Bodycam Footage Shows Baltimore Cops Planting Drugs, Department Says Cops Were Recreating the Scene

A Baltimore police officer has been suspended after bodycam footage showing him planting drugs to frame a potential suspect went viral on Wednesday.

According to the Maryland public defender’s office, the bodycam footage, which was documented back in January, was recorded on Officer Richard Pinheiro’s camera. In the short video, Pinheiro can be seen placing a plastic bag into a red can and hiding it as his co-workers, who have been identified as Hovhannes Simonyan and Jamal Brunson, watched on. Once the bag was placed, the three officers left the area. Pinheiro then switched on his bodycam just before walking back to the yard to secure the evidence that he previously planted.

The public defender representing the suspect retrieved the video and sent it in to the state attorney’s office, prompting the lawyers to dismiss the case. In turn, Pinheiro was suspended and two other officers were placed on “non-public contact” administrative duty.  The suspect was released after spending six months in jail, as he could not pay the $50,000 bail.

The video went viral on Wednesday, forcing the Police Commissioner to address the gross misconduct of his officers.

“This is a series allegation of police misconduct,” Kevin Davis said. “There’s nothing that deteriorates the trust of any community more than thinking for one second that uniformed police officers… would plant evidence of crimes on citizens.”

In the wake of the incident, the public defender’s office raised concern with the use of body cameras and an officer’s ability to decide when they would like to use the camera.

“Officers should not be able to decide when to turn the camera on and off, and footage like what was presented here needs to result in immediate action by the State’s Attorney and the Police Department,” the public defender’s office said in a statement.

The police department released several videos leading up to the officer’s incident, as well as several angles of the misconduct, in an effort to give the public a clear understanding of what happened. In the first few videos released by the department, the officers pulled over a suspect and seized two heroin capsules. In the next video, the officers arrested a suspected drug dealer at a local store and seized marijuana and a heroin capsule off his person. Afterwards, the department released a video of the officers searching the same yard from the viral footage. In that video, officers found a bag of 25 heroin capsules, which officials believe occurred prior to the footage of police misconduct.

“It’s certainly a possibility that we’re looking into to see if the officers in fact replaced drugs that they had already discovered in order to document their discovery with their body-worn cameras on,” the commissioner revealed, suggesting that the officers may have been placing evidence that they already found in the area to catch it on camera.

However, whether that is the case or not, David Rocah of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland said the police were still violating rules and their actions have ruined the credibility of the entire department.

“So even if it is indeed true that they simple staged a re-creation of finding the drugs, these officers have not only destroyed their own credibility, they have single-handedly destroyed the credibility of every piece of video where BPD officers find contraband without a clear lead-in that negates the possibility of it being staged,” Rocah revealed. “That’s quite a day’s work.”