Caleb D. Brown, 28, of Winlock drowned after a barge used in the dredging operation at TransAlta’s Centralia mine site sunk

UPDATED: Winlock Man Dies in Accident at TransAlta Coal Mine Pond

By The Chronicle
December 31, 2018

  CENTRALIA, WA:

An employee working on a project to recover coal from a pond at TransAlta’s Centralia mine site Saturday night was killed after a barge used in the dredging operation sunk, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

The Lewis County Coroner’s Office identified the man Monday morning as Caleb D. Brown, 28, of Winlock. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.

The sheriff’s office and fire crews responded at 7:52 p.m. Saturday to the mine property at 1044 Big Hanaford Road in Centralia to a report of an industrial accident.

When deputies arrived, they learned an employee of a contractor was working on a 72-foot barge in a pond in an effort to dredge the pond to reclaim coal from the mud, according to the sheriff’s office.

A supervisor reported last having contact with the employee at 7:30 p.m. At 7:45 p.m., employees realized the dredging operation had stopped and the power to the barge was shut off. The barge was held in place by a cable and powered by a high-voltage line.

Employees then discovered the barge had sunk and was under about 20-feet of water. They were unable to locate the employee working on the barge.



On Sunday, Thurston County Dive Team members found the employee deceased inside the still-submerged cabin of the barge.

Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators have responded.

The barge, weighing about 150,000 pounds, will need to be recovered by a salvage crew before investigators can learn more, according to the sheriff’s office.

=================================


Accident Classification: Drowning
Location: Centralia Coal Mine, Centralia, Lewis County, WA
Mine Controller: Trans Alta Corp
Mine Type: Surface
Mined Material: Coal (Bituminous)

UPDATED: Winlock Man Dies in Accident at TransAlta Coal Mine Pond
By The Chronicle

An employee working on a project to recover coal from a pond at TransAlta’s Centralia mine site Saturday night was killed after a barge used in the dredging operation sunk, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

The Lewis County Coroner’s Office identified the man Monday morning as Caleb D. Brown, 28, of Winlock. An autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday.

The sheriff’s office and fire crews responded at 7:52 p.m. Saturday to the mine property at 1044 Big Hanaford Road in Centralia to a report of an industrial accident.

When deputies arrived, they learned an employee of a contractor was working on a 72-foot barge in a pond in an effort to dredge the pond to reclaim coal from the mud, according to the sheriff’s office.

A supervisor reported last having contact with the employee at 7:30 p.m. At 7:45 p.m., employees realized the dredging operation had stopped and the power to the barge was shut off. The barge was held in place by a cable and powered by a high-voltage line.

Employees then discovered the barge had sunk and was under about 20-feet of water. They were unable to locate the employee working on the barge.

On Sunday, Thurston County Dive Team members found the employee deceased inside the still-submerged cabin of the barge.

Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators have responded.

The barge, weighing about 150,000 pounds, will need to be recovered by a salvage crew before investigators can learn more, according to the sheriff’s office.

Two Chicago police officers, Eduardo Marmolejo, 36, and Conrad Gary, 31, were killed when they were struck by a South Shore line train as they chased an armed suspect on the Far South Side

CPD officers fatally struck by train while chasing armed suspect


CHICAGO (SUN TIMES MEDIA WIRE) - 

Two Chicago police officers were killed when they were struck by a South Shore line train Monday evening as they chased an armed suspect on the Far South Side, police said.

Shortly after 6 p.m., the officers responded to a call of shots fired near the intersection of 101st Street and Dauphin Avenue in the Rosemoor neighborhood, according to Chicago police Supt. Eddie. The officers then chased a suspect up to the train tracks at 103rd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, where they were struck by the eastbound train.

The officers were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.


 

 Conrad Gary, 31. 

Eduardo Marmolejo, 36, and Conrad Gary, 31. 
 
 
        The Cook County Medical examiner’s office didn’t immediately confirm their deaths.

Johnson identified the officers as Eduardo Marmolejo, 36, and Conrad Gary, 31. Marmolejo was on the force for 2 1/2 years and Gary was had been an officer for 18 months. Both were fathers.

A suspect taken into custody and a gun was recovered at the scene, said Johnson,

“A devastating tragedy occurred tonight,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted.

