Detectives in Club U Slaying Probed

[MountainLaurel]

And people actually believe all people convicted of capital offenses are actually guilty? With cops like this out there, and prosecutors who are just as bad? Particularly considering that most murder convictions hinge on eyewitness testimony and not concrete evidence?


The witness didn't know what to think.

A few days earlier, she had seen a dying man dragged off the dance floor at a popular Northwest Washington nightclub. Now two homicide detectives wanted her to change her story, she said. Instead of saying that the man in the black shirt was stabbing the victim, she was told she should make it seem as though it was the man in the white shirt. So she did, she later testified.

"I was confused," the witness said, "but I figured that it's their job. They know what they're doing. I guess they got it under control."

In fact, the investigation into the Feb. 13 death of Terrence Brown at Club U was about to spin out of control. The two detectives, hoping to pursue murder charges against a suspect, apparently wanted the woman -- and two other witnesses -- to revise their accounts to point to their suspect and reflect the medical examiner's conclusion that the 31-year-old Brown died from a deep stab wound. Everything fell apart when prosecutors grew suspicious.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010201683.html