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17 cases overturned after 3 Tampa police officers fired

A state attorney announced Wednesday the reversal of several cases as part of an internal investigation after the firing of three Tampa police officers. Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren said his office is overturning 17 cases, which include possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance, possession of a firearm by a felon or a concealed firearm. Each of the 17 defendants pleaded guilty, and none are currently in jail. The state attorney’s office is the process of vacating those convictions. “Our obligation to pursue justice does not end when a case is closed,” Warren said. “As I’ve said before, one wrongful conviction is too many.” Warren said the decision reflects his office’s commitment to root out wrongful convictions whether a defendant is factually innocent, or whether the methods used to obtain the conviction violated due process. In May 2019, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan announced the firings of three officers and the discipline of seven more. The officers terminated were Mark Landry, John Laretta and Algenis Maceo. Authorities say the violations include trashing small amounts of drugs, usually misdemeanor amounts of marijuana, rather than making arrests. The officers are accused of not filing reports in cases that they considered too small to worry about. Dugan said they repeatedly turned off their body cameras too. As part of the months-long investigation, Warren’s office reviewed 225 felony and juvenile cases dating back to January 2018. Tampa police had to drop five open cases because the officers lost their credibility, Warren said. “It’s obviously very awkward and embarrassing for me to be here today. The only thing I can to these officers is fire them, and that’s what we’ve done,” Dugan said. “I have taken the time to conduct lengthy roll call sessions with the officers to explain to our current patrolmen and the entire department that this type of behavior is unacceptable and that they better act with character and integrity or else I’ll fire them too.” Warren and Dugan said there still could be cases that weren’t reviewed in the investigation. They asked anyone to come forward if they feel like they were wrongfully convicted due to one of those officers’ involvement.

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