A newly unearthed set of documents reveals how the Dothan, Alabama, police department has established a lengthy history of planting drugs and guns on young black men to secure felony convictions. The implications of this story surround “over a thousand” false arrests (dating back decades), many of which resulted in wrongful convictions. An unknown number of these men remain in prison.
The documents in question were obtained by the Henry County Report, which digs deep into the history of an Internal Affairs investigation that was shut down by the district attorney and former Police Chief John White. The investigation surrounded a group of officers, including Lt. Steve Parrish and Sgt. Andy Hughes, and their actions in the 1990s. Both men have risen in rank, with Parrish now Dothan police chief and Hughes the assistant director of Homeland Security for the state of Alabama.
The Henry County Report kicks off its report with a photo of Parrish, Hughes, and other officers holding a confederate flag at a meeting for a Neoconfederate organization. Their club “advocated for blacks to return to Africa, published that the civil-rights movement is really a Jewish conspiracy, and that blacks have lower IQ’s.” Allegedly, their beliefs led them to help wrongfully convict hundreds of men, and “specifically, young black men who had clean records were targeted.”
Now a number of Dothan officers have come forward under the cloak of anonymity. They want to expose the wrongdoings of their department and bring justice to the men who were falsely imprisoned. Before the previous investigation was shut down and the resulting files were buried, a countless number of allegations were made involving planted guns, drugs and other evidence. The initial investigation’s slow kick-off was telling:
In early 1998, a group of concerned white officers from within the Police Department complained in writing about what they witnessed. This is reflected in the document below where it refers to a series of allegations that took place over 11 months before the department acted. The initial written complaint from the department’s own officers is dated June, 1998. The internal memo documents the last allegation as occurring in April of 1999. Almost a year of internal complaints by the department’s own police officers passed before Chief White turned it over to the Internal Affairs Division.
On August 27, 1999 more than a dozen officers had allegations against them for planting drugs and weapons on black men they had falsely arrested. They were each notified of a formal investigation and required to prepare statements in writing to the Internal Affairs Division. They were then tested by polygraph examination, most reportedly failed. The notification of charges reference a combination of marijuana, cocaine, and guns being planted on citizens during arrests that were witnessed by multiple fellow police officers.
The leaked documents published by the Henry Country Report reveal the testimony of officers during the initial investigation. Testimony by an Officer Magrino (in 1996) reveals the sketchy chain of evidence procedures used by himself and fellow officers. Magrino was involved in at least 50 cases where he, Parrish, and several other officers lost track of handguns, only to have them “reappear under suspicious circumstances.” Likewise, Magrino was involved in 50 case files involving drugs were not submitted properly “for storage and chain of custody issues.”
At that point in time, Internal Affairs Sgt. Keith Gray recommended that Magrino be terminated and prosecuted, and all of his previous cases be reopened. Then something strange happened. The investigation was halted, and “the files ordered ‘buried’ by Police Chief John White, and District Attorney Doug Valeska.”
That’s only the beginning of this adventure. The documents dig even deeper into the efforts of White to keep these documents buried. The officers who have come forward hope they can help bring justice for the men who still remain in prison under wrongful convictions.
(Via Henry County Report)