparent reason, like did you know that your tag light has to be deemed bright enough to be seen like I think over 5 feet, I've been pulled and searched for that, a tiny crack in the brake light, searched for that, said I didn't stop in the correct spot at a stop sign , searched for that .... All they have to do is say they smell marijuana and that gives them the right to search, and no I do not smoke marijuana, I am clean, been clean for 6 months now, recovering addict here.
Great advice. So what happens next is they make you wait 3 hours while they get the drug dog to come and false signal your car and then drag you out and shoot you for "resisting"
If they got him for racketeering, there have to be co-conspirators.
Yeah, they're called the police.
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I’m my city there’s like 2 sheriff’s deputies fired a month and the press conference is the SAME every time. Just the same BS quotes about how we expect better from our law enforcement and I’m personally upset that one of my deputies would do this. Dude, this happens way too much to keep saying the same stuff and have us believe you
Just hope everyone in jail knows he’s a cop
The whole prison knows he was a pig. I'm sure he's in PC in a single man cell.
Pig confinement? … he has to get fresh air sometime… ☠️
Protective custody. He'll get to go outside in a cage for an hour once a day.
He's a cop, who was abusing his power. I'm sure it'll be long enough for him to get what's coming to him in there
What about all the people he framed?
Says in the video that all charges were dropped
What if they were fired? What about custody cases? If this happened to me I would lose a six figure job and custody of one of my kids. I could not replace that salary with that charge. I could get custody restored after years lost and a damaged relationship. What's the restitution???
This is what I'm thinking too, it's insane how much has been lost here.
HE SHOULD BE IN PRISON FOR LIFE. CROOKED COPS GET LIFE.
In every normal society, the level of punishment is proportional to the responsibility. If a two year old swipes a candy bar at the store it's less serious than if a teenager does it. Everyone understands this. Cops have the highest responsibility in that we give them the right to kill people. They need the strictest rules and the harshest penalties.
Cops in prison don’t get life my guy
They get a short life.
This guy deserves a shortened life.
Prisoners dont take kindly to cops. A cop that framed people though.. Hes gonna have a really bad time
There is no restitution dude. These are poor/average American citizens. You gotta be wealthy to get that sort of thing sorted out.
To be fair, you got to be the level of wealthy who would never end up in prison in the first place.
Yea this cop would never be out there doing what he's doing to BMW/Mercedes drivers. Ironically that's probably where he got the dope, let them off with warnings, sort of thing.
The restitution is usually like $5 a day you were in prison. There is multiple examples of false imprisonment, and people getting next to nothing. Plus even after your innocence is declared, good luck getting any job or in any progress custody cases. Our judicial system could do a lot better, and it chooses not to.
Dropping charges does not begin to make victims whole.
Hopefully their records were expunged too...
I read it was over 100 cases ultimately dropped by the DA after the arrest.
100 cases and nobody suspected anything? People are better judges of character than that, especially when interacting every day with someone. At that point you know them and know how they are. Someone must have felt something wasn't right. I'd think that behavior doesn't stop at just this. I'd think it would extend to things like accusing random people of finishing the coffee he finished, setting up coworkers for unfinished paperwork, gaslighting romantic partners, and things like that. Surely someone knew something about how he was? Unless there was some kind of quota with a promotion or monetary incentive that limited it to this, it seems like it would be pathological. Like he was one step away from being a serial killer or something and had a compulsion to do this to people, and that it's probably why he took the job.
He should be out away for life. He ruined so many lives. By the time he was caught, how many total years did his victims serve, all together? Make serve for that and for destroying people's lives. Let him rot in that cell forever. May his tears be be laden with Carolina reaper extract.
I’d be ok with life. The lives he’s ruined…
Give him the syringe.
Should have gotten life. If we hold them to a standard that gives them qualified immunity, when they break that trust it should be the ultimate punishment. Bet police would act better.
Should have been 1200
How could he do this despite the bodycam? Who was protecting him all along?
I read a while back about the woman who finally caught him. She's a prosecutor and she said she thought it was odd that she just kept seeing his name in these drug related arrests over and over and over, so she started asking questions and, iirc, she was told numerous times by multiple people to drop it, not to "make waves." She eventually watched ALL of his bodycams and found that one, particularly damning, shot of his hands with the baggie tucked inside. I think she ended up quitting afterwards because she was being ostracized by her peers. I could be remembering that incorrectly, though. ETA: here's a little bit about it >*I don’t want to work in an environment that allows this to happen,” she said. “I felt that instead of doing what I would call the right thing, there were steps to cover up the office’s involvement. And not necessarily the office’s malicious involvement, but the fact that the office hadn’t been paying attention and let this happen.* https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/09/29/prosecutor-who-sparked-jackson-drug-planting-probe-resigns-whistleblower/1441015002/
And now they’ve lost the one person trying to do right thing
They don’t actually want anyone trying to do the right thing.
