WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES
The Springfield City Council last week voted to spend another $150,000 on
outside attorneys defending former police officers Paul Carpenter, Jim Graham and Rickey Davis against a civil rights lawsuit filed by Larry Washington and Jennifer Jenkins.
The total approved so far by the council now totals $400,000.
The three former officers were members of SPD’s detective bureau and participated in a raid on the residence of Washington and
Jenkins in March 2005. Officers found a half-kilo of cocaine in the residence,
but Washington insisted the drugs had been planted. Months later, at Washington’s request, additional tests were performed on the evidence the detectives had
used to obtain the search warrant for his residence — small plastic bags containing cocaine residue that Carpenter and Graham claimed
to have found in his trash. The subsequent tests showed no trace of the drug.
Charges against Washington and Jenkins were dropped. Carpenter and Graham were
later fired, and Davis retired. The city hired private attorneys to represent
the former officers due to an unspecified conflict of interest.
This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2008.
