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"What do America's major cities have in common with L.A.?" "Since 1995, 10 police officers from Philadelphia's 39th District have been charged with planting drugs on suspects, shaking down drug dealers for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and breaking into homes to steal drugs and cash.” - General Accounting Office, 1998

This advertisement appeared in the National Review,the The New Republic,the Weekly Standard,The Nation,Reason Magazine and The Progressive.

Available in Portable Document Format (PDF).
Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland,
Washington DC, New York, Detroit, New Orleans,
Philadelphia, Savannah ...
What do America’s major cities have
in common with L.A.?
Crooked cops.
Cops faking evidence and lying in court, cops shaking down drug dealers, cops working for dealers, cops stealing the drugs and dealing themselves.

A 1998 GAO report says money isn’t the only motive. “Vigilante justice” is another factor.

Put yourself in the cop’s shoes. It’s tough to legally find evidence of a drug deal between a willing buyer and seller. To make it stick you’re going to have to lie about it on the witness stand. Everybody knows you’re lying — the prosecutor, the judge, the bailiff — but nobody complains because that’s how you get the job done.

But no matter how many drug dealers you bust, they are instantly replaced. No matter how many tons of drugs you seize, the flow never stops. No matter how much dirty money you confiscate, it keeps bubbling up out of the sewers.

So maybe the tenth time or the twentieth time you hand over a suitcase full of cash to the evidence locker, it dawns on you that this is Mission Impossible. Why not get in on the action and kick a little butt while you’re at it.

All across the country — all across the world — the drug war is giving us organized police crime on a frightening scale. It’s undermining our criminal justice system and our civil rights.
We can do something about this.
Mike Gray, Chairman, Common Sense for Drug Policy
For more information visit: www.csdp.org.
703-354-9050, 703-354-5695 (fax), info@csdp.org

Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption, Washington, DC: USGPO (1998 May).