Four "Good" Cops Got Canned For Falsifying Search Warrant Affidavits!

Four Oakland cops have been fired for falsifying search warrant affidavits in a drug warrant case.But,according to the president of the Oakland Police Officers Association,these are "four good cops" who should be given their jobs back until they are proven guilty.Here's more from the SF Gate:

"Earlier this month, the hearing officer recommended that seven other officers who had been facing possible firing be allowed to keep their jobs.

Oakland police Sgt. Dom Arotzarena, president of the Oakland Police Officers Association, said Friday that the hearing officer "changed the outcome of 7 of the 11, which is great. But what I'm not happy about is the other four."

Arotzarena expressed confidence that the four officers would be reinstated. But he was concerned about their finances in the interim, because they are no longer on paid administrative leave.

"These are four good cops," he said. "As far as they're concerned, they're not guilty until proven, and they still need to exhaust the (arbitration) process."

Police spokesman Officer Jeff Thomason has declined to comment on the matter, saying state law bars police from discussing personnel matters.

The city has not fired four officers at one time since 2000, when four officers lost their jobs because of the "Riders" misconduct scandal. The alleged ringleader remains at large, while another has been hired as an officer in Indio (Riverside County).

In January, City Attorney John Russo said the city intended to fire 11 officers because they had allegedly provided false information to judges to obtain search warrants targeting suspects in drug cases.

At least 12 defendants have already won dismissal of their criminal cases because of such problems with the warrants, according to their defense attorneys. Cases against dozens of other suspects are believed to be in jeopardy, their attorneys said.

The officers told judges that substances seized from drug suspects had been identified by the police crime lab as narcotics when, in fact, they had not, authorities said. Those false statements were used to persuade judges to issue warrants that police relied on to gather more evidence.

Arotzarena said the officers had never lied. Instead, they were simply following instructions on how to complete search warrant affidavits that had been provided by whoever trained them. "The city couldn't see through the fact that this entire thing is a training issue," he said.

The city is facing two federal civil-rights lawsuits in the case, which also led to a separate investigation involving a high-ranking department official."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

If these cops made false statements just to get an arrest,then they are not "good cops"!Police officers need to be trustworthy individuals that will uphold the law at all costs.Even if it means not getting the bad guy until you get enough evidence against them.These "good" officers are accused of providing false information in order to obtain a search warrant.

It is a shame that the president of the Oakland Police Officers Association seems to think that good cops do not have to be honest ones.He should assert to the public that it is never okay for a police officer to lie.Instead,he insists that these officers did not lie.It was just a "training issue" that the department needs to address.He says the city just could not see through that fact.

And I guess that the very distrusting part of Oakland's black community have not been able to understand this "training issue" either.Because they have been saying that the cops have been falsifying information for years!Here's more on that from East Bay West Online:

"These officer-involved shootings and subsequent lawsuits has raised questions about the department’s training and oversight and damaged its strained relationship with minority communities. Oakland police have been under the supervision of a federal judge since 2003, after a settlement was reached in the “Rough Riders” lawsuit, in which a group of officers were accused of assaulting suspects, planting evidence and falsifying reports. A team of independent monitors created by the Negotiated Settlement Agreement is supervising an overhaul of departmental policies, from training procedures to internal affairs investigations.

Attorneys for all three families say that in the absence of effective, independent oversight, litigation is the only means to compel the department to change its policies.

“The most effective check on the Oakland Police has been civil rights lawsuits,” said attorney Michael Haddad of Haddad & Sherwin, who represents the King family.

“Whenever you have to go to the courts to fix your police department, that’s a problem,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York Police Department officer and professor of criminology at the City University of New York-John Jay.

Litigation filed after Oakland police officers attacked antiwar protestors [see video of the incident] at a 2003 rally outside the Port of Oakland led to a new crowd control policy with stricter regulations on the use of non-lethal force. Earlier this year, Haddad’s firm also succeeded in getting a federal judge to strike down an departmental policy that allowed officers to conduct strip searches in public. The strip searches have been pilloried by members of Oakland’s African-American and Latino communities.

Oakland taxpayers foot the bill for police misconduct. According to the city attorney’s annual report, Oakland has paid an average of $2,403,877 per year since 2003 to settle suits against the police department, including $1,452,915 per year for alleged use of force claims.

Although the department has worked hard to change its internal culture and improve its fractious relationship with Oakland’s black and Latino communities, the killings of King, Moppin and Woodfox are a marked step backwards. Before an Oct. 21 City Council meeting, several citizens voiced their frustration with the department over a widening narcotics warrant scandal and officer-involved shootings.

“I want to have some kind of trust in the police, but right now I have none,” said Robyn Woodfox, Mack Woodfox’s aunt.

James B. Chanin and John Burris, who both brought the Riders suit against Oakland Police, currently represent the Moppin and Woodfox families. Chanin, who handled his first suit against the department in 1979, is troubled by the cases. “This is a very disappointing development,” he said. “We’re worried about it.”(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.