Saturday, October 18, 2008

LAPD Blames Fingerprint Errors for False Arrests

(AP) — Los Angeles police acknowledge they've arrested innocent people because of faulty fingerprint analysis.

An internal police report obtained by the Los Angeles Times details two cases in which charges were dropped after problems with the fingerprint analysis were discovered. Police say they do not know how many other people may have been falsely accused because of the problems.

Rhonda Sims-Lewis, chief of the Police Department's technical bureau, says changes have since been made to procedures in the department's Latent Print Unit.

The internal report blames shoddy work and poor oversight for the mistakes.

Full story here.

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