GOFUNDME PAGES FOR EDUARDO MARMOLEJO AND CONRAD GARY

About 6:20 p.m., Metra officials were informed that the officers had been struck by eastbound South Shore Line train 119, which left Millennium Station at 5:58 p.m., according to Metra spokeswoman Sylvia Cooper. As a result, all power was shut down on the Metra Electric District Line from 69th Street to 115th Street.

As of 11:35 p.m., outbound Electric District trains were operating to 95th Street, where passengers were then being bused to the Kensington station to meet outbound trains to University Park, according to Metra’s website. Inbound Electric District trains were operating up to the Kensington station, and riders were then being bused to 95th Street to meet inbound trains to Millennium Station.

Inbound Electric District train 148, which was scheduled to leave the University Park station at 10:40 p.m., had been canceled, Metra said.

As of 10:34 p.m., passengers from eastbound South Shore Line trains 19, 101, 121 and 123 were being bused from Millennium Station to their final destinations, according to an alert. Passengers from westbound South Shore Line train 222 were being bused from the Hegewisch station to Millennium Station.

Eastbound CTA No. 106 buses were temporarily being rerouted in both directions from 100th Street, 103rd Street, King Drive and Cottage Grove Avenue due to street blockage, according to an alert.


A weapon was recovered and a person of interest is being questioned at the site where two newly appointment #ChicagoPolice officers lost their lives protecting their community from a gunman.— Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) December 18, 2018


A devastating tragedy occurred tonight at 103rd and Cottage Grove where two #ChicagoPolice officers investigating a shots fired call were struck by a passing train. Please pray for the @ChicagoCAPS05 5th district. Details to follow. pic.twitter.com/0IfXTZf2Bs— Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) December 18, 2018

FBI Criminal Complaint against Passaic County Officer Matthew Torres

Matthew Torres

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
MATTHEW TORRES
Hon. Steven C. Mannion
Mag. No. 18-6258 (SCM)

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT

I, Kelly Blanchfield, being duly sworn, state the following is true and
correct to the best of my knowledge and belief:
SEE ATTACHMENT A
I further state that I am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation ("FBI"), and that this complaint is based on the following facts:
SEE ATTACHMENT B
continued on the attached pages and made a part hereof.
Special Agent
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Sworn to before me, and subscribed in my presence
on the 18th day of December, 2018
at Newark, New Jersey

HONORABLE STEVEN C. MANNION

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE Signature of Judicial Officer

ATTACHMENT A

On or about December 7, 2017, in Passaic County, in the District of New
Jersey, and elsewhere, defendant

MATIHEW TORRES

did knowingly and willfully conspire and agree with others to injure, oppress,
threaten, and intimidate Victim 1 and others in the free exercise and enjoyment
of the rights secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States,
namely, their right to be secure in their vehicles and their persons against
unreasonable searches and seizures.

In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241.

ATTACHMENT B
I, Kelly Blanchfield, am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. I am aware of the facts contained herein based upon interviews
and briefings with other law enforcement officers and interviews of witnesses. I
also have reviewed or been briefed regarding other evidence, including Internal
Affairs complaints and text message communications. Because this complaint
is being submitted for the limited purpose of establishing probable cause, I
have not set forth herein each and every fact that I know or that has been told
to me concerning this investigation. Unless specifically indicated, any
statements herein attributed to individuals are set forth in substance and in
part. Where I assert that an event took place on a particular date, I am
asserting that it took place on or about the date alleged.

1. At times relevant to this complaint:

a. Defendant MATTHEW TORRES ("TORRES") was a police
officer employed by the Paterson Police Department ("PPD) in
Paterson, New Jersey.

b. Eudy Ramos was a police officer employed by the PPD.
Ramos has been charged in a separate criminal complaint.

c. CW-1 was a police officer employed by the PPD. CW-1 has
cooperated with law enforcement in the hopes of obtaining a
more favorable outcome with respect to pending federal
charges.

2. According CW-1, TORRES and other PPD officers, including Ramos
and CW-1: (a) stopped and searched vehicles and the drivers and passengers of
those vehicles, without legal basis; and (b) stole money from the drivers and
passengers of those vehicles.

