When police officers lie
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More than 100 Boston Police cadets graduated in a ceremony in June 2020 in West Roxbury during the coronavirus pandemic.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Your front-page article âPolice falsehoods bring little disciplineâ (Behind the Shield, Jan. 3) asks why arenât there serious consequences more often when Boston police officers lie on reports or in court. Attorney Rosemary Scapicchio provided an answer to the question when she said, âItâs easier to believe the defendant did it . . . than to say the cops lied.â
District Attorney Rachael Rollinsâs creation of a âLaw Enforcement Automatic Discoveryâ database is long overdue in Suffolk County and provides one mechanism to address the practice of police officers âtestilying.â
When Boston police officers fail to tell the truth, the department rarely calls a lie a lie
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Fifth in an occasional series. Read
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On the witness stand of a Boston courtroom, police Sergeant Stephen Green outlined the steps that led to a search warrant for an alleged drug dealerâs cellphone, which later led to a trove of incriminating text messages.
The Boston detectiveâs testimony in January 2019 helped seal a conviction and a four- to five-year sentence for drug trafficking.
But Greenâs story, according to new evidence, was untruthful. A forensic investigator determined that Green had been fishing through the phone for more than four hours before applying for a warrant â even at one point watching the defendantâs personal sex videos.