Another Day, Another Story Of Police Lying... Only To Be Found Out Due To Video Of The Incident

by Mike Masnick, Techdirt
Sep. 29, 2011

We just had a post about how a video of police showed that they lied in arresting a guy. Josef Anvil points us to a similar, but slightly different, story that took place in Chicago. In this case, Debra Green was in a car in a funeral procession, yelled at the driver of a car who was weaving in and out of the line of mourners' cars. Turns out the driver was an off-duty cop, Sylshina London, (rushing to get to work) who decided to arrest Green for misdemeanor battery charges. On what basis? Well apparently London claimed that Green threw a bottle at her and hit her in the face. Green was actually convicted.

The problem? It took a year and a half, but investigators finally realized that some of the incident was caught on police video... and it showed that London's window was shut at the time she claimed Green threw a bottle and that bottle hit her head. Even worse, London repeated that story under oath in court as part of what got Green convicted. Cook County prosecutors have now dropped the conviction and have apparently filed charges against London instead.

It's stories like these that, once again, remind people why it should be encouraged to film police -- and why honest police shouldn't have a problem with it.