I go outside, and there are cops everywhere and they spotlight me,” Jeff says in the longest burst of dialogue during the interrogation.
All you did was find me sitting at my buddy’s house, cuz my buddy’s dog is going apeshit. “I ain’t commit no fuckin’ robbery, and y’all don’t got no fuckin’ evidence sayin’ I did. Two hours after his first interrogation, Jeff is back, answering the same boilerplate plea from a detective to “just tell his side of the story.” At this point, Jeff is beyond incredulous, emphasizing that he does not talk to the cops. But you can also tell in the footage that the cops are keenly aware of both his past - they dangle his parole in front of him - and his weakened state from withdrawal. Given his prior record, Jeff knew misspeaking could land him on a slippery slope. The chant on the street might be “All Cops Are Bastards,” but Jeff’s story gives dimension to just how the bastardy unfolds. That video racked up more than 2.5 million views, with fans in the comment section cheering Jeff’s ability to outsmart his interrogators, even while visibly suffering from heroin withdrawal symptoms (at one point, he begins vomiting into a trashcan). I first saw this video when it popped up on Reddit last year, but the story of Jeff pops up frequently on the internet, most recently in an analysis by true-crime YouTube channel JCS.
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More curiously, it’s a masterclass in how to avoid incriminating yourself, even when facing an intimidating charge and sentence. What unfolds is a revealing look into how everyday cops attempt to pressure people into divulging information that might trap them, whether it’s a timeline of events or some vague implication they were involved in wrongdoing. Naturally, instead of complying with his request for peace (and a lawyer), the police continue to bring him back into that interrogation room over the next eight hours. “Okay, then get me back to the cell,” he responds. The first words out of his mouth in the video couldn’t be more blunt. He is even clearer that he won’t talk to the police. He is clear that the robbery charge is the result of getting unfairly arrested at his friend’s house. And it’s clear from the beginning of the footage that Jeff isn’t there to play games. He’s been through the judicial system multiple times over thanks to a wicked heroin addiction. What we know of Jeff is rudimentary: At the time of the interrogation, he is a resident of Georgia, charged with armed robbery and facing a 10-year minimum sentence if found guilty. His legend started nearly a decade ago, with the uploading of some low-res interrogation footage onto YouTube. And much of the problem remains opaque to the public, because some law enforcement agencies don’t record interrogations or provide transparent access to footage.Īmid this travesty stands an unlikely hero: a wiry young man the internet knows simply as “Jeff.”
It sends a disproportionate number of innocent people of color and those with mental illness into incarceration. The phenomenon inflates the amount and volume of crime being solved in the U.S. It’s no wonder that false confessions are rampant in the U.S. That’s just one of countless tools the police use to press people to the breaking point over hours of repetitive, accusatory questioning. It may be illegal to knowingly lie to a police officer, but law enforcement have no problems knowingly lying to us. There are so many things that can go wrong in an interrogation room when you’re accused of a crime, and only one good outcome. But for those who end up in handcuffs, an arguably bigger gauntlet awaits them at the police station, within the confines of a cold room the size of a medium-sized supply closet. Many of the most tragic policing incidents of the last decade have unfolded right on the street, at first contact between officer and victim.
The furious litigation of policing, its history and its flaws in 2020 is casting a glaring light on the myriad ways cops can rig the system against people, whether it’s in the killing of an innocent person like Breonna Taylor or the everyday oppression of prejudiced traffic stops.
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