20 CASES COULD BE TOSSED BY STING Sen. Mitchell asks broad federal probe after officer's arrest; Civil rights inquiry begins At least 20 people arrested by a Baltimore police officer charged with planting evidence might have their cases thrown out by city prosecutors, and the FBI said yesterday that it has begun a civil rights inquiry into the case. The case also prompted the state's top public defender to order a review of all past convictions in which defendants claimed police misconduct, which could trigger scores of appeals from imprisoned drug dealers. "There could be some people serving rather lengthy sentences based on suspicious things," said State Public Defender Stephen E. Harris. City prosecutors are reviewing 20 of the officer's pending drug cases. If he is the primary witness, "those cases will be dismissed," said Joyce Jefferson Daniels, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office. Federal authorities said they're looking into whether Officer Brian L. Sewell violated the civil rights of the 18-year-old man he is accused of falsely arresting on cocaine charges Sept. 4. Sewell's arrest on perjury and misconduct charges Wednesday has given claims of legitimacy in some quarters to longtime complaints that officers fabricate evidence to secure arrests. In a letter yesterday to U.S. Attorney Lynne A. Battaglia, state Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV called for a broad federal investigation into city police misconduct, a request federal officials said they are reviewing. While Battaglia forwarded Mitchell's letter to the Justice Department and the city's FBI office, she said it is important to note that the corruption case "surfaced through the [police] commissioner. ... I think there may be a culture that is changing as we talk about the responsiveness from the police." Commissioner Edward T. Norris said a federal probe such as the one being sought by Mitchell is unnecessary because the FBI is already working with detectives from his department's Internal Affairs Division - at his invitation. "We caught somebody, and now I'm being criticized and calls are being made for an independent investigation," Norris said. Norris vowed yesterday to continue undercover stings such as the one that led to his officer's arrest. "I don't know where it's going to take us," he said. Sheldon F. Greenberg, who runs the Police Executive Leadership Program at the Johns Hopkins University, also noted that in this case, "the Police Department cleaned its own house. To make a leap that there is systemic corruption in the Baltimore Police Department is absurd." But fallout from Sewell's arrest of Frederick L. McCoy, 18, continues to reverberate throughout the city's law enforcement community. The charges against Sewell, a six-year veteran assigned to the Central District, came a month after an undercover sting conducted by internal investigators. Norris said detectives planted a bag of crack cocaine on a park bench in the Druid Heights community and called the 311 nonemergency line to file a complaint. He said Sewell arrived, picked up the drugs and allegedly linked them a short time later to a burglary suspect two blocks away. Sewell wrote in his report that he saw McCoy "placing a clear plastic bag into a crack on a park bench." The officer's lawyer denounced his client's arrest and questioned the tactics of the Internal Affairs detectives. Reached yesterday, Sewell declined to discuss specifics of the charges lodged against him. "There's a lot more circumstances," he said. "A lot more is going on than what the Police Department is telling you." He said his arrest of McCoy "was legitimate" but he declined to comment further. Police commanders have said that Sewell was caught in a random sting that is routinely carried out to expose corruption. Department sources said yesterday that the sting was targeted at officers working in crime-depressed neighborhoods of Upton, Madison Park and Druid Heights, where commanders had concern about possible misconduct. Defense lawyers say their clients, not usually the most reliable witnesses, routinely claim evidence against them is fabricated - stories often dismissed even by their own lawyers. Harris, the public defender, said he has heard such complaints for years. "Client after client, year after year, has said, 'I was standing there and then [the police] said, 'I am going to put this on you."' He said Baltimore is ripe for such abuse because officers know they will rarely be placed under the scrutiny of cross-examination. Most cases in the city's busy court system, he said, end in plea bargains, so officers rarely have to take the witness stand. Mitchell's letter to Battaglia requesting a broad federal probe into city police practices says the problem is "too pervasive for a local investigation." His letter mentions another case in which he alleges evidence was planted: the arrest of Omar K. Little, 27, on a gun possession charge on Nov. 10, 1998. Mitchell said a police officer, identified as Kevin Ruth, can substantiate his claims and has been retaliated against by the department for bringing allegations forward; Norris said yesterday that he will look into the matter. Little's lawyer, Thomas J. McNicholas, said his client was among several people in an alley where a gun was found. He said charges against Little were dropped after Little's cousins told federal prosecutors that they owned the gun. The case was never pursued further. "I didn't make the leap that it had been planted," McNicholas said yesterday. Battaglia also said FBI agents will interview Mitchell about allegations he made in a press release Wednesday in which he stated: "I have known for 'a fact' ... that there are officers of the Baltimore City Police Department who are manufacturing cases, and in some cases, planting evidence on innocent citizens."
No member comments available...
|