LAPD Officers Caught Perjuring Themslves In Court

The Los Angeles Times website is leading with a story about a drug posession trial in which charges were dismissed after the defense played a video which directly contradicted sworn testimony by three LAPD officers.

Chief Wiliam Bratton has reassigned the three officers to "home duty" while an investigation was initiated by the Department.

Samuel and LAPD Officer Richard Amio testified Friday that they were on patrol in Los Angeles last year when they chased Alarcon, 29, into his Hollywood apartment building. There, they told jurors, they saw him throw away a black object. They testified that Samuel had picked up the object and found about $260 worth of powder and crack cocaine inside.

But footage from the grainy video, which Alarcon's attorney used to confront the officers, shows that it took the two officers more than 20 minutes to find the drugs. They were aided in their search by other officers.

After viewing the tape, Los Angeles County prosecutors said they believed about 13 seconds of audio had been edited out. Nevertheless, they asked Superior Court Judge Monica Bachner to dismiss the charges. Bachner did so and took the unusual step of declaring Alarcon factually innocent.

[...]

Alarcon's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Victor Acevedo, said the videotape came from a surveillance camera mounted in the apartment building. Alarcon's mother, he said, is the building manager and turned on the camera soon after police detained her son.

Acevedo said he provided LAPD internal affairs investigators with a copy Tuesday, adding that his client would cooperate with the investigation.

The defense attorney accused the officers of perjury and planting evidence on his client. And he called on investigators to pay special attention to one particular portion of the videotape, where an officer appears to refer to the subsequent arrest report.

"Be creative in your writing," the officer appears to tell another after the discovery of drugs.

The tapes contain more dialogue from the officers. But the quality of the video and audio is poor and it is often difficult to clearly hear what is being said.

Los Angeles Police Department officers lying on the witness stand? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.