TRUTH COMES OUT

Philadelphia Cops Accused of ‘Cover Up’ in Shooting of Exonerated Man

“They lied under oath to cover up for shooting an innocent man three times in the back,” Innocence Project lawyer Vanessa Potkin said.

Three Philadelphia police officers are in hot water after a man released from prison last week was found to have been wrongfully incarcerated. “They lied under oath to cover up for shooting an innocent man three times in the back,” Termaine Joseph Hicks’ Innocent Project lawyer said. Hicks was released from prison after 19 years thanks to an investigation by the Innocence Project that proved he was arrested based on potentially false evidence. In 2001, Hicks heard a woman screaming for help in an alley and went to help. Police officers showed up and shot Hicks three times in the back, arrested him, and accused him of raping the woman. DNA evidence has now disproved that Hicks had anything to do with the crime.

A gun found on Hicks was covered in blood but the pocket it was discovered in was clean, and the gun showed up as belonging to a police officer who had never reported it missing. “As a result of receiving this information, we have opened an Internal Affairs investigation into the allegations of police misconduct,” a district attorney spokesperson told The Philadelphia Inquirer. The two police officers who arrested Hicks and one other officer have been reassigned as they await the results of the investigation.