What happens when you reward officers for making the most DUI arrests?
Seal Isle Officer Charged with Faking Evidence in DWI Arrest
Sea Isle City, NJ. Dec. 16 – A city police sergeant allegedly tampered with evidence to frame a suspect during an alcohol bust in August. Sgt. Vincenzo Macrino, 33, of Sea Isle City, was arrested Friday at the police station and charged with official misconduct and tampering with evidence, the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office said Friday…
Macrino was honored in September by Mothers Against Drunk Driving as one of its “top cops” for making drunken-driving arrests in Sea Isle City. The group honored more than 322 honorees from nearly 300 local police departments. MADD said its 2006 honorees represented just 2 percent officers in their departments, but were responsible for 20 percent of drunken-driving arrests.
MADD has a policy of having its local chapters around the country honor individual officers for making high numbers of DUI arrests — honors that are helpful to those officers' careers. So how many Sergeant Macrinos do you think are out there? And how many citizens are falsely arrested and convicted? (Remember: all it takes is the officer's testimony that the defendant appeared intoxicated, failed the field sobriety tests, and refused to take a breath test; no one is going to believe the defendant.)
For an example of this practice triggering a federal law suit, see my earlier post DUI SuperCops.
(Thanks to Hockey Bobc.)
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