A Union Scandal Landed Hundreds of NYPD Officers on a Secret Watchlist

After prosecutors flagged hundreds of cops caught fixing tickets for friends and family a decade ago, the officers’ work was supposed to get an extra level of scrutiny. Some cases fell apart anyway.

By Jake Pearson for ProPublica (Oct. 22)

One judge said she believed the testimony of a Bronx defendant’s 64-year-old mother more than that of the two New York City police officers who arrested him.

Another said she didn’t buy the testimony of an officer and his colleagues, concluding that they had stopped a car not because they’d seen its occupants break any laws but because it was driven by “three young men of color.”

A third jurist toyed with using the word “perjury” to describe the testimony of an officer who repeatedly contradicted himself, claiming, for example, the defendant had both told police and not told police where he lived.

In each of the cases, the officers’ testimony was supposed to help prosecutors secure convictions against people charged with illegal gun possession. Instead, the cases fell apart, done in by the officers’ own dubious statements. Yet prosecutors had pursued trials knowing there was reason not to put these cops on the stand.

Reporters Desk