When the police get in the news these days it’s almost never for a good reason. Over 1,000 people per year are shot by police. There’s also evidence police have seized nearly $70 billion since the year 2000 from ordinary citizens through the process of civil asset forfeiture whether the people are criminals or not. If that weren’t enough, there’s also evidence that the police will on occasion, fabricate or plant evidence in order to frame innocent people for crimes or to cover their own mistakes.
10. The FBI Framed 4 Men for Murder
Law enforcement rely on informants for information. Often these are criminals themselves who are in and around other criminals and are willing to share information with law enforcement in exchange for money or leniency when it comes to being punished for their own crimes. But just how valuable should an informant be?
Joseph Salvati was imprisoned for 29 years because the FBI framed him for a murder he didn’t commit. They did this to protect the real culprit, a man named Jimmy “the Bear” Flemmi. Flemmi was an FBI mob informant, and they didn’t want to risk losing the information he provided to them so when Edward Deegan was killed in 1965,the FBI had Flemmi and others gives false testimony to convict Salvati and several others for the crime.
Two of the convicted men died in prison, and a third was released in 2001. The convictions were overturned after a journalist discovered secret FBI memos that had never been revealed during the trial. They revealed that Flemmi was the true killer and an informant and that a key witness, another hitman, was lying but helping them on other cases so they let it slide.
The government awarded Salvati and the others $101.8 million for the frame job. The FBI’s lawyers argued they were working at a federal level and the trial was state so they had no obligation to share information and the convictions weren’t their fault. The judge disagreed.
9. Sheriff Joe Arpaio Framed a Man for Attempted Murder
Infamous Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio made news for years as a result of his PR stunts which included making inmates in his jails wear pink, eat horrible food, work in chain gangs and more. His office was also known to botch serious criminal investigations included child abuse and sexual assaults. For all of his dozens of controversial acts it’s maybe no wonder that framing people for crimes was among them.
James Saville spent four years in prison for trying to build a bomb to kill Arpaio. A jury found that he had been entrapped by Arpaio and his sheriffs who arranged the entire thing as a PR stunt. The man who showed Saville how to build the bomb was a cop who not only paid for all the parts, he drove Saville to stores to pick them up. The media was waiting when he drove Saville to where he was ultimately arrested. Basically, they arranged the entire scheme and made Saville the fall guy.
Saville sued, and the county settled for just over one million dollars.
8. James Dennis Was Sent to Death Row After Being Framed
James Dennis was sentenced to death for the murder of a high school student back in 1991. After 25 years in jail he was finally exonerated after courts determined Dennis had not committed the crime but had instead been framed by the police.
The conviction was vacated in 2013 and affirmed on appeals in 2016. It was determined that police and the prosecution had withheld key evidence during his trial to secure their conviction. That includes confessions from witnesses laying the blame on someone else as well as hiding some witnesses and coercing others. Witnesses claimed three men had committed the crime and Dennis didn’t match the description of any of them. A man actually confessed and gave details about the crime and his accomplices, but the police never shared this information with the defense.
Dennis went on to sue the two detectives who framed him, plus the city. The defense offered by the police was that they didn’t do anything wrong but, even if they did, how were they to know that hiding some evidence was a violation of Dennis’ rights?
7. Jamal Trulove was Framed for Murder and Got 50 Years
Jamal Trulove was convicted of a 2007 murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was retried in 2015 and then acquitted for the crime, after which he sued the city of San Francisco, the result of which was a stunning $13.1 million settlement thanks to just how badly the police handled the case.
Police had coerced a witness to testify that Trulove was the killer while also hiding other evidence that proved he was innocent. The detectives on the case showed witnesses photos of Trulove but no one else. This only came to light because, when the police were telling the witness that it was Trulove, another suspect for a different crime was in the room and overheard. The cops would then pay the woman $63,000 to help her move. They had also learned of other suspects and didn’t bother following up on them. In the end, though Trulove won the settlement, the cops just retired, and no one was punished.
6. Cops Beat a Murder Confession Out of an Armenian Man
Armenian Armen Poghosyan spent five and a half years in prison on a 15 year conviction for the rape and murder of a child. He was released only when the actual murderer was caught. Initially, Poghosyan confessed to the crime after being subject to abuse from officers during their questioning. Official documents state that he was beaten and at one point an officer boxed his ears so forcefully his eardrum exploded. They forced him to sit on a glass bottle and made him listen as they beat his brother in another room.
