And Justice For All

We all know the TV cop show setup. There's the extreme pressure from the press, the mayor, the police chief, to close cases. Jobs and careers depend on it. Cops *know* a perp - and they're dangerous - is guilty and just can't quite get the charges to stick. They cut a few corners, plant a little evidence, and the greater good is served. The thing is, when I hear stories of police corruption I never get a sense that any of these pieces are in play. There is no pressure to close cases. Careers and jobs do not depend on doing so. Harder to know, but there's no evidence the perps are known to be dangerous. Cops (#notallcops) just do this stuff because bears shit in the woods.

In May 2017, Philadelphia Narcotics Bureau supervisors Inspector Raymond Evers and Chief Inspector Anthony Boyle called staff into a police conference room in Germantown for a mandatory meeting. Evers would later describe it as a “pep talk” to "get better-quality investigations.”

But what he outlined, according to a 177-page August 2018 Internal Affairs report obtained by the Inquirer, was a scheme to flip low-level suspects into off-the-books confidential informants through a process that would evolve into falsifying paperwork, as well as hiding information from the District Attorney’s Office.