Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
PHILADELPHIA — Six city narcotics officers used gangland tactics to shake down drug dealers, relying on guns, badges, beatings and threats to extort huge piles of cash and cocaine, federal authorities charged in an indictment Wednesday.
The police officers once held a suspect over an 18th floor balcony and used a steel bar to beat someone else in the head, authorities said. They held one man captive in a hotel room for several days while he and his family were threatened, they said.
And another dealer was thrown in a jail cell overnight, uncharged, while officers broke into his home and stole a safe with $80,000 in it.
"It is almost a perennial in this city, that you go from one corrupt narcotics unit to another," said lawyer Larry Krasner, who represents some of the approximately 60 people suing the city and individual officers over tainted drug arrests. "When you're dealing with narcotics, there is always more temptation because the ability to steal, and to extort and to abuse is much greater."