Corrupt cop claims he doesn't recall innocent man charged with murder.

[SavannahMann]

The I don't recall defense is a favorite of corrupt people as well as the incompetent. They play on the basic truth that we humans forget routine actions we take. I can't remember what route I drove to work six weeks ago. I'd have to check to see if I went to work on a certain date. These routine activities are swallowed up by the fact they are routine in our memory.

But everything forgotten during that time is routine. As a rule we make notes about our activity to record the routine. For police, reports are written describing the activities during contacts and investigations. This allows the officer to refresh his memory about the encounter or investigation.

Now according to Detective Carlos Faulkner of the NYPD a murder investigation where the accused lingers in the system for four years despite video evidence proving his innocence is so routine that it is completely evaporated from his memory.

Detective who arrested wrongly-accused man under internal investigation

Now the very best that can be said of the Detective and the District Attorney is that they are both so incompetent that it's a wonder they find their way to work ever. I mean if they can't bother to look at the video and see the innocent man standing right there and in no way involved that would be pretty incompetent.

But we aren't talking about incompetent here. We are talking about corrupt. Because the incompetent would have given the video to the defense attorney when it was requested and the case would have been dropped after a week at the most. Instead they sat on it for four years until DNA evidence proved that the man charged with the crime didn't do it.

I love the premise that you do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. I always begin an examination of a screw up with that foremost in my mind. I hold onto it as long as possible. I can not attribute this case to stupidity. A stupid mistake would have been found out long before four years had passed. We are left with malice as the only reasonable explanation.

 

[Asclepias]

Let me guess. The cop is white and the person in jail is Black or Hispanic?

 

[Fenton Lum]

This type of thing is going to become more common in our post-industrial society where there aren’t enough livable wage jobs for people, and for profit prisons that offer free labor to corporate power.

 

[foggedinn]

It is common for the police to manipulate/coerce a witness into becoming a accuser. While it is is just as common for a a witness to resist assuming an unbearable burden.