Talk about being so stupid it hurts.
From Albany, NY station WNYT:
Undercover police agent appears to plant drugs on Scotia businessman
Donald Andrews, Jr. operates a so-called smoke shop on Mohawk Avenue in Scotia.
It sells incense and other smoking paraphernalia, legal stuff but material that might also be re-purposed for other illicit activities.
Scotia and Schenectady County police became suspicious and targeted Andrews's shop, sending an undercover informant in twice in March.
The second time, Andrews's attorney Kevin Luibrand does play by play that appears to show the informant planting, then photographing crack cocaine that led to Andrews arrest.
"He comes in," Luibrand narrated over video shot on in-store surveillance cameras. "Places the crack on the counter. Crack, which under federal sentencing guidelines, would get him 4 years in jail. Under New York State law would get him 2 to 7 years in jail."
There are seven cameras in plain view in Andrews small store.
Members of the Schenectady chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference viewed the apparent framing of an African-American businessman and were outraged.
"It was a set-up and I believe that he was racially profiled and targeted," said Treasure Clayton. "It would be easy for them to say that he was selling drugs because he was black."
Neither the Schenectady County Sheriff nor the Scotia Police Chief were available to be interviewed about the apparent planting of evidence.
By phone the Sheriff acknowledged proper procedures were not followed but denied his investigators purposely framed the suspect.
The Sheriff blamed the informant, who has taken flight.
Andrews was arrested but released when he was able to get police to look at the multiple camera angles.
He's taken the first step toward filing a lawsuit for wrongful arrest.
I hope he has a real pit-bull of a lawyer -- this needs to hurt the City of Scotia hard. This kind of trolling is unconscionable. The undercover agent should have been prepped better and if this was the doing of the police department, there need to be some firings. The video at the site is pretty damning...
