At least seven Oakland Police Department officers and possibly a dozen more may have lied to judges over the past four years in order to win search warrants later used to bust down the doors of suspected small-time drug dealers.Saying the latest scandal in the department is more than a result of a lack of training, at least one official who has reviewed illegal search warrants said officers knowingly lied to judges to secure warrants.
“There is no good faith here, these are willful,” said assistant public defender Ray Keller. “The thing that is really disturbing is that it is a reckless disregard for the truth; they are lying to judges.”
The department announced earlier this month that it had found a problem with how some of its officers were seeking search warrants for the right to raid the homes of suspected small-time drug dealers, mostly in East Oakland.
Department officials admitted that officers “misstated” on sworn affidavits submitted to judges that substances bought on the street by informants or undercover officers had been tested to verify the substance was illegal drugs.
At the time, the department said officers were acting in good faith but simply had a miscommunication with the crime lab or a lack of training on how to properly seek a search warrant.
Basically, the department said, officers sent drugs to the crime lab, and when they did not hear anything from technicians, assumed the substances had tested positive for drugs.
If I’m not mistaken, in most places it’s illegal to sell a substance you claim is an illicit drug, too. Which would make this a fairly minor offense in and of itself. Still, it makes you wonder what other shortcuts Oakland cops may have taking in obtaining warrants for drug raids.
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