3. For example, on or about December 7, 2017, TORRES and Ramos
conducted a vehicle stop of Victim 1 in Paterson. According to Victim 1, Victim
1 was a passenger in the passenger seat of a vehicle driven by Victim l's
brother. TORRES and Ramos, assigned to two different police cars that day,
conducted the vehicle stop and removed Victim 1 and his brother from the
vehicle. TORRES and Ramos then searched the vehicle, Victim 1, and Victim
1 's brother. Victim 1 advised Ramos and Torres that Victim 1 had two bags of
marijuana in his pocket. Ramos told Victim 1 that "honesty goes a long way."
Victim 1 also had $3,100 in his pocket. Ramos took the $3,100 and placed it
on the backseat of the vehicle. Ramos then told Victim 1 that Ramos "doesn't
worry about the weed." Ramos also told Victim 1 that Victim 1 had a potential
outstanding warrant. TORRES and Ramos placed Victim 1 in one of the police
cars and Victim 1 's brother in the other. They told Victim 1 that Victim 1 could
be charged with distribution of marijuana and that they could not let Victim 1
go "because the camera saw it," likely referring to a City of Paterson camera
located in the area.

4. According to Victim 1, Ramos then told Victim 1 that, instead of
arresting Victim 1, they could take $500, have Victim 1 sign a piece of paper,
and give the paper to the narcotics division. Ramos told Victim 1 that they
would confiscate $500 and that Ramos had to call a superior officer to verify
that $500 was acceptable. Ramos asked Victim 1 for Victim 1 's date of birth
and social security number, placed a call, and then hung up the telephone and
told Victim 1 that his superior had said "they could do it, but it'll be $800."
Ramos then took a piece of white paper that had a PPD logo on it, turned it
over, wrote something on it, and told Victim 1 to sign it. Victim 1 signed it.
Victim 1 does not know what was written on the paper.

5. TORRES and Ramos then released Victim 1 and Victim 1 's brother
without filing any charges. According to Victim 1, there was $1,000 missing
from his original $3,100. TORRES and Ramos did not report the cash seizure
to the PPD.

6. According to PPD records, there were no outstanding warrants for
Victim 1.

7. According to CW-1, Ramos frequently used fake paperwork, of the
sort he used with Victim 1, to trick individuals into believing that the incident
was a legitimate law enforcement encounter.

8. In or about December 2018, TORRES was interviewed by the FBI.
TORRES admitted that he and Ramos illegally seized cash from Victim 1 and
that they shared the cash proceeds afterwards. TORRES also admitted that he
and Ramos had engaged in similar criminal conduct on other occasions.

Chief Judge Kozinski: It is an open secret long shared by prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges that perjury is widespread among law enforcement officers

The Police and ‘Testilying’: Perjury On the Witness Stand?

During any given criminal case, certain facts in police testimony that appear to be banal or happenstance—such as the placement of a hand or someone dropping a bag of drugs—seem reasonable when taken by themselves.

But looking at police testimony in similar cases, if some facts continue to appear in case after case, an observer may come to a disquieting conclusion: police are lying.

“Testilying” is the colloquial term for the police practice of lying on official documentation or in court under oath (i.e., perjury). Typically, testilying is used to justify searches in drug cases that would otherwise be deemed illegal.

The exclusionary rule, established in Mapp v. Ohio (1961), states that evidence gathered from a search that violates the Fourth Amendment cannot be used in court against a defendant. If, however, a police officer testifies that he saw the drugs dropped into plain view, he has probable cause—and thus, legal permission—to conduct a search without a warrant.

Some criminal justice observers think it may be the most common manifestation of police misconduct.

Alex Kozinski, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit once said, “It is an open secret long shared by prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges that perjury is widespread among law enforcement officers.” Many commentators in the legal community agree, though there is no consensus about what to do about it.

The repeat players in the criminal justice system naturally recognize testimony they hear over and over again. Unless drug dealers magically became klutzier after Mapp, there is strong reason to believe so-called dropsy testimony has become a widespread and illegal institutional work-around to the Fourth Amendment.

Perjury—lying in court under oath—is a crime in any circumstance, whether in a misdemeanor drug trial or a capital murder case. Police officers are very rarely charged with perjury in any type of case, despite testilying's ostensible pervasiveness. If testilying is as common as some believe, and police feel immune to perjury prosecutions, the incentive to lie to defend themselves or a colleague in a use-of-force case must be very strong.

