LAPD admits to framing innocent people

At the end of January, Los Angeles police chief Bernard Parks 
called for the district attorney to dismiss 53 criminal cases "en 
masse" because of evidence that police officers framed the 
accused.(1) The district attorney has said as many as 3000 cases 
may need to be reviewed in the wake of revelations by former 
police officer Rafael Perez.(2) As we reported earlier, Perez is 
testifying about cops lying and planting evidence to get 
convictions or justify use of deadly force as part of a deal to 
shorten his sentence for stealing eight pounds of cocaine from a 
police property room. (3) According to Parks, at least three 
people who were wrongly convicted are still in prison.

Perez' revelations are extraordinary only for the fact that they 
became public. Even leading cops and judges admit how common pig 
perjury is. "Joseph McNamara, former chief of police in Kansas 
City, Missouri and San Jose, has said he believes hundreds of 
thousands of police officers tell... lies in court every year... 
Conservative U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski 
has called this kind of police perjury widespread and described it 
as 'an open secret long shared by prosecutors, defense lawyers and 
judges.'"(4) This is why MIM calls ITAL all END convictions in 
Amerikan courts into question and would move faster than Parks to 
dismiss a hell of a lot more than 53 cases.

Parks and the district attorney place the preservation of the 
power and prestige of an utterly corrupt institution ahead of 
righting wrongs. They "concede the small justice in order that the 
greater injustice may continue." We are glad to see some wrong 
verdicts overturned, but at the same time, our disgust with this 
system and resolve to have done with it is strengthened by the 
realization that there are likely hundreds of thousands of others 
still in prison because of police lies.

Notes:

1. Los Angeles Times, 27 January 2000.

2. Los Angeles Times, 15 December 1999.

3. MIM Notes 197, 1 November 1999.

4. Los Angeles Times, 31 December 1999