Cop admits framing 2 black men ...

MIAMI — The federal investigation into a handful of former Biscayne Park police officers accused of framing innocent people widened this week, when another cop was accused of falsifying arrest warrants for two men at the direction of the police chief. Guillermo Ravelo, who was fired from the force earlier this year, pleaded guilty Thursday in Miami federal court to a conspiracy charge that he violated the rights of the falsely accused men.

Ravelo's admission to the false police arrests intensifies the spotlight on former Biscayne Park police chief, Raimundo Atesiano. Atesiano. The 52-year-old was indicted in June along with two other former police officers, Raul Fernandez and Charlie Dayoub, on a conspiracy charge of pinning four unsolved home burglaries on a 16-year-old so the chief could claim a perfect clearance rate on property crimes in 2013. The teen also was black.

The town reported clearing 29 of 30 burglary cases during Atesiano's tenure as chief in 2013 and 2014. But now that seemingly stellar record — once touted by Atesiano to town leaders — has been shattered by the reality that at least 11 of those cases were based on false arrest reports, according to federal authorities.

The Miami Herald obtained internal public records suggesting that during his tenure as chief, the command staff pressured some Biscayne Park officers into targeting random black people to clear cases. "If they have burglaries that are open cases that are not solved yet, if you see anybody black walking through our streets and they have somewhat of a record, arrest them so we can pin them for all the burglaries," one cop said in an internal probe ordered in 2014. "They were basically doing this to have a 100 percent clearance rate for the city."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cop-admits-framing-2-black-men-as-florida-towns-false-arrest-scandal-widens/ar-BBL8Sxm