An officer in Raleigh, North Carolina has been fired for allegedly staging fake heroin drug busts on 15 Black men by using brown sugar.
Officer Omar Abdullah was fired from the Raleigh Police Department on Oct. 28. The Black men’s attorneys claim that their clients were wrongfully arrested for heroin trafficking. “I think for advocates, we’ve always wanted this,” said police reform advocate Kimberly Muktarian. “This is something we dreamt of. So for them, I still believe that — this is not a reality that they commonly see.”
Last year, Abdullah allegedly paid a confidential informant to provide police with information on Raleigh heroin dealers. Instead, according to the district attorney, the informant gave them audio and video recordings of drug deals with crucial clips missing, along with a substance that later tested negative for drugs.
Other officers allegedly knew of Abdullah’s crimes when he planted the fake heroin. Last year, the department put him on leave, and Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman opted not to prosecute him.
Marcus Van Irvin, Robin Mills’ son, was arrested by Abdullah for counterfeit heroin and was initially held in jail on a $450,000 bond. She is disappointed that more officers have not been held accountable for what has happened to her son.
“They did what they needed to do from a civil perspective. But now we’re talking about criminal,” Mills said. “And there’s no way the kidnapping of over a dozen Black men is not criminal.”
As part of a federal civil rights case, the group of Black men negotiated a $2 million settlement with the City of Raleigh in September. “The City of Raleigh’s recognition of the trauma and suffering caused by these wrongful arrests and incarcerations,” said Tin Fulton Walker & Owen, the law firm that represented 12 of the men.
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