Busted!
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Busted!
As we've noted here before, the Daily News and intrepid reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker have not backed down in their agressive reporting on police corruption in Philadelphia, despite enourmous pressure from the cop union and others to do exactly that.
Today, thanks to their persistence, they take the story to a higher level:
"I got like seven or eight eyes," shouted Officer Thomas Tolstoy, referring to the cameras, as the officers glanced up. "There's one outside. There is one, two, three, four in the aisles, and there's one right here somewhere."
For the next several minutes, Tolstoy and other Narcotics Field Unit officers systematically cut wires to cameras until those "eyes" could no longer see.
Then, after the officers arrested Duran and took him to jail, nearly $10,000 in cash and cartons of Marlboros and Newports were missing from the locked, unattended store, Duran alleges. The officers guzzled sodas and scarfed down fresh turkey hoagies, Little Debbie fudge brownies and Cheez-Its, he said.
What the officers didn't count on was that Duran's high-tech video system had a hidden backup hard-drive. The backup downloaded the footage to his private Web site before the wires were cut.
You can watch the video here (unlike YouTube, it can't be embedded...sigh). There's not much to add that I haven't said here before, that bad-apple cops are a scourge on the vast majority of honest and hard-working police officers fighting crime on Philadelphia's hostile streets, and that Ruderman and Laker are your living proof of the need for professional journalists working those same sidewalks -- regardless of how it gets funded and whether it's published on dead trees or live electrons.
For the Hate Americans First crowd, behavior like this is perfectly acceptable - because for them, police are never wrong and as long as you destroy the evidence proving otherwise, you can get away with anything. Witness their defense of the corrupt Bush Administration. Thankfully we live in a country where the Constitution - despite the best efforts of the marginalized minority - still has the force of law. If these cops disgraced their badges for a turkey hoagie and some cartons of cigarettes, they should get what's coming to them.— E.Plebnista- Indeed, it will be interesting to read the ARTs lining up to defend police corruption.— Talking point sleuth
- C'mon, Will. If you and your fellow anti-American, limp-wristed, latte-drinking, thug-loving, Communist, left-wing media conspirators didn't report on police corruption, than no one would know about it and we'd have no crime.— Talking point sleuth
- I can't wait to see how the "cops can do no wrong" crowd which seems to frequent these forums will explain away this one.— seanfromnj
"Ruderman and Laker are your living proof of the need for professional journalists working those same sidewalks" . . . . . . . . . Maybe, but the moral of this story for me is the need for every citizen to be wired.- If it weren't for the liberal media, there wouldn't be any police corruption, except in liberal Hollywood.— SteveMG
- Most cops are good unlike these dirtballs. It's about time we wake up a realize that these "bad apples" give all cops a bad name. On a related note, the cop who ticketed Ryan Moats for going through a red like has apologized for his "poor judgement." Hmmmm....I wonder if he would of if this hadn't blown up in the media.— chasing history
- "I can't wait to see how the "cops can do no wrong" crowd which seems to frequent these forums will explain away this one."....What needs to be proved, is that police internal affairs, when confronted with this evidence, refused to handle the situation. Oh, wait, that wouldnt fit your cynical, anti authority, all cops are bad and only I can save the world, view of life.— E Plebnista
Know why there's a lot of police corruption? The police in America have to defend property ahead of human rights -- our law favors the former over the latter -- and they learn very fast that having stuff is more important than helping people. So a lot of them do what they have to do to acquire stuff, whether that means taking bribes, selling drugs on the side, etc. Fix our mistaken legal priorities and you'll have a mission for the police that won't result in as much corruption.- That doesn't prove anything, fake E. All it may do is establish a burden of proof for deniability. It would be worth recognizing that the spirit of those who favor due process and the protection of law don't smear all police with a report of corruption or misconduct, as oppposed to the likes of you who take the slightest provocation to smear a report into a generalization, or advocate the abuse of people who may be innocent.— SteveMG
- Fake Pleby - check the archives. When Ramsey punished cops for inappropriate behavior, the "cops can do no wrong" crowd showed up here to blast Ramsey. Please point out where anyone said "all cops are bad." On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence where people showed up here to whine about Will for saying that criminal behavior by cops is a worthy topic for journalists.— Talking point sleuth
- Even knucklehead Dave above doesn't smear all cops. He just says "a lot". As far as his priorities, he doesn't know what he's talking about, but that isn't new around here.— SteveMG
- "What needs to be proved, is that police internal affairs, when confronted with this evidence, refused to handle the situation. Oh, wait, that wouldnt fit your cynical, anti authority, all cops are bad and only I can save the world, view of life." One would think that if internal affairs was doing its job these cops would be in jail by now. I don't know what internal affairs is doing but it is still the responsibility of the media to bring these things to light. From what I've seen, it appears the blue wall of silence was closing around these dirty cops and the media has largely stopped that from happening.— seanfromnj
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
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