Five days in jail for possession of candy. NY Post

Two Bronx men free after 'drugs' turn out to be candy
Two Bronx men were locked up and left to rot in a filthy jail cell for nearly a week after a pair of cops mistook their candy for a bag of crack. The "drugs" were finally tested five days later and determined to be popular Coco (coconut) Candy. The charges were dropped

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Two Bronx men free after 'drugs' turn out to be candy


Apparently the cops just assumed it was crack in spite of the pleas of the men at the time of arrest to test the candy with a field drug kit. This story bothers me for three reasons.

1. There appears to be an assumption of infallibility showing up more and more on the part of police -- they sometimes act highly inappropriately because they don't check basic facts. In this case, I'm sure that this is NOT the procedure that police are supposed to follow in the field. This time, it resulted in a stint in jail, yet how many other times has it resulted in injury or death to innocent and law-abiding citizens? We have police procedures for a reason -- the Western Democracies are supposed to be nations of laws and principles, not the wild west were lawmen shoot it out on a "gut feeling."

2. This is a waste of law enforcement resources. You have to wonder how much time is spent correcting the mistakes that are made by LEOs not following rules of conduct and how much resources are spent on restitution and on processing innocent people for crimes they did not commit. Meanwhile the serious crimes overwhelm law enforcement resources.

3. Continued misbehaviour like this on the part of law enforcement has led to a mistrust of police in many countries, especially among youth. The "don't snitch" grass roots campaign may be on the surface anti-social, but perhaps it would not have flourished as it did if there had not been a climate of mistrust of the police. Reinforcing the perceptions of the community that police think of the public as the enemy and are there to enforce and intimidate rather than serve and protect is having the effect of eroding public confidence and support of the police.

Decades ago when I was in University, I can think of several occasions where a police officer was often in a bit of a spot (usually alone and trying to settle down an unruly mob of drunken engineering students or trying to manage traffic while responding to an accident) and would appeal to bystanders for assistance. There never seemed to be a moment's hesitation on the part of bystanders to lend assistance. I have been told by a number of younger people I work with nowadays that if a cop requested their assistance, they would flee for fear of their own safety or that the police officer was trying to trick them somehow, but they would respond if a firefighter made the same request. I fear that the erosion of public support for police will polarize our society even more and place police in even more physical danger.




[edit on 25-1-2010 by metamagic]

The officers should charge themselves with wasting police time.

From the article.

When they came out, cops were waiting and asked to search their Ford minivan. "I said ‘Go search.’ I even opened the door," Rodriguez told The Post.

Big mistake.

Never let the police search anything even remotely related to you.

You ever watch Cops? Most people that get busted on that show could have gotten out of it if they knew their rights.