Glossing Over the Truth- Boston PD Edition

This is what the Boston PD would like you to remember about the death of Detective Sherman Griffiths in 1988:

Detective Griffiths was shot and killed while serving a narcotics warrant with other officers in the Drug Control Unit. As Detective Griffiths attempted to hammer down the door with a sledge hammer shots were fired from inside and he was struck once in the head. The suspect and weapon were found inside of an adjoining apartment. Detective Griffiths succumbed to his wounds the next morning.

The suspect, an illegal immigrant, was acquitted of murder charges in 1990 after his trial was moved to a different part of the state in a change-of-venue. After the trial the INS deported him back to his native Jamaica.

Makes it sound as though a weak-kneed jury fell for a line of shit, doesn't it?

The truth was a bit different. First off, the trial was apparently moved to Greenfield, MA because of police perjury.[1] Second, there were nine people inside the crack house that the cops raided. The only physical evidence linking the man that the cops alleged was the shooter to the crime was a fingerprint that was found on the magazine of the .45 automatic used to shoot Detective Griffiths. That fingerprint was not found until 2-1/2 years after the shooting. No good explanation was offered for why it took the Boston police that long to examine the murder weapon.

This is what the thumbnail news stories didn't mention: There were linear striations across the fingerprint. The prosecution tried to argue that those striations would happen as the magazine was inserted and removed from the weapon. The problem was that the striations didn't line up with the long axis of the magazine. The defense expert on fingerprints was from the RCMP's fingerprint lab; he testified that it was possible to transfer a fingerprint and that the striations would be present as a result of the transfer process.

The defendant was acquitted, though not after he was beaten in prison by three to five guards (three of whom later had to personally pay punitive damages for the beating, in addition to the near quarter mil the City had to cough up).

So, when you watch the new TV show Rizzoli & Isles, you might want to keep in mind the track record that the Boston PD has had for many years for fabricating evidence.

[1] One cop charged with perjury as a result of this case claimed that the Suffolk Country prosecutor pressured him to lie. That prosecutor was also on the Stuart case.