It's a matter of perspective.

Really, it is a matter of perspective.  Two different people can view the same situation in two completely different ways.  Let's cut to the chase today and compare the two accounts of what happened that fateful night back in 1986 at 2:26 am when a future detective gets pulled over by a sworn officer for having an improper exhaust and see just how different their accounts of what happened really are.

We'll start with what the suspect claims had happened in a letter that he sent in as part of his job application to the City of South Miami PD.  I'm going to skip the part about why and where he got pulled over as there's no dispute about that, here we go...

"While reaching for my driver's license and registration, I realized I had left my wallet at my friends car earlier that day, so I turned around and told the officer I did not have my drivers license with me but I did have my registration and handed it to him."

The cop said..

"...he stated that he didn't have his license with him and began looking for the registration and began looking for the registration in a black zipper bag." 

Ok,  so the subject said he left his wallet at his friends house but then after arresting the subject, the officer finds of all things, THE SUBJECTS WALLET...

"Search of wallet produced a Florida restricted drivers license #____________ which was altered by changing the expiration date with D's year of birth from 67 to 63."

HOLY SHIT!

Not only did the police officer find the subjects wallet that was allegedly left in a friends car, but he also managed to find the subjects drivers license as well!

Let's keep going, in his letter the subject goes on to say...

"The officer then lit the inside of the vehicle with his flashlight and noticed there were three passengers in the vehicle and also noticed a small empty vile (sic) lying inside the vehicle.  The officer pointed to it and asked me to get it for him.  As I handed it to him, I informed the officer that the vile (sic) did not belong to me and that I had never seen it before."

Ok, it sounds plausible, let's see what the officer saw...

"...he began looking for the registration in a black zipper bag.  This officer saw in the bag and observed a small brown glass vial containing a white powder residue suspect cocaine (sic).  Search of D's black bag further produced an envelope containing job cigarette papers and D's insurance papers, court records in D's name."

Wait a minute now, the subject says the vial of cocaine was on the floor while the cop said it was inside a black zipper bag along with a bunch of other crap that was undeniably the subject's!  Unless then we are to believe that the subject asked the fellows riding in the car with him to hide "their" vial of cocaine inside his "black zipper bag" that contained all his personal stuff.  Honestly, WTF?

Obviously, someone's full of shit.  I'll reiterate, it's not a matter of a young kid making a mistake and getting caught with some drugs in his car, it's a matter of a "man" several decades later deliberately misleading a police department about a mistake he made decades before.  Big difference, especially when the position he's looking to fill requires the utmost honesty and integrity and to uphold the laws of our state.  It's more than a matter of perspective, it's about deliberately misleading someone.

More coming, until then, have a great weekend!

So you lied on your job application...

Like the title says, so you lied on your job application.  Under normal circumstances, this may not be that big of a deal.  After all, whats a little white lie on a job application?  Maybe you added a few years of work experience on your resume, made bogus claims about your education or even made up a job to fill in long spells of unemployment.  No biggie, right?  How about lying about past problems with the law?  I can understand why people would be reluctant about disclosing prior arrests and convictions, after all, as an employer, I certainly wouldn't want to hire someone with a questionable past.

So what if you have had past brushes with the law?  I guess if you lie on your employment application, you run the risk of the prospective employer checking your background, maybe you get lucky and they don't and perhaps you get the job?  That may work for some, but what if the job you want is in law enforcement?  Shouldn't you disclose everything about your past, even if it involves an arrest and a conviction?  After all, if you want to be a cop, isn't it a prerequisite for a cop to at the very least be honest, especially on an employment application?

Here's what were getting at, take a look at this screen shot of a particular detective's employment application (click on the image to enlarge)...

Now, clearly where it says "Have you ever been arrested, convicted, or plead no contest to any violations of the law, police regulation, ordinance, traffic violations which resulted in fines or(sic) of more than $100.00?" the applicant checked off "NO".  What we're going to find over the next several days is that indeed the individual who filled out this employment application was indeed arrested, convicted and plead to a violation of the law.  Furthermore, the individual who filled this application out was subsequently hired and made a detective.  

Now, you all tell me, how can any of the cases that this fellow put together during his career or any of the testimony he may have given for those cases be worth a shit when he perjured himself at the very get go when filling out his employment application?  This situation seems like a steaming pile of shit to me.  Even worse, if I were a defendant in a case put together by this fellow, I'd want my attorney to know about this situation with his employment application as it shows that from the very beginning of his career, the subject cop was dishonest.

Miami Dade cop exposes a pattern of lying by his fellow officers.

For those of you following our blog, it's no secret that some cops are somewhat less than honest.  We've dedicated pages and pages of blog to the misdeeds of Detective Jorge Baluja of the MDPD, now it looks like one of his fellow officers from his early stomping grounds, the Northside District of the MDPD,  has come forward and detailed a pattern of dishonesty in his department.  From Gus Garcia-Roberts article in the Miami New Times, Officer Frank Adams of the Miami Dade Police Department tells us...

