A former NYPD narcotics detective, Stephen Anderson, testified in October that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way to meet arrest quotas. He was testifying, under cooperation with prosecuters, in the trial of a fellow detective charged with falsifying public documents and business documents.
Anderson says he frequently witnessed the practice of “flaking,” or planting cocaine on innocent people. The NYPD has come under heat this year for arresting 50,000 people for low-level marijuana offenses, 86% of whom are black and Latino, and most of which results of illegal “stop and frisk” searches conducted by officers.
Gabriel Sayegh has this to say: “One of the consequences of the war on drugs is that police officers are pressured to make large numbers of arrests, and it’s easy for some of the less honest cops to plant evidence on innocent people. The drug war inevitably leads to crooked policing…and quotas further incentivize such practices.”
Title: Former NYPD detective testifies that police regularly plant drugs on innocent people to meet arrest quota
Source: gothamist.com, 13 October 2011
Author: John Del Signore
URL: http://gothamist.com/2011/10/13/nypd_narcotics_detective_testifies.php
Student Researcher: Cary Esovedo, Sonoma State University
Faculty Evaluator: Sheila Katz, Sonoma State University