On Thursday, Ars reported on a Pueblo, Colorado police officer who staged body camera footage and ultimately forced prosecutors to dismiss felony drug and weapon-possession against a suspect (PDF).
Now the body cam footage of Pueblo Police Department Officer Seth Jensen, which was used in court, is being published exclusively by Ars Technica. The video above shows Jenson finding a .357 Magnum, about 7 grams of heroin, and 43 $1 bills in the vehicle suspect Joseph Cajar was traveling in. The vehicle was towed after Cajar couldn't provide an officer registration or insurance during a traffic stop.
In the footage, provided to Ars by Cajar's attorney, Jensen reenacts the vehicle search at a local tow yard. Jensen later texted (PDF) a local Pueblo County prosecutor telling her that the video was staged. That prosecutor then alerted her superiors, and charges against Cajar were dropped.
"This was concerning because all indications in the discovery and during his testimony at the preliminary hearing indicated that the body camera footage actually represented the sequence of events as they developed regarding the search. Furthermore, the staging was done in such a way to make it look like it was done in real-time. (The items had to be repositioned etc.)," Joe Koncilja, Cajar's attorney, told Ars in an e-mail.
The Pueblo Police Department has a policy that officers must turn on body cams during searches. Pueblo Deputy Chief Troy Davenport did not immediately respond for comment.
Listing image by Pueblo Police Department
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