The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

...are NYPD detectives Stephen Anderson and Henry Tavarez, for arresting two brothers on charges of selling cocaine to the undercover cops in a Queens nightclub.

There's just one small problem - security camera footage from both inside and outside the club definitively prove that the crimes alleged by the officers never happened. In fact, the officers never interacted with the brothers at all on the date in question:

"What the tape doesn't show is striking: At no point did the officers interact with the undercovers, nor did the brothers appear to be involved in a drug deal with anyone else. Adding insult to injury, an outside camera taped the undercovers literally dancing down the street."

Based on this incontrovertible evidence, the two brothers were cleared of all charges, and Anderson and Tavarez have been charged with multiple crimes (including drug dealing of their own, oddly enough), although the NYPD isn't helping much with bringing them to justice:

"New York Police Department officials have downplayed their case"

Most likely because the two crooked cops aren't the only NYPD officers caught in such circumstances lately:

"On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story."

These cases, combined with the very similar case we've commented on recently involving the Philadelphia PD narcotics squad accused of shaking down convenience store owners by executing search warrants that were solely based on outright lies by those officers, only cement more tightly in our mind the futility of continuing the War on Drugs, as well as (unfortunately) once again proving the value of audio and/or video taping one's every interaction with police, in order to protect oneself from the sorts of false accusations of criminal acts by rogue cops that are apparently rampant in certain police departments in this country.