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.

Have your civil rights been violated lately?

We all remember the Rodney King beating from back in the early '90's right?  Pretty hard to forget watching that poor defenseless man getting the shit beat out of him by several uniformed cops while the cameras were rolling.

This past Halloween we had the displeasure of watching a similar scene unfold here in Coconut Grove, Florida.  Take a look...



Amazing how all those other cops stood by as a small handful repeatedly pummeled the poor guy in the face.  The one thing that all the media outlets keep repeating is how the mans "Civil Rights" were violated by the cops that were beating the crap out of him.  While I don't disagree about the cops violating the suspects "Civil Rights", it wasn't the first thing that popped into my mind while watching the cops going to town on this guy's face.  When I think about "Civil Rights" violations, I think of cops fabricating evidence or prosecutors hiding evidence, I guess at the end of the day whether your getting the shit physically beat out of you by law enforcement or being prosecuted by a dirty cop or prosecutor, it's all the same.