Racist Cop Involved in 400 Convictions Has History of Planting Evidence

[Revnak]

More than 400 convictions involving suspected racist cop in Virginia could be overturned

Jonathan Freitag, 25, made up reasons to pull people over and planted drugs in their vehicles, prosecutors in Fairfax County said.

www.nydailynews.com

At that many convictions he’s unquestionably hit a lifetime’s worth of prison time for those put away on planted evidence. When people describe the prison system as a more complicated system of slavery, this is what they’re getting at. Make up fake evidence to throw some black dudes in jail and get years of free labor, all while providing the illusion of good morals and safety to white people.

 

[Buyetyen]

Over 400 convictions based on planted evidence from a single officer. This is what police impunity looks like.

 

[Revnak]

Over 400 convictions based on planted evidence from a single officer. This is what police impunity looks like.

Over 400 convictions tied to him. We’ll sadly never know for certain which were dependent on planted evidence, though I imagine most anyone with a decent lawyer will win that appeal.

 

[tstorm823]

Over 400 convictions tied to him. We’ll sadly never know for certain which were dependent on planted evidence, though I imagine most anyone with a decent lawyer will win that appeal.

We'll see how many appeals there actually are, since this was the only person currently in jail based on his police work, and it's already thrown out.

This is an odd one to parse the details. The cop profiled people based on race and pulled people over who hadn't committed a crime, and was found to have planted evidence at least once. He was fired, and under investigation, reasonable result. Then someone from that police department gave him a letter of recommendation saying he resigned in good standing, which isn't reasonable, and that person should be fired now.

The one guy in jail is being released because the cop did racial profiling to pull him over. But the evidence seems to not be planted, they admit there were drugs and an illegal gun in the car, but claim they belonged to the underage passenger with him when he was pulled over. Which isn't a much better look, cause driving around with an armed minor isn't great, and that's assuming it wasn't just the adult's gun and they were playing the "if you're under 18 you wont be doing any time" card.

So like, the cop was doing bad things. Was fired. Might end up arrested himself. Convictions based on his work are being overturned. And the only person in jail based on those convictions was probably actually guilty. The fact that they aren't immediately overturning a conviction based on planted evidence suggests they didn't convict someone based on planted evidence, it's possible they caught him on the first try. He was rehired somewhere else based on bad information and that police department flipped out when they found out. If "bad cop is caught, fired, his career is done, he's still being investigated for potential criminal charges, and all the cases he ever touched in his life are subject to be overturned" isn't a sufficient response to illegal police work, I genuinely don't know what people are looking for.