St. Louis man says tape shows police planted drugs

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis prosecutors have dropped a drug possession charge against a 21-year-old man after a city judge questioned the arresting police officer's credibility and the suspect accused police of planting evidence.

Jeremy Eden was arrested in a December 2011 traffic stop and charged with possession of the anti-anxiety drug Alprazolam without a prescription as well as misdemeanor assault.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that after watching a 30-minute video clip from the arrest, Circuit Judge John Garvey granted a pretrial defense motion in late September to suppress the drug evidence. He declined to further discuss his ruling.

Mary Fox, Eden's public defender said police video shows that the officer planted the contraband. The judge's written order does not indicate whether he believes Eden's assertion.

Shirley Rogers, chief trial attorney for Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, said prosecutors disagreed with Garvey's ruling but had no legal means to protest it. Rogers, who was not in court when the judge tossed out the drug evidence, said she could not explain the apparent discrepancy between the testimony and the video.

"We interviewed the officer and looked at the tape, and we do not believe the officer planted the evidence," Rogers said. She said St. Louis prosecutors have won convictions in 22 of the 34 drug cases taken to trial so far this year, with about 90 percent of the more 1,214 drug cases this year ending in guilty pleas to the original charges.

The police union, which opposes cameras in patrol cars, said the videotape is an incomplete and inaccurate evidentiary tool.

"No matter how bad the angle, or how fuzzy the picture, we're going to say the view we get on the camera is the only evidence you get on any police encounter," said Jeff Roorda, business manager for the St. Louis Police Officers' Association. He said in this case the video subverted justice and left "an angry judge and a police chief that doesn't know what to do with this mess. Who do these cameras help?"

Rogers said Joyce's office does not plan to review the officer's previous cases, a step sometimes taken when officials suspect misconduct. Police chief Sam Dotson declined to comment, except to say there will be an internal affairs investigation that will include a request to interview Garvey.

Vaughan, a five-year police veteran who won the Medal of Valor, the department's top honor, after a shootout in 2010, could not be reached for comment.

Eden said in an interview that he was set up and plans to sue police because of the months he said he spent in jail following his arrest.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com