Lawyer: Miami trial about 'cops who went too far'

An artist's rendering shows defendants and their attorneys sitting before U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, upper left, at the federal courthouse in Miami, where 11 police officers are on trial on corruption charges.

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MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- A prosecutor said 11 Miami police officers saw themselves "as being above the law" and covered up their involvement in four police shootings in the 1990s.

The officers planted guns, or lied about it, at the shootings that left three men dead and a fourth wounded, prosecutor Curtis Miner said Tuesday at the officers' trial on federal corruption charges.

"They were part of a clique that saw themselves as different from other officers on the force. They saw themselves as untouchable," Miner said. The case is "about cops who went too far, who crossed the line between what is right and what is wrong."

Miner told jurors they won't be asked to decide whether the shootings were justified but whether the officers later reached an understanding to obstruct justice by covering up misconduct.

Defense attorney William Matthewman called the conspiracy case "a flawed prosecution" and asked jurors to reject "any so-called super-duper" plot by officers assigned to special street-crime units.

Only one of the officers is tied to all four shootings from late 1995 to mid-1997, when the city was fighting bad publicity internationally about violent tourist robberies. Each defendant could face 10 years in prison if convicted.

The first witness was to be called Wednesday. The trial is expected to last three to five months.

The police scandal was the city's worst since the 1980s, when rogue officers stole cocaine from drug dealers to resell. Community outrage over dozens of officer-involved shootings has led to a chief's resignation, policy changes and the creation of a civilian shooting review board with subpoena powers.

The shootings in question include the slayings of two men who robbed tourists then jumped off an overpass to get away from police; the SWAT-team killing of a 72-year-old man described by Matthewman as "an armed drug dealer"; and the wounding of a drunken homeless man carrying a Walkman.

In all cases, prosecutors say weapons were planted near the victims, including two handguns seized in arrests but never booked as evidence in the police property room. The defense contends police reports of armed suspects were correct in each case.

The key prosecution witnesses are two officers who retired and pleaded guilty to conspiracy in exchange for leniency. Defense attorney Harry Solomon said they "cut a deal to save their own souls."

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