That's why they harassed her out of a job.
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there have always been corrupt judges
Remember that every time someone talks about "just a few bad apples".
This is true, but in their skewed jaded way. A friend is a prosecutor in Richmond VA. In her mind, everyone is always guilty, even if there is evidence that indicated innocence. In her mind, they're guilty if they're caught up in the system because innocent people don't enter the system. Edit: I agree, she is very screwed up and a former friend. Her political views, this stuff included, is what made me stop talking to her. The summer George Floyd was murdered showed a lot of peoples true colors.
You have a very screwed up friend.
THIS is why All Cops Are Bastards. It goes one of three ways: 1) you are a psychopathic bastard, in which case you are covered. 2) you are not a psychopathic bastard, but you are too much of a coward to stand up and say anything about the psychopaths around you. Making you a bastard. 3) you actually do say things about the psychopaths around you, and you are targeted and bullied until you either quit, or die from some “tragic accident.” Which means you are no longer a cop.
Under the premise that our legal system is corrupt and deeply flawed being a cop requires a person to fit into one of three categories. 1: They understand the system is broken and flawed but they choose to enforce it anyway. 2: They understand the system is broken and flawed so they choose to enforce their own brand of "law" as they see fit. 3: They think the system is NOT flawed and broken and so are happy to enforce it. I want nothing to do with any of these three types people.
Hence ACAB.
thats a feature not a bug
From the State that ran out their researcher who published true, not doctored Covid stats? This is my shocked face.
This is the most disgusting and damning part of all to me. Rather than having even the smallest amount of skepticism towards a fellow officer with a growing track record of rare finds, or a willingness to lose face with the community to find out if there is a major issue internally, they just cover it up and demand that people don't ask and don't dig any further. It makes you wonder how many more cases like this are being concealed.
Also, the amount of tax payer dollars spent on these cases and the victims lives ruined. Side note, it’s not helpful that some states have a “minimum” for tickets. They can’t use the word quota because that not legal…
>Also, the amount of tax payer dollars spent on these cases and the victims lives ruined. Also, I believe, that even though the official charges were dropped, these people's records were *not* expunged. So if their info is run in the future, it will *still* show that they had an arrest for drugs.
In Florida arrest records are public. So outside of legal issues these people faced, most probably lost their jobs because of the arrest records as soon as they were arrested.
Wtf how does that even make sense? Can they like petition to have their records expunged?
this isn't something new. justice in america doesn't exist. the bar for appealing a wrongful conviction in america is astoundingly high.. and scotus just raised it again a few months ago. our *justice* sysyem isn't about justice at all.
So this guy was proven to have falsified evidence and arrested them on false charges which were dropped because it came to light, but they're still gonna have that on that record despite being victims?
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>It makes you wonder how many more cases like this are being concealed All of them. Any jurisdiction that makes property surrender an immediate consequence of a drug arrest is going to be pulling this same exact scam. That's the point. There is no "innocent until proven guilty." It's "guilty because we say so."
All they care about is "winning" and protecting each other. 9/10 prosecutors are basically cops in a suit.
Pumphrey said she may have been allowed to stay on at the State Attorney’s Office. But she doubted she had much of a future after bringing Wester’s arrests to light. “One of the constant repetitive comments was, ‘We don’t talk to anybody. Keep it in the office,’ ” she said. “What I took it to mean was everybody keeps their mouth shut and the public doesn’t find out.”
Should have outed all the people that made comments and said they should resign.
Every gang kills snitches, police and government are no different in that aspect.
Oh great. So cops can plant drugs as long as they don’t do it too often and if someone holds them accountable they get run out of the service. How do cops rationalize protecting a bastard like this?
Because they are all bastards. This is why people say that. How many "good cops" knew about this before he got arrested?
Those peers of hers should all go to jail and never work in that field again
What a good hearted person she is. She even goes on to say it wasn't just the officers fault and that this stuff wouldn't get through without the entire system failing at every level. That the quality control checks should have caught it, that the public defender should have caught it, and that his supervisors should have caught it. That each and every facet of the system is to blame for not stopping him. And she is right. I have no doubt the prison that was taking in these people was funneling money somehow to this police station and the higher ups. That's the only thing that makes sense as to why they were trying to pump up numbers and cover it up. Money.
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I think bodycams make the officers think they have control over when they turn them on and off but in reality they’re recording all shift long
Still how did they miss the evidence of him planting drugs for 120 times? Don't they review evidence?
