Video Allegedly Shows More Planted Evidence in Baltimore

2 cops under investigation after November traffic stop
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 1, 2017 11:44 AM CDT
2nd Video Allegedly Shows a Baltimore Cop Planting Evidence
A police officer stands on a street corner during a foot patrol in Baltimore.   (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

More drug charges have been dropped in Baltimore as a result of a second body-camera video that apparently shows police officers planting evidence. The unreleased video "appears to depict multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence," according to the city's public defender. The news comes less than two weeks after a separate video was released seeming to show a police officer planting drugs in an alley while with two other officers. The latest video involves different officers, reports the Baltimore Sun. It shows authorities repeatedly searching a vehicle during a November 2016 traffic stop but finding nothing, lawyer Debbie Katz Levi of the public defender's office tells WBFF. Later, she says, an officer looks like he places an item in the car.

Two officers are under investigation, but Levi says the video shows "approximately six officers standing around while this suspected misconduct is taking place," per CBS Baltimore. The public defender's office said it would not release the video because one of the suspects featured in the video isn't a client; meanwhile, charges were dropped Monday in this case. Days earlier, the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office announced 34 drug or weapons cases had been dropped in connection with a Jan. 24 body-cam video allegedly depicting officer Richard Pinheiro planting drugs in the company of officers Hovhannes Simonyan and Jamal Brunson. The cases relied on the officers' credibility as witnesses, reports CBS News. Another 77 cases were under review as of Friday. (More Baltimore stories.)

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