What do you do when a cop plants evidence on you?

Well, if you are LAPD's Deputy Chief Charles Beck, you turn around and arrest the law-breaking cop. That's what Beck did earlier in his career when he was working undercover for the LAPD and ran into officers who were not following the law, he told Celeste Fremon at Witness LA:

"I actually have a tape too — where [his former partner] and I were working undercover in narcotics and we got evidence planted on us. That was a long time ago. But there’s a message here. It does happen occasionally. But when it happens, we take it very seriously. People lose their jobs and they get prosecuted. And we make an example of them."

-- Jesus Sanchez

Photo: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[SCruz]

Honestly, why ask the question and not provide readers with answers??? Yes, we know this happens, perhaps more than the media reports it since no one wants to get on the bad side of the cops. Answer the question....it's the right thing to do.

[Patricia]

You know why the Russian Duma voted to decriminalize small amounts of all illegal drugs? Because the Russian police were running an extortion racket planting drugs on the children of rich people and politicians and getting cash out of the parents to make the evidence go away before trial.

Now Russian drug users just have to pay a fine. Nobody is going to pay a blackmailer to avoid a fine. Drug decriminalization put the blackmailers out of business.

It's better to avoid exposing law enforcement to this kind of temptation. That's a good reason to support drug reform in America.