A police officer in Baltimore was filmed planting evidence on his body cam.

He was unaware that the camera constantly recorded video, and saved the 30 seconds before the camera was turned on, and a sharp eyed public defender spotted this:

………

Now there’s word of another such incident in Baltimore, related to video from a January drug arrest. The officer’s trickery was revealed by the fact that his body cam retained footage for 30 seconds before it was activated to begin recording. During that time, according to the footage and the Baltimore public defender’s office, officer Richard Pinheiro puts a bag of pills in a can in an alley and walks out of the alley.

The Axon cam’s initial 30 seconds of footage, by default, doesn’t have sound. After 30 seconds, viewers of the video can both see and hear the officer looking for drugs in the alley. Lo and behold, he finds them in the same soup can that he placed them in, according to the footage, which was released Wednesday. Pinheiro can then be heard yelling “yo” to his fellow officers, telling them he found drugs in the alley.

The Baltimore Police Department said Wednesday it was investigating the matter, and the three officers seen in the video. The Baltimore public defender’s office discovered the incident when reviewing body cam footage while preparing to defend an upcoming drug prosecution.

The footage paved the way for the authorities to drop charges against the drug suspect, who had remained jailed since January on $50,000 bail he could not post. The Baltimore public defender’s office said the officer in question is a witness in as many as 53 other active cases, according to the Baltimore Sun.

(emphasis mine)

Why this officer, and the two other cops in the film, haven’t been charged is completely beyond me.

There is clearly probable cause sufficient for the state’s attorney to get an arrest warrant by all three officers.

Most likely the police commissioner and the state’s attorney are busy trying to figure out what the absolute minimum to deal with this issue, because covering up for bad cops is what the authorities do.

If they are forced to prosecute by public pressure, I expect the case to be mismanaged, because they will play to lose.