Marcus Jeter

Marcus Jeter

A New Jersey man has escaped a prison sentence after evidence emerged that the police had tried to frame him.

Police claimed that Marcus Jeter, 30 assaulted officers, resisted arrest and tried to elude the police.

However their own dashcams told a very different story. The video in fact showed that Mr Jeter was calm and did not try to resist arrest despite being assaulted by police officer’s.

Prosecutors have since dismissed charges against Jeter, which if they had been upheld, would have earned Mr Jeter at least five years in prison.

Two police officers, Sean Cotter and Orlando Trinidad have since been indicted after the camera showed that they had severely beaten up Mr Jeter without provocation and falsified reports.

Sean Cotter

Sean Cotter

A third has pleaded guilty to tampering. When Mr Jeter’s lawyers tried to get hold of one of the the original dashcam videos, police illegally refused to hand it over until additional evidence surfaced of a second police car at the scene. The tape showed Jeter complying with police, even as one punched him in the head repeatedly.

Without the tape, prosecutors had been demanding the maximum prison sentence.

The incident occurred during a traffic stop on the Garden State Parkway in 2012. In order to make it appear as though Mr Jeter was putting up a fight – when he was not – police told Mr Jeter to “stop resisting”. The video however, clearly demonstrates that he was not.

Mr Jeter told WABC: “It was incredible, I didn’t believe it at that point in time,’ he told WABC.

“The next thing I know, one of them busts the door and there is glass all over my face
As soon as they opened the door, one officer reached in an punched me in my face.
As he’s trying to take off my seatbelt, I’m thinking something is going to go wrong.
The video shows the officers telling Jeter to stop resisting, however he doesn’t appear to be fighting back. All I keep saying is I’m not doing anything.”

Orlando Trinidad

Orlando Trinidad

Interestingly, an earlier investigation by Bloomfield Police Department’s internal affairs division found no wrongdoing by the officers involved – until the evidence emerged. Two cops pleaded not guilty.

One of the officers, Orlando Trinidad later gave an interview to WABC news and claimed that he was “scared for his life”. He also claimed that Mr Jeter lied repeatedly – despite the courts and the video demonstrating otherwise – and added that Mr Jeter’s hands were out of view. They were not.

Here Marcus jeter's hands can clearly be seen up in the air - despite the officer claiming otherwise in an interview

Here Marcus jeter’s hands can clearly be seen up in the air – despite the officer claiming otherwise in an interview

Akashic Times is the UK’s only online, fully independent not-for-profit fortnightly newspaper that brings you real news from across the globe.

If you want to keep ahead of what is really going on in the world, subscribe to our newspaper via the subscribe button and join our Facebook & Twitter pages. Subscription is completely free ofcourse

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

(Spamcheck Enabled)