The Straw Buyer runs into an asshole in the drive thru...

So I'm sitting at in a drive through yesterday waiting for my turn to order some nasty fast food when all of a sudden out of nowhere an older Crown Victoria with dark tinted windows cuts in front of me.  I'm pissed as hell and start blowing my horn at the driver, as soon as I hit the horn the guy stops and get's out of the car, flashes his badge and says "What's your problem?!"  When I tell him that I've been waiting on line and he needs to get to the back he responds with "What are you going to do about it?"  As long as steroid munching, little penis having dimwit has the power to put the cuffs on me, I guess nothing and therein lies the rub.  Does it make sense that this man of diminished mental capacity who has a chip on his shoulder is allowed to alter the course of your life by arresting you?  Throughout the course of our blog we've seen this exact same attitude from the lead detective on the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage fraud case, Jorge Baluja.  In our case, he didn't give a rats ass for what really went on, he made up his mind regarding who was guilty and facts be dammed went forward with his case.

To fully understand the problem with cops like Detective Baluja, you first have to understand the basic flaws in their thinking, first:

"I am the law"

How can you beat that?  Second, I only arrest criminals, criminals have no rights therefore I'm free to do anything I want whether that means lie, perjure or cheat.  With that underlying thinking and unchecked authority, you have the makings of a tyrant with a badge who enforces his authority not the law.  Once a cops thinking is corrupted like this the Constitution becomes an obstacle to them doing what they perceive as "doing their job", IE Detective Baluja stating that he "knew she was guilty cause she lawyered up", never mind several instances of the Detective lying and suborning perjury.  Early on in the Barrera mortgage fraud prosecution, Prosecutor Kostrzewski made this comment regarding Detective Baluja...

"...he's young, but he means well, he tries really hard."

Fantastic excuse for the Detectives mishandling of the case isn't it?  Now consider that the best evidence of Detective Baluja's mishandling of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case comes from the depositions conducted by Attorney Delaila Estefano's defense attorneys, the other defendants charged never conducted a single depo throughout the course of this case.  The kind of lawyering that tripped up the Detective and exposed all his misdeeds must have cost a small fortune.  Let's not forget the role our blog has played in the case as well, if nothing else we've managed to bring attention to the case further highlighting the misdeeds of the cop and the prosecutor.  So what would have happened if you were charged in such a crime and didn't have the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to properly defend yourself?  What if there was no one in the media exposing the missteps by the cop and the prosecutor?  What would have happened then is that the officer would have continued committing perjury and lying the way he did throughout the arrest affidavit (we'll discuss that in detail soon) that justified his actions and his behavior would have gone unchecked regardless of what the truth may have been.  

We've exposed several instances of Detective Baluja perjuring himself, suborning perjury and coercing witnesses, from something as small as directing a witness to lie about the time and location a statement was given (possibly to get overtime?) to outright lying about how a witness was handled.  So what now?  How can this type of misconduct be stopped?  Once again, I defer to former Plantation police chief Larry Massey:

"If you lie, you die, If you are willing to lie to me over this, what else are you willing to lie about? His integrity was shot.  In the interest of the community I separated him from service." 

Get rid of them and then throw the book at em!  If every lying or "Brady Cop" is prosecuted for lying and for violating an individuals civil rights then are forced to serve real jail time with the same people that they may have perjured themselves to put behind bars, then maybe other cops thinking of bending the truth a little may think twice before doing so.  Personally, I have a lot of faith in the new Director of the MDPD, James Loftus, I'm sure our little story is going to get both his and Internal Affairs attention.