http://natpo.st/qwomVl
There is a long fictional tradition of police planting evidence to ensure a conviction; the police know who the criminal is but don't have quite enough evidence to prove it. The 1958 film Touch of Evil has a marvelous scene where a police captain is asked how many people he framed and he replies, "Nobody that wasn't guilty". In fiction such acts are usually seen as morally justified if somewhat unfortunate. It's not ideal, everyone would agree, but it's better to bend the rules and put the bad guy away than act with total honour and let a thug back out onto the streets.
But the real world is very different. Canada's police are respected around the world for their incorruptibility. The image of Canadian police as stoic, polite and honest champions of the law remains strong. And yet the Robert Dziekański incident (where RCMP killed a man and then lied about it), the G20 kettling in Toronto and the apparent assault in custody of Stacy Bonds by Ottawa police (an assault widely seen on YouTube, and not the only such charge to be made against the Ottawa police) has markedly undercut Canadian confidence in police behaviour.
That is a serious problem.
2 comments:
I would say in my experience, in court proceedings, about 10% of what police write in their reports either omits relevant information or outright fabricates it. Saying its rare is just not truthful.
Well, that says 90% of the time it's correct -- but if the police did lie 10% of the time then, candidly, their evidence would be worth very little
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