Testilying in drug cases strongly suggests police are acutely aware of the evidentiary rules and procedural demands placed on them by legislators and the judiciary. As I noted in my last piece, officers operate with wide discretion within the boundaries of those demands.

In use-of-force cases particularly, giving broad leeway to police officers makes a lot of sense. Unlike members of the public who are free—if not demanded, in some cases—to flee dangerous situations, police officers are tasked to run toward danger for the sake of the citizenry. Police are forced to make split-second judgments on dangers to themselves and others when dealing with a potentially dangerous suspect.

Officers are human and therefore make honest mistakes, and thus the justice system should provide them with a modicum of protection when they make errors that reasonable people would make given the same circumstances.

But just as any power may lead to abuse, so may legal privileges, even those granted with the best of intentions.

The two most prominent Supreme Court cases in use-of-force authority are Tennessee v. Garner (1985) and Graham v. Connor (1989). These two cases indeed provide ample protections for police officers with regard to the use of force.

Edward Garner was a teenager fatally shot by Memphis police while fleeing officers after commission of a burglary. In Tennessee v. Garner, the Supreme Court held that lethal force may not be used to stop a suspect simply to prevent him from fleeing. The Court writes:

“Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so….A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous [sic] suspect by shooting him dead….[I]f the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given.”

Notably, the Garner decision exposed the government to litigation for the officer's unreasonable use of force. The Court noted that Garner, being an unarmed young teen of slight physical build who was fleeing police, could have posed no imminent threat to police or others and therefore the use of lethal force was clearly unreasonable.

In Graham, the Court goes further to describe what is and is not a Fourth Amendment violation as a result of excessive force. Perhaps as a surprise to some readers, there is no right against excessive force as such, but rather courts must make after-the-fact determinations of whether seizures (i.e., violence used by police to arrest or detain a suspect) before trial are unreasonable and thus violate the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, even though the officers involved in Graham handcuffed and roughly threw an innocent man suffering insulin shock into a squad car saying, “Ain't nothing wrong with the motherfucker but drunk. Lock the son of a bitch up,” the Court ruled his perfectly legal but suspicious behavior—running into and out of a convenience store—led the police officers to reasonably believe that a crime may have been committed and his detainment, however aggressive, was therefore legal.

Simplifying, then, these cases taken together lay out the standards for what is expected of police officers in use-of-force encounters and how their actions should be judged after the fact. Garner outlines the specific conditions that may obviate the prohibition on the use of lethal force against a suspect: the suspect must pose an immediate threat to the officer or the public; be armed and/or dangerous; must threaten the officer with a weapon; or had committed a crime causing serious physical harm. Additionally, when possible, the officer should warn the suspect before opening fire. Graham dictates that any actions taken by a police officer must be “objectively reasonable” given the circumstances presented to pass Fourth Amendment scrutiny.

Just as we see the fit-the-requirement nature of dropsy testimony to avoid Mapp's exclusionary rule, we may expect to see similar accounts of officer-involved shootings in regard to Garner and Graham.

Put another way, the requirements of these cases may inadvertently provide a template for officer testilying in use-of-force cases.

Sure enough, these shootings tend to include many of the following details: a description of the officer's imminent fear for his own safety; phrases such as “the suspect made furtive movements” or “charged the officer”; the suspect exhibited a super-human resistance to non-lethal force such as physical restraint, TASER, bean-bag rounds, or even bullets; the suspect ignored repeated and explicit demands to put hands up; or the suspect “raised his weapon.” In addition, some version of the phrase “he reached for his waistband,” “he reached under the seat,” or “he was reaching for my gun” will demonstrate the officer had reason to believe the suspect was reaching for a firearm, satisfying Garner's imminent safety requirement, even though the suspect may turn out to be unarmed.

These statements paint a picture of an officer waiting until the last possible moment and exhausting all other available means before deploying lethal force. Indeed, this is what we want our officers to do when faced with mortal danger. A recollection of facts in this way—absent proof to the contrary—is often enough to clear a police officer, given the cultural inclination to give police the benefit of the doubt and the case law currently governing use-of-force incidents.

Surely, sometimes those facts recited in these investigations are entirely true. But given the relative uniformity of testimony in case after case, it is unreasonable to believe each officer is following the guidelines time after time.

