Source: http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/florida/news-article.aspx?storyid=142487&provider=rss
Date: July 29, 2009
Cops Caught on Dashboard Cam
Plotting Against Motorist
Posted By: Mike Adams Created: 7/29/2009 11:23:08 AM Updated: 7/29/2009 11:30:43 AM
HOLLYWOOD, FL -- A cop's dashboard camera is supposed to catch criminals in the act.
For four Hollywood, Florida cops, the dash cam may have foiled their plans to frame a motorist.
The four police officers -- three of them longtime veterans of the force -- were caught on one of the cop's dash cameras plotting to place the blame for a February traffic accident on a woman one of them had hit with their patrol car.
The disturbing video shows the woman, Alexandra Torres Villa, handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the officers get their stories straight on what they are going to say happened.
Officer Joel Francisco, 36, an 11-year veteran, crashed into the back of Villa's vehicle at a light on February 17 at midnight. The cop radioed to other officers who converged on the scene and hatched a way to bail Francisco out.
Officer Dewey Pressley, 42, arrives and questions Villa, who tells him that she has been drinking. The 21-year veteran officer seizes the opportunity and arrests her for DUI. But the plot thickens from there.
The cops begin to brainstorm believable excuses for the accident.
"As far as I'm concerned. I'm going to put words in his mouth. She went to accelerate and a cat jumped out of the window at which point he thought it could have been a pedestrian, which distracted him," Pressley tells Sgt. Andrew Diaz, another veteran of the force. "I mean what's the chances of hitting a f---in drunk when a cat jumps out of the window?"
Still, the cops run with the half-baked idea and rush to get Villa to do a Breathalyzer test so they can officially say she was drunk.
"I nailed her on the video. I already hung her on video. She said she has been doing a beer party," Pressley says. "She's gonna blow."
Then, another cop debates with Pressley on who is going to write up the fabricated report to clear their police comrade.
"I know how I'm going to word this with the cat so we can get him off the hook. I'll write the narrative," Pressley says. "We're going to bend this a little bit."
Civilian Community Service Officer Karim Thomas joins the three senior officers and the four cops go so far as to change the angle of pictures of the accident to make it look like Villa swerved in front of the cop car and caused the accident, not Francisco.
Throughout the tape, the cops acknowledged what they are doing is illegal, but when you are the law, there is nothing wrong with bending it for a fellow cop, one says.
"I don't lie and make things up ever because it's wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I'll do it," Pressley tells Francisco after reassuring him no one will ever find out. "She's freaking hammered anyway."
The cops even do a final rehearsal before Villa is taken to the city lock up.
"We'll take care of it," one officer says. The others reply: "We're good."
The police officers are currently on administrative leave pending a state attorney's office investigation.
Villa, who was charged with four counts of DUI and cited for improper lane change, is still fighting the charges in court.
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Get Stoked Notes on Rare Bad Cop Story:
Did they forget they are one of the few employees in America who are required to take an oath before we release them on our streets. Some are asking how their firing will effect their innocent families? They should suffer like any other victim of a felon. These officers should get a lethal injection or at least a sentence that makes the public have a high view of the rest of our police.
Are We Holding Our Current Leaders Accountable to Their Oath?
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=F.944bf9ab-c480-4fb5-a02a-8e4b980b80a9&hl=en
Get Stoked Notes Broward County: this county coming back into the press reminded me of the controversial 2000 Bush election aftermath. Back then one of my favorite radio shows was from Col. Oliver North. Every afternoon when he signed on or off he always had 2 phone numbers for callers to take part in the talk. One was for normal callers and the other was for folks from Broward County who needed help marking their ballots. He would joke how his staff would spend extra time to help them because they needed it in Broward County.
Broward County demographic: Wicki From the 1992 U.S. presidential election onward, however, voters of Broward County backed the Democratic presidential nominee over the Republican nominee by strong majorities. Broward County is now the most reliably Democratic county in the state, [11][12] with the exception of the much less populous Gadsden County (where African Americans are a majority). This change in voting tendencies is most likely due to the continuous flow from large migrations of snowbirds and transplanted people from the liberal Northeast and other blue states, as well as a growing LGBT community, and also naturalized U.S. citizens born in places such as Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Israel.
Past Broward Problems: this is where they publically admited they are not smart enough to fill out a ballot in 2000. This is where most of the mystery surrounding the death of Ana Nicol Smith were associated. This is where the famous Pachno crime movie "Scarface" was filmed to document the way crime and corruption politics too often join. Since 1976 they organized and developed something called the Broward County Crime Commission was chartered in 1976 as a non-profit, non-partisan, non-political, tax-exempt fact finding body. It acts in behalf of law-abiding citizens generally and the community at large in the fight against crime and corruption. In this effort it supports the major elements of the criminal justice system. It does not sit in judgment of community morals, act as vigilante group, have any authority other than the weight of public opinion, nor have any extra-legal rights. It endorses ethical and moral considerations under the law and demands similar commitment from its members.
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