http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/n...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
The tip comes from a confidential informer: Someone has a gun. Ten or more minutes later, police officers find a man matching the informer’s detailed description at the reported location. A gun is discovered; an arrest is made.
That narrative describes how Jeffrey Herring was arrested last year by police officers in the 67th Precinct in Brooklyn. It also describes the arrests of at least two other men, Eugene Moore and John Hooper, by some of the same officers in the precinct.
The suspects said the guns were planted by the police.
There were other similarities: Each gun was found in a plastic bag or a handkerchief, with no traces of the suspect’s fingerprints. Prosecutors and the police did not mention a confidential informer until months after the arrests, and none of the informers have ever come forward, even when defense lawyers and judges have requested their presence in court.
Taken individually, the cases seem to be routine examples of differences between the police account of an arrest and that of the person arrested. But taken together, the cases — along with other gun arrests made in the 67th Precinct by these officers — suggest a pattern of questionable police conduct and tactics.
Mr. Moore’s case has already been dismissed; a judge questioned the credibility of one of the officers involved, Detective Gregory Jean-Baptiste, saying he was “extremely evasive” on the witness stand.
Mr. Hooper spent a year in jail awaiting trial, eventually pleading guilty and agreeing to a sentence of time served after the judge in his case said the police version of the arrest was “incredible.”
In another example, Lt. Edward Babington, one of the four officers in Mr. Herring’s case, was involved in a federal gun case that was later dismissed and led to a $115,000 settlement. In that case, a federal judge said she believed that the “officers perjured themselves.”
Debora Silberman, a public defender at Brooklyn Defender Services, has been fighting Mr. Herring’s arrest, filing a two-inch-thick motion detailing the problems with his case and the similarities to others.
On Thursday, after inquiries from The New York Times, prosecutors said that they were re-evaluating the case.
Ms. Silberman said she had always believed Mr. Herring. “Nothing in his story has ever changed,” she said.
Questions of Invention
She and another defense lawyer, Scott Hechinger, have suggested in court papers that a group of officers invents criminal informers, and may be motivated to make false arrests to help satisfy department goals or quotas. They also question whether the police are collecting the $1,000 reward offered to informers from Operation Gun Stop, especially in cases where the informers never materialize.
She and another defense lawyer, Scott Hechinger, have suggested in court papers that a group of officers invents criminal informers, and may be motivated to make false arrests to help satisfy department goals or quotas. They also question whether the police are collecting the $1,000 reward offered to informers from Operation Gun Stop, especially in cases where the informers never materialize.
Deputy Chief Kim Y. Royster, a spokeswoman for the Police Department, said investigators from the Internal Affairs Bureau were looking at the officers’ conduct in these cases. “Any allegations that are made in regards to the credibility” of the officers “are taken very seriously,” Chief Royster said.
She added that programs like Gun Stop protected the anonymity of informers, and that there were layers of oversight “to ensure that the integrity of the program is solid.”
While the individual officers declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment, spokes
The tip comes from a confidential informer: Someone has a gun. Ten or more minutes later, police officers find a man matching the informer’s detailed description at the reported location. A gun is discovered; an arrest is made.
That narrative describes how Jeffrey Herring was arrested last year by police officers in the 67th Precinct in Brooklyn. It also describes the arrests of at least two other men, Eugene Moore and John Hooper, by some of the same officers in the precinct.
The suspects said the guns were planted by the police.
There were other similarities: Each gun was found in a plastic bag or a handkerchief, with no traces of the suspect’s fingerprints. Prosecutors and the police did not mention a confidential informer until months after the arrests, and none of the informers have ever come forward, even when defense lawyers and judges have requested their presence in court.
Taken individually, the cases seem to be routine examples of differences between the police account of an arrest and that of the person arrested. But taken together, the cases — along with other gun arrests made in the 67th Precinct by these officers — suggest a pattern of questionable police conduct and tactics.
Mr. Moore’s case has already been dismissed; a judge questioned the credibility of one of the officers involved, Detective Gregory Jean-Baptiste, saying he was “extremely evasive” on the witness stand.
Mr. Hooper spent a year in jail awaiting trial, eventually pleading guilty and agreeing to a sentence of time served after the judge in his case said the police version of the arrest was “incredible.”
In another example, Lt. Edward Babington, one of the four officers in Mr. Herring’s case, was involved in a federal gun case that was later dismissed and led to a $115,000 settlement. In that case, a federal judge said she believed that the “officers perjured themselves.”
Debora Silberman, a public defender at Brooklyn Defender Services, has been fighting Mr. Herring’s arrest, filing a two-inch-thick motion detailing the problems with his case and the similarities to others.
On Thursday, after inquiries from The New York Times, prosecutors said that they were re-evaluating the case.
Ms. Silberman said she had always believed Mr. Herring. “Nothing in his story has ever changed,” she said.
Questions of Invention
She and another defense lawyer, Scott Hechinger, have suggested in court papers that a group of officers invents criminal informers, and may be motivated to make false arrests to help satisfy department goals or quotas. They also question whether the police are collecting the $1,000 reward offered to informers from Operation Gun Stop, especially in cases where the informers never materialize.
She and another defense lawyer, Scott Hechinger, have suggested in court papers that a group of officers invents criminal informers, and may be motivated to make false arrests to help satisfy department goals or quotas. They also question whether the police are collecting the $1,000 reward offered to informers from Operation Gun Stop, especially in cases where the informers never materialize.
Deputy Chief Kim Y. Royster, a spokeswoman for the Police Department, said investigators from the Internal Affairs Bureau were looking at the officers’ conduct in these cases. “Any allegations that are made in regards to the credibility” of the officers “are taken very seriously,” Chief Royster said.
She added that programs like Gun Stop protected the anonymity of informers, and that there were layers of oversight “to ensure that the integrity of the program is solid.”
While the individual officers declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment, spokes