The quick-to-violence escalations we see on video of officer-involved shootings and other uses of force unambiguously confirm this. Add the continued patterns of abuse in minority communities, the resentment that treatment engenders, and the disproportionate rate at which people of color are shot by police, the numerous protests around the country demonstrate a concentrated and growing skepticism the police narratives in use-of-force incidents.

One may wonder how exactly these stories acquire such relative uniformity across jurisdictions, and whether testilying has, in fact, bled into use-of-force cases.

In his grand jury testimony, then-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson recounted that he methodically and rationally went through the checklist of possible non-lethal defenses against his alleged attacker Michael Brown as he was in imminent fear for his own life. Perhaps that's true.

But Wilson also testified:

“Yeah, just from what I have been told about the incident originally, is that you are supposed to have 72 hours before you are actually officially interviewed, recorded statement and all of that. You tend to remember more through a couple sleep cycles then what you do as soon as it happens. It is a traumatic event, a lot of details kind of come as one detail.”

Police officers may receive such “cooling off” periods before giving statements in criminal or internal investigations of which they played a role. Although not codified in Missouri law, this period is just one aspect of a broader program of police protection known as “law enforcement officers' bills of rights.” These bills of rights are only statutory in a handful of states, but various protections in them are operative in many jurisdictions as standard operating procedure.

Among the other benefits afforded to police officers is the right to union representation at all questioning by police authorities. This means that during this cooling off period, the officer may discuss the matter with union representatives and, presumably, they will work together to provide the best possible story for the investigators. Such a story would necessarily align with the requirements of Graham and Garner.

Whether Wilson was given this time after initial questioning as a matter of collective bargaining agreement or professional courtesy, it's fair to say most civilian shooting suspects wouldn't hear a detective say, “Go home, sleep on it for a couple days—oh, here's the number of a good defense lawyer—and come back when you get your head right.”

Given all this, that Wilson's testimony about the events that led to Michael Brown's death read like a checklist of the most menacing and dangerous behavior imaginable by Brown and, alternatively, that Wilson himself calmly considered and then exhausted every possible non-lethal option before opening fire cannot be surprising.

Again, it could all be true, but the people of Ferguson have plenty of reasons to doubt it.

Positive framing of events so requires no malice, it is natural that someone and his counsel would paint his actions in the best possible light. But it is important to remember that our criminal justice system is based on an adversarial system—prosecution and defense before a neutral arbiter—and prosecutors who regularly depend on police officers as their allies in court are naturally less likely to challenge the credibility of those officers when one of them is accused of wrongdoing.

Moreover, as Garner shows, a finding against the officer further exposes the department and government to costly lawsuits, thereby increasing potential political pressure to exonerate the officer.

In short, police officers are afforded extra protections in use-of-force incidents and, additionally, are less likely to face anyone within the criminal justice apparatus who will strongly challenge their version of events. This creates an environment that implicitly tolerates inappropriate uses of force because of the diminishing likelihood of negative repercussions for those actions.

Police have a dangerous job. Undoubtedly, officers face deadly situations and can be wholly justified in their use of lethal force. And it would be going too far to say that police lawyers, unions, and prosecutors knowingly suborn police perjury.

However, the incentives in jurisdictions all over the country encourage officers to lie, not only in their day-to-day work, but also when their actions result in violence against the public.

The criminal justice apparatus has yet to seriously address police lying in most cases, let alone when police themselves are subjects of criminal investigations. Thus, police officers are incentivized to lie and their institutions are incentivized to protect their officers in use-of-force incidents.

This results in more injustice, less trust in the police, and more dead civilians.

It is a crime for law enforcement officers to file reports with deliberately false information

Police Officers Filing False Reports
(California Penal Code 118.1)

We grant police officers enormous power. Obviously, we give them the power to arrest people and take them to jail.

But cops also have the power of writing police reports (or crime reports) and sending these reports to the district attorney. Prosecutors rely on these reports to decide whether to file criminal charges, and what charges to file.

Fortunately, most cops are generally honest and do their best to file accurate and truthful police reports. What happens when cops lie? What happens when they file false police reports?

The simple answer -- sadly -- is that it can cause (and does cause) innocent people to get wrongly prosecuted, convicted and jailed.

