A cellphone video that appears to show a Louisiana deputy plant a baggie of crack cocaine next to a handcuffed suspect during an arrest h...
A cellphone video that appears to show a Louisiana deputy plant a baggie of crack cocaine next to a handcuffed suspect during an arrest has sparked outrage after it was posted online.
The nearly 30-second recording was shared on Twitter, Instagram and Reddit on Monday, sparking widespread condemnation and accusations of malfeasance directed at the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
But the Jefferson Parish sheriff says the viral footage does not tell the whole story.
On Tuesday, Sheriff Joseph Lopinto held a press conference saying that an internal investigation has revealed that the deputy did not plant the evidence at the scene of the arrest, and that the suspect, Dominique Griffin, 26, has expressed remorse for fueling the false accusations against the officer, and for biting his colleague.
According to the sheriff, repeat lab tests showed that the white pills seized from Griffin were found to contain methamphetamine, while a search of his phone uncovered evidence of drug trafficking activity.
The incident began unfolding at 3pm on Monday, when deputies responded to a 911 call reporting a man selling drugs in Bridge City.
Responding deputies tracked down the suspect, later identified as Griffin, near the intersection of 4th Street and Westwego Avenue. He allegedly resisted arrest and bit one of the deputies before being handcuffed and placed on the ground, which is where the eyewitness video picks up the action.
In the video, a man in a red T-shirt is seen laying on his side on the ground with his hands restrained behind his back and yelling at three sheriff's deputies kneeling or standing around him: 'there ain't no crack in that bag... I'm not a crackhead.'
A deputy kneeling in front of the detained man, identified as Dominique Griffin, is seen holding a plastic baggie containing a white substance in his right hand. He then shifts the baggie to his left hand.
The deputy drops the packet in the grass and picks up another item, prompting Griffin and the woman recording the arrest to exclaim that the cop had just put the baggie item on the ground and to alert him that he was being filmed.
'She’s recording!' another woman could be heard yelling off-camera.
The deputy looks up, realizes that he is being videotaped and charges at the woman with the phone.
'Get out the way!' another person warns the woman.' Go inside!'
The deputy chasing the eyewitness could be heard yelling, 'Your phone is evidence.' As the woman flees, the video abruptly ends.
As of Wednesday morning, on Twitter alone the video has been viewed 4.2million times.
As news of the footage allegedly showing a deputy plant drug evidence spread, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office released a statement saying the matter was being investigated.
'Our on-scene deputies have been interviewed in this matter and gave reasonable explanations to the actions depicted in the video,' the first statement from the agency read.
It also noted that 'the suspected drug evidence recovered on the scene tested negative for narcotics, but was collected nonetheless and was sent to the Crime Laboratory for further testing.'
Further tests found it tested positive for methamphetamine.
Griffin was initially booked into the county jail on charges of battery on an officer, battery on an officer with injury and resisting arrest with force or violence. After it tested positive for meth, he was charged with two additional counts of drug possession.
In the follow-up statement released on Tuesday, the sheriff's office revealed that each responding deputy was interviewed separately, and that all of their accounts remained consistent.
'All maintained that the bag containing pills was removed from the suspect’s pants pocket prior to being placed on the ground and then picked up again, which was depicted in the social media video,' the press release states.
As part of the internal investigation, Griffin was also interviewed and detectives executed a search warrant on his phone, which reportedly was found to contain information that connected the suspect to the drugs seized from his pants pocket.
Griffin's phone also yielded text messages related to 'the planning and scheduling of his drug sales.'
Sheriff Lopinto said during Tuesday's press conference that Griffin has apologized for biting the deputy, and also expressed remorse over the false accusations claiming evidence planting, which he stressed did not come from him, reported WWL.
'I actually have to thank him,' the sheriff said. 'It's not often in law enforcement that we thank the suspects that we arrest. In this case, he showed a lot of remorse.'
Lopinto added that Griffin did not want the deputy to get in trouble because 'he knew he did not do anything wrong and took ownership of the drugs that he had on him in that period of time.'
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