WGXC-90.7 FM

Advocates call for videotaping of police interrogations

Mar 28, 2017 6:45 am

Kyle Hughes is reporting for NYSNYS News advocates are endorsing an Assembly bill calling for the videotaping of police interrogations. Adrian Thomas, a former Troy resident who falsely confessed to murder after two days of police interrogation, participated in the press conference in Albany, on Mon., Mar. 27. “I was tricked,” Thomas said of his treatment by Troy Police detectives. “This should never happen to anybody ... this should never happen on the inside of an interrogation room, period.” Thomas and others endorse an Assembly bill that would impose broad requirements for videotaping police questioning of suspects in violent felony crimes, and makes it difficult for police to bring cases where interrogations are not recorded. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has his own proposal for police videotaping, but advocates argue it does not go far enough. “The problem that we have is without recording, it is very difficult to establish through testimony alone what happened in an interrogation room over the course of many, many hours,” Rensselaer County public defender Art Frost said. The video of the complete interrogation was key to having the verdict in Thomas' case overturned, Frost said. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.