"They're supposed to be my brothers in blue," he says, struggling to keep his voice audible as his eyes become soggy. "But they're not my brothers — not when they're treating people like this."

It's not like Officer Adams is some lackey cop with an axe to grind, again from the article...

"Adams is an exemplary cop if his personnel record is any indication. He has been decorated with 12 commendations for good police work, and his daughter is also a Miami-Dade officer. But he says the state's largest police department has become a menace, regularly abusing and humiliating the people it's sworn to protect — and then lying about it. He's risking his career by speaking with New Times to expose its failings."

The incident that caused Officer Adams to come out against the department was a brutal police beating and how the officers involved described it in their subsequent police reports...

But what really floored Adams is the way Officer Gregorio Perez, who wrote the report, spun the incident. Five-foot-nine-inch Gaines was described as an incredibly powerful aggressor. He had allegedly lifted one officer onto his shoulder, climbed a set of stairs, and hurled the cop to the ground. He had supposedly even grabbed Adams by the shirt and repeatedly punched him, knocking him to the ground and injuring his hand. 

Gaines, a chef at a racetrack, was "lying on his stomach, gasping for air," Adams wrote in a four-page complaint. Pratts Martinez was continuously punching the man in the head. At Adams's urging, they cuffed Gaines.
Then another cop,Luis Torres, arrived on the scene, burst from his cruiser, and "ran up and kicked Mr. Gaines in the face," Adams wrote. The kick sent Adams knuckles-first into the gravel. A fourth officer, Jorge Arana, started "stomping and kicking" the chef in the legs and side. Adams says he leaped onto Gaines to protect him from the kicks.

The cops account is in stark contrast to what Officer Adams saw...

It's a lie, Adams says. He claims Gaines never resisted: The hand injury had occurred when another cop knocked Adams over while trying to kick Gaines.

It's nice to know that there are good cops out there that will stand up to the few rotten apples in their department, even when the odds seem to be against them.  Despite the officers assertions that the suspect was the aggressor a subsequent investigation by the Miami Dade County Police Department sided with Mr. Gaines and his account of how things went down.  Congratulations to Officer Adams for having the courage to exposing these cops, once again, former Plantation Police Chief Larry Massey said it best...

"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."

There is no room in ANY police department for dishonest cops.

How to interview a key witness according to Detective Jorge Baluja.

Say you're going to interview a key witness in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, how would you go about doing it, especially considering that your entire case is based on the testimony that this witness allegedly gave?  Let's think for a moment, you would think that you'd want to make the witness feel calm and at ease, you certainly wouldn't want the witness to feel threatened.  On the contrary, the more relaxed the witness is, the more likely they are to tell you what you want, right?  Although that approach would make sense to a person with a modicum of sense, let's not forget that we're dealing with MDPD's pride and joy, Detective Jorge Baluja.  We've seen several instances over the past year of Detective Baluja coercing witnesses and  instructing witnesses to lie, so is there any doubt that he screwed up this witness interview?

Like we said before, wouldn't you want to make the witness feel comfortable in order to gain their trust?  Let's see how Jorge achieves that trust, from the witness's deposition transcript...

There you go!  What better way to make a witness feel right at home than reading them their Miranda Rights!  Remember, we're not cops nor do we have any policing experience, this could be a standard run of the mill procedure for interviewing a witness (we doubt it), it just seems a bit odd to mirandize a witness that you're trying to elicit favorable testimony out of!  You would think that this would be a great time to tell the good detective to go fcuk himself and call an attorney.  Regardless, nothing has made sense from the inception of this case so there's no reason for anything to make sense now.

Moving right along, now that the witness has been mirandized, what does Detective Baluja do next?  Remember, it's our contention that as a detective you'd want to develop a repertoire with the witness, make them feel at ease so they can tell you everything they know about the crime being investigated, let's take a look at what the good detective does next...

FANTASTIC!  What better way to make the witness feel comfortable than to let them know that you're investigating them!  Hey there witness, I've already looked through your bank records, I've got photo's of you and your husband, run criminal background checks on you and your family and conducted surveillance on you and know what you do with your time, now would you like to answer some questions for me regarding a real estate transaction you were involved in?  Now, if the detective reading you your miranda rights wasn't enough to get you to stop the conversation and call your attorney, this certainly should be!  

Now, you've been mirandized and have now been told that the detective has turned your life upside down and has actually been following you around, assuming you haven't called your attorney by now, what are you going to do?  If you're a young woman that's never been questioned by a cop, especially the way Detective Baluja has handled himself, one can only assume that your going to do everything you can to save your ass, let's see what the witness says...

There you have it.  The witness was going to make sure she wasn't going to be charged with anything.  With the witness now backed into a corner, what good is anything they say?  If indeed the sole objective is "to make sure you were not going to be charged", then what are the chances of getting accurate testimony from the witness?  I for one would say whatever the hell the detective wanted just so I could get the fcuk out of there!

As expected, the testimony that Detective Baluja elicited from this witness is full of problems, big problems.  Did you guys expect any less?