Thanks to body cameras, a Baltimore police officer was caught on video planting drugs at a crime scene.
The footage recorded a Baltimore Police Department officer placing a can, with a plastic bag filled with drugs inside, at a crime scene. Then, he walks away before turning on his body camera and returning to the scene to “discover” the drugs. The incident was filmed thanks to a body camera system which stores 30 seconds of footage before being turned on.
“We take allegations like this very seriously and that’s why we launched an internal investigation into the accusations,” a spokesperson for the Baltimore Police Department said in response to the video. “We are fortunate to have body-worn cameras which provide a perspective of the events as reported.”
The Daily Caller reports:
“I’m going to go check over there,” the officer says in the video. He then returns to the crime scene and “finds” the drugs, screaming “yo” as he holds up the evidence. Body cameras have systems where they record the previous 30 seconds that happened before they were turned on, which explains how this officer was caught planting evidence.
The original body camera video led to a man getting arrested on drug charges. He had a trial set for last week, but it was canceled after a public defender noticed the video.
“I’ve passed [the video] up and we are all appalled … something is going to happen because of this revelation,” a prosecutor wrote in an email received by Fox Baltimore.
