Police officers in Dothan, Alabama, planted drugs and weapons on young black men for years, according to documents recently unveiled by the Alabama Justice Center. An investigation by the police department's internal affairs unit revealed the egregious police misconduct, but Doug Valeska, the district attorney in Dothan, covered up the results and made sure the investigation was kept quiet.
The officers implicated in the scandal were on a special narcotics team. The investigation revealed that these officers had been planting drugs on minority residents since 1996, but they weren't fired—they were promoted. At the time, the unit was supervised by Steve Parrish and Andy Hughes. Parrish is now the Dothan police chief and Hughes is Alabama's assistant director of Homeland Security.
From the Henry County Report:
Several long term Dothan law enforcement officers, all part of an original group that initiated the investigation, believe the public has a right to know that the Dothan Police Department, and District Attorney Doug Valeska, targeted young black men by planting drugs and weapons on them over a decade.
Most of the young men were prosecuted, many sentenced to prison, and some are still in prison. Many of the officers involved were subsequently promoted and are in leadership positions in law enforcement. […]
The group of officers...shared hundreds of files from the Internal Affairs Division. They reveal a pattern of criminal behavior from within the highest levels of the Dothan Police Department and the district attorney’s office in the 20th Judicial District of Alabama. […]
The officers believe that there are currently nearly a thousand wrongful convictions resulting in felonies from the 20th Judicial District that are tied to planted drugs and weapons[.] [emphasis added]
The police that planted drugs and weapons on black people "reportedly were members of a Neo-confederate organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels ‘racial extremists.’" According to Henry County Report, "The group has 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. Both Parrish and Hughes held leadership positions in the group[.]"