After his conviction was overturned, he was awarded 6.2 million Armenian dollars in compensation which works out to about $15,000.
5. Cops Planted a Rifle Shell to Convict Arthur Allan Thomas of Murder
Some people are so committed to lies they’ll do anything to support them and that was the unfortunate case with the frame job of Arthur Allan Thomas, a man who spent 9 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He was even convicted twice for the crime.
Thomas was convicted of a double homicide in 1970. This conviction was thrown out after it was revealed police had taken a shell from Thoma’s rifle and planted it in the garden of the victim to tie him to the crime scene. Forensics had been unable to rule Thoma’s rifle out, but nor could they confirm his weapon was used, so the police put a shell in the garden weeks later, after having custody of the rifle, and then discovered it to clinch their arrest.
It was the shell casing in specific that helped get Thomas released as the police had searched the garden in August but the shell was found in October just one week after police got custody of the rifle. Despite the conviction being tossed out and Thomas getting a one million dollar settlement, none of the police involved were ever held accountable.
4. Police in New Orleans Planted a Gun on Shooting Victims
Six days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, police got into what they claimed was a shootout on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans. Two civilians died and four more were injured. Police long claimed the killings were justified because they were returning fire and defending themselves from attack. That turned out to be untrue. In reality, the police fired unprovoked at their victims who weren’t even armed and then engaged in a conspiracy to cover it up after the fact, framing the dead men as attackers.
Officers agreed to falsify documents and witness statements after the shooting because they knew it wasn’t justified. Later, a gun was planted on the scene and tied to one of the victims to support the lie and an entire fake witness was made up to corroborate the police story. This led to two officers being charged and pleading guilty later on.
3. Atlanta Cops Killed a Grandmother Then Planted Drugs on Her
You would hope that, if the police are going to raid a home to catch criminals, they would do their due diligence to ensure they’re raiding the right home. Far too often that turns out to not necessarily be the case, but sometimes it can get even worse.
In 2006, Atlanta police raided the home of a 92-year-old woman in what was meant to be a drug raid. They shot Kathryn Johnston five times, and she died. There were, of course, no drugs. Cops did plant marijuana on the scene, however, and submitted cocaine afterwards as evidence of drugs they’d bought in the house prior to the raid.
Evidence after the fact showed that documents had been falsified to suggest drugs were on the site. Other court documents claimed that police in the city had made a habit of lying to obtain warrants in addition to fabricating evidence of drug deals.
Three officers ended up going to jail for their part in the death and coverup, though they only got between five and ten years in total.
2. Police Doctored Witness Statements to Convict a New Zealand Man
Alan Hall spent 19 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit in New Zealand. Witnesses saw a man at the scene who looked nothing like Hall. They claimed the man had been Maori, but police removed that part because Hall was white. Other witnesses also claimed the man had dark skin, was much taller than Hall, was right-handed while Hall was a lefty, and was muscular while Hall was thin. He didn’t match a single part of the description. Police also noted that they believed Hall might have had an intellectual disability but continued questioning him anyway without a lawyer. Years later it was determined that Hall is autistic.
He was convicted in 1986 and the prosecution had been aware since 1988 that police had doctored the witness statement but did nothing about it. It was not until 2022 that the Supreme Court finally tossed out the conviction and eliminated any hope of appealing the decision that Hall and his family finally got to end their fight.
1. A Florida Police Chief Arrested Innocent People To Boost His Arrest Stats
People often accuse police of writing traffic tickets to meet quotas and that’s not entirely incorrect. Cops also like to clear a certain percentage of arrests to make them look efficient and in Biscayne Park, Florida police were willing to frame innocent people to keep their stats perfect.
A 16-year-old boy was framed for multiple burglaries by the police chief and his officers who arrested and charged the boy with four crimes despite there being no evidence he was involved.
The chief would later say he was just under too much pressure and wanted to impress other officials by having a perfect arrest record. So they just started arresting whoever they felt like and blaming them for crimes. This means blaming black people for crimes in white neighborhoods. The 16-year-old was just one of several. He even bragged about how good his department was doing publicly.
After he was caught, the chief was sentenced to three years in prison. Charges against the boy were dropped.