Ruszczyk-Damond Murder & Blue Wall of Silence

n a pretrial filing, prosecutors wrote that jurors should be instructed to "question the credibility of any officer's testimony if he or she demonstrates an unwillingness to give full or truthful testimony because of a bias toward police. ... Similarly, the behaviors and statements of particular officers and investigators at the crime scene and during the investigation that demonstrate bias are relevant to show how and why certain evidence was or was not acquired or preserved."This week, prosecutors in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor are revealing more about the extent of that alleged lack of cooperation. They say officers and union officials held a meeting to discuss withholding information from the criminal investigation into the July 2017 fatal police shooting.The meeting took place in the cafeteria of the Hennepin County Government Center prior to the refusal of about 20 police officers to talk to investigators, Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Patrick Lofton said Monday. "If 20 officers are meeting in the basement to decide not to tell what they know to the county attorney's office, that is a problem,Judge Quaintance clarified that when she characterized the officers' refusal to cooperate as a "conspiracy," she was not being sarcastic. MPR and Star Tribune