Friday, January 10, 2014

I wonder if the people whose cards were stolen think this is a just ruling? What the judge misses is that the police were right to stop these criminals

Judge tosses evidence in ‘shop and frisk’ case


Two whose Mercedes as taken for a joyride by cops after they were arrested have caught a huge break in court — thanks to the “shop and frisk” scandal.
A judge will toss evidence in the grand-larceny case against Rashad Lewis and Gregg Humphreys, after ruling police had no right to pull them over in the first place just because they were spotted leaving Barneys with armloads of shopping bags.
Officers had seen Lewis, of Queens, leaving the department store with Humphreys in August 2012, and then pulled them over for running two red lights.
Unlike many “shop and frisk” cases, suspicions that Lewis and Humphreys were up to no good were proved right when officers found 13 forged credit cards on them. The cards had been used to fund their Barney’s shopping spree.
But since the police had no reason to search the Mercedes other than a hunch they were criminals, Judge Patricia Nunez ruled Thursday that the credit-card evidence be suppressed.
“Racial profiling has to stop,” said Marvyn Kornberg, the defendants’ lawyer.
“It doesn’t help anybody.”
In a bizarre twist, two detectives took the Mercedes they were found in for a joy ride.
Records also show police vouchered Lewis’ Mercedes-Benz in “good” condition around the same time on the same night.

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