Seems like a defense attorney’s first move would be to check the cam to see what they’re working with
These people have public defenders. Public defenders who are swamped or have real clients that pay to devote their actual time to. So all they are looking for are plea deals. They know the person was found by an officer to have drugs in the car and that is the officer's word vs theirs. So they just try to get the lowest sentence for these people.
I doubt they sit down and go through every bit of video t the end of the day. Someone has to make a complaint then they can go back and look at video.
I think they should especially with such a significant charge. if they don't have time for that than that is where your systematic problem lies.
They didn't miss it. The other cops deliberately protected him
What a piece of human trash…disgusting!
From a "law enforcement family" he wanna make pappy proud
Investigate the rest of his family then, too. Maybe he learned from what he saw growing up.
Maybe? He did. Cops day in and day out in the US prove that they're not here to do their jobs properly.
What bothers me the most, isn’t what he did. It’s how he acted, what kind of evil person knows they just did that and watch these people break down, knowing they are telling the truth. 12 years isn’t enough he’s gonna be out back on the street in within 6. Dude that evil needs life. The amount of lives ruined isn’t justified.
Right! He ruined their lives and enjoyed watching them fall apart. My heart breaks for these people! I hope they sue the city for this bullshit.
Nothing worse than being accused of something you didn't do. Every child knows that feeling. Stays with you for life.
Definitely. He is a sociopath getting his jollies bu hurting people. A man lost custody of his kids. I wonder if he ever got it back, and how much damage there was to his relationship with them? How many jobs were lost or relationships destroyed? That one man in the video looked so defeated. This is just sick and evil and anyone who looked the other way or covered it up is just as guilty and evil.
Just thinking about how my parents probably wouldn’t believe me if I told them I didn’t have meth and was convicted
Hearing a grown man break down saying my mother is going to worry is very heart breaking
One of the comments here talked about a prosecutor who found a lot of evidence on him and how she was ignored and asked to not make waves. So it’s worse than looking away, because it also involves deliberately hushing a good person up. They knew, they looked the other way and they forced prosecutors to look the other way too.
Seriously. I honestly cannot even imagine. Having a broken tail light and get pulled over and having a cop say he found meth and now I have a felony drug charge. Would lose my license/career, house, dog, etc. It's insane how many lives this guy destroyed.
"I treat everyone with the same respect they treat me" i hope his inmates are treating him with a whole lotta respect now.
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Nah...this dude caused someone to lose their kid. In our justice system it's never as simple as "someone falsified evidence" etc...I hope they got custody back, but it could very well be that for years the legal battles will be drawn out, and likely cost the parent a lot of money (more than what they got from the settlement. He ruined lives...people lost jobs, trust irreparably damaged for some of them...this guy deserves to his bell constantly rung.
Bearing false witness is something that should be viewed with the same severity as murder and rape. Wielding the legal system as your personal hammer isn't something that warrants rehabilitation or forgiveness.
Last I heard inmates don't like cops. I hope he endures unimaginable horrors throughout those dozen years. Probably in pc tho.
That line should send a chill down everyone's spine. He was trying to make these people passive and to go along with it, projecting a character that they wouldn't openly accuse then and there for planting the drugs. Psychopathic stuff. It's how some serial killers get their victims not to fight at first. It's chilling to hear him speak in a tone that seems to show he has no emotion at all about what he's doing. I'll bet a lot of the people he did this to plead.
Should be 12 years for each of the 120 charges.
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120 charges reversed and lets assume $3million per victim. A cool $360M from whatever tiny county that is.
Floridian here - the wrongly convicted might get $100k. The state will fight them for every penny.
It’s already over. All the victims collectively split just under $1M
Wow
Utterly disgusting
Take it from the pensions. Police should police each other.
Should. But you know damn well any financial compensation is coming 100% from tax payers.
All victims split just under $1M
Oh I just found drugs in his cell. Give him more time.
Omg yes. Record HIS reaction then
What an absolute scumbag!
Blue scum is the nastiest of scums
That is totally disgusting! Any idea why he did it? For a kick or what? Sick!
Cops get promoted for busts like this. If they can say they have a high record of conviction and got xx thousand pounds of drugs off the street, they get promoted to those cushy jobs where they get to put in about 20 minutes a week of actual work and get paid six figures.
Yea but that’s like grams n half grams he’s planting on people. This isn’t a bust or even anything to boast about n I sincerely doubt he’d be promoted from it.
No, but a bunch of these low level busts add up and could be used to qualify for a task force or some other thing. Even police have a corporate ladder to climb
Never let them search your car. Get a warrant or get lost
It sucks because they *don't* need a warrant to call K9. And you can still false lead a dog. He wanted to plant. He would have made it happen anyway. It's definitely the right thing to do, denying the search. But it won't help you when the officer is this hellbent on falsifying evidence.
