Newsweek

NY Hero Cop Accused of Putting Innocent Men Behind Bars

Louis Scarcella was once a well-respected detective, known for cracking tough cases. Now he’s accused of fabricating confessions, among other things.
Gerald Spencer at Sing Sing Correctional Facility on October 12, 2017. He has spent the past three decades in New York state prisons, maintaining his innocence.
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On a brisk winter morning, in one of Brooklyn, New York’s roughest neighborhoods, a rookie cop heard the sound of gunfire and rushed toward it. As he sprinted down the street, he spotted a man in a long leather coat and ordered him to stop. But the man didn’t obey; instead, he turned around, pulled out a gun and fired a dozen shots, hitting the officer in the thigh. Another bullet ripped through a bystander’s shoulder.

A woman told two other police officers that the initial shots had been fired from a nearby apartment building in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The officers searched the building and found one man shot dead in the third-floor hallway and another in a fourth-floor apartment, a sawed-off shotgun between his legs. Just before the shooting, the woman

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