This article will examine California Penal Code 118.1, the section making it a crime for police officers to file reports with deliberately false information. Specifically, we will examine:

1. What would a prosecutor have to prove to convict a cop of filing a false police report?

2. What are the penalties if the officer is convicted?

3. What defenses does the police officer usually assert?

4. What can you do if you're a victim of a false police report?

5. Related crimes


Penal Code 118.1 states that

Every peace officer who files any report with the agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, whether or not the statement is certified or otherwise expressly reported as true, is guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for one, two, or three years. This section shall not apply to the contents of any statement which the peace officer attributes in the report to any other person.1

The key to this section is that it applies regardless of whether or not the officer signs the report under penalty of perjury.

Sometimes police do file their reports under penalty of perjury. They sign an oath directly in the report. Or they sign a separate "statement of probable cause" attesting under oath that everything they say in the attached reports is true to the best of their knowledge and belief.

In these situations, if they get caught lying in the report, they can be prosecuted directly under California perjury laws.

But many times police officers file crime reports, investigation reports, witness statement reports and detective follow-up reports without necessarily attesting to them under penalty of perjury. With Penal Code 118.1, no oath or affirmation is required. They can still be prosecuted any time they report on an alleged crime untruthfully.

Certain conditions must be met, however, before a false report becomes a crime.

Let's examine this statute part by part:

Official capacity

 

Penal Code 118.1 only applies to those reports an officer files in his official capacity with the agency that employs him. An LAPD officer who writes a report for the Sheriffs Department, the FBI or some other agency, for example, would probably not fall with in the ambit of this section.

Criminal matter

Penal Code 118.1 only applies to criminal matters. Many times police officers write reports in connection with purely civil or administrative matters, such as traffic accidents or fires or earthquakes. If they are not reporting on a crime specifically, the section does not apply.

Material matter

The false statement in the police report must be "material." This means it must relate to something of significance or importance, rather than something trivial or incidental. ³ Consider an example:

San Francisco police officer Jones is eating a meal at Chipotle when he gets a radio call of a shooting in the neighborhood. He responds immediately. When he files his police report, he states that he was driving on patrol when he got the call. This is obviously false. But everything else in the report is truthful.

Even though the statement (about his location when he got the call) is false, it would probably not be deemed material so as to trigger Penal Code 118.1. But let's change the facts:

When officer Jones arrives at the scene, he sees the suspect running away. Other officers catch and apprehend the suspect. The gun (the one used in the shooting) is found in some nearby bushes. Officer Jones, wanting to help "seal" the case for the prosecution, lies and states in his police report that "as I arrived at the scene, I observed the suspect throw the gun into the bushes."

Now this false statement in the police report definitely would be considered material. If it could be proven that officer Jones lied in this way, it would fall right within the ambit of Penal Code 118.1.

Knowingly false

It's not uncommon for police to misrepresent aspects of an event based on misperception or innocent misrecollection. Police often write their reports hours or even days after witnessing or investigating a crime. Memory does fade and falter. Honest mistakes are not criminal. 

To commit a crime under this section, the officer must knowingly and intentionally lie with an intent to be deceptive. Consider an example:

Deputy Torres files a police report in connection with a DUI arrest. In the report, he states that he initially makes the traffic stop because he sees the driver "weaving within the lane" for 4 blocks. A video of the incident later shows that Deputy Torres only follows the car for 2 blocks, and thus could only have seen the driving for 2 blocks. When Torres writes the police report, he pictures the distance in his mind as 4 blocks. He is honestly mistaken.

Here, the deputy is not liable for "filing a false police report" under Penal Code 118.1. Granted, he may have been negligent for not being more certain and precise in his reporting. But his statement about the distance was mistaken rather than knowingly false. Let's change the facts with the next example:

Deputy Torres knows for a fact that he only saw the driver weaving for 2 blocks. But he worries that this may not be enough "observed bad driving" to give him probable cause for the DUI traffic stop (especially of the defense lawyer runs a motion to suppress
evidence in court). So in order to justify his traffic stop, and to help bolster the case in court, he lies and states in his police report that he observed the driver weave for 4 blocks.

Here, Deputy Torres clearly is liable for issuing a false police report. The misstatement about the distance is knowingly false and deceptive. It is material in that it purports to give him the probable cause needed for his DUI traffic stop. And it relates to the criminal matter of driving under the influence.