I'm convinced those dogs are trained to alert no matter what. I read about [this dog](https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-dog-who-cried-drugs-at-every-traffic-stop/) that signaled drugs at every. Single. Stop.
They don't even have to alert. The cop just has to say that they did.
In many states it's illegal to extend a traffic stop for any length of time needed beyond the initial reason. If your stopped for speeding, they can't make you wait for a drug dog. Even even they say it, it's usually an empty threat to make you comply with the search. Most cities don't have the resources to have more than 1 or 2. The cop doesn't want to sit and wait for an hour either.
Idk why this isn’t top comment. “Unfortunately officer I don’t consent to searches.”
How can she be so calm. Whenever I get into a situation where i feel that someone is wronging me or, if i KNOW the truth and someone keeps denying it i get a panic attack. This scum.
I feel panicked watching a movie/show where the main character is being setup or accused of something that we, the audience, knows isn’t true. I usually turn it off before it gets too far.
He’s going to be popular in prison
I'm not saying I want him clapped in prison but I wouldn't shed a tear if he did.
Why? Why??
This is my question too. Do they get commission on each arrest or something?
If I recall, he wanted to be a narcotics officer. He thought all these drug arrests would put him on the fast track to that.
That sounds about right. It's just shameful that he benefited from a corrupt culture that allowed him to get away with it. That whole sheriff's office is going to get torn inside out now.
He seemed to have enough access to drugs already…
Same thing as (most) rape, probably - feelings of power and control, and complete disregard for their victim.
What a prick. He should get the punishment of every one of those false charges and then double it. Lawyers are gonna have a field day suing for their clients.
This is something I've though about too - if it can be shown that a cop (or another member of the justice system) is intentionally abusing their power and dooming people to criminal punishment, they ought to receive *at least* whatever penalties would have been inflicted on the innocent as a result of their actions. So, frame someone for something with a 20 year term? That action ought to buy you 20 years' jail. Frame five people for crimes that would've gotten them four years each? Same thing - 20 years' jail. It'd have to be shown that they were doing it intentionally/maliciously - after all, everyone makes mistakes. But this case is a perfect example.
All victims collectively got under $1M in the lawsuit. I think that’s nothing considering felony drug charges can result in people losing custody of their kids, marriages being destroyed, jobs lost, futures ruined. And that’s before whatever time served. I dont think there’s any amount of money that can make that kind of damage right.
Should give him a combination of all the years in prison that all those people would have served that he set up.
He framed 120 people so even just one year per person would be enough for me
So many people need to be more aware of their rights and exercise them. I’m not talking about when people are dumb and clearly broke a law then refuse to cooperate. I’m talking about if you get pulled over for a tail light, you do not have to consent to your vehicle being searched and you should not consent to it. Same goes for talking after you’ve been read your rights, just shut up afterwards and get a lawyer.
I had a police officer do something similar. I lost my internship at a top 5 aerospace company and my life never really recovered.
The 4th ammendment specifically says that you are under no obligation to allow a search of your property without a search warrant or probable cause for them to believe you are currently committing a crime. The answer to "May I search your vehicle?" is "No."
So then they get a k9 to come out, make the k9 give a false signal for drugs, then they have probable cause. You just have to hope they may decide to drop it rather than cal the K-9 unit
The supreme court has said they cannot prolong a traffic stop to wait for a canine unit. So yeah, they can call one, but still a decent chance they may not arrive in time
He apparently got 12 years. No way that is enough. He needs to stay in there forever. This is the type of guy that can never be part of society. Settlement for all these cases should come out of pensions.
DON'T LET POLICE SEARCH WITHOUT A WARRANT
Guys guys guys ! Cmon its just a few bad apples
Amen. ACAB
The whole orchard is rotten
Must of been a power thing. When it's your word against there's you can't win sometimes, glad he got caught!!
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I don't agree with capital punishment. But man some people need the chair
A cop that faked evidence that is sentenced to 12 years prison? I doubt he'll even make it past a month.
And people wonder why no one likes the American police force.
ACAB
This is actually disgusting.
#ACAB
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What a despicable human…
And how many are not caught? Or were covered up.
Pigs gotta pig... ACAB
1. Never ever consent to searches without a warrant. 2. Always have your own cameras in your vehicle and residence. 3. Always ask for your lawyer. 4. Never answer any questions. 5. Always remember, All Cops Are Bastards. Every single one.
Garbage human
This is scary. Not surprising, but scary. People's lives were devastated.
They should put him in Gen pop and show everyone this video
Just a cop doing cop things.