In July, pros­e­cu­tors released a video show­ing Police Officer Richard Pinheiro hid­ing a bag of alleged drugs in a back­yard, walk­ing into an alley, turn­ing his cam­era on and then “dis­cov­er­ing” the ille­gal sub­stances. Pinheiro was sus­pend­ed pend­ing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion, and the two cops with him were placed on admin­is­tra­tive duty. The inci­dent forced the state to drop 68 cas­es and review anoth­er 133.

A few weeks lat­er, a sec­ond video emerged of offi­cers search­ing a man’s car but find­ing noth­ing. The offi­cers then turned their cam­eras on and mirac­u­lous­ly found drugs in the same car. The state post­poned 44 cas­es and are review­ing anoth­er 170 cas­es in which those three offi­cers were involved.

In both cas­es, Police Commissioner Ken Davis said he was inves­ti­gat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the offi­cers legit­i­mate­ly dis­cov­ered the drugs but decid­ed to reen­act the dis­cov­er­ies because …umm … well, he didn’t actu­al­ly explain that part.

Commissioner Davis also did not men­tion how any cit­i­zen is sup­posed to trust the Baltimore Police Department ever again. He also did not com­ment on the thou­sands of peo­ple who might be in jail on trumped-up charges. Also not men­tioned is why the offi­cers thought they need­ed to “re-enact” find­ing evi­dence when they didn’t have video evi­dence for the 260 years before body cameras.

Some spec­u­late that offi­cers are fak­ing videos because they are under pres­sure to ful­fill arrest quo­tas. WJZ in Baltimore reports it found an inter­nal memo that warns offi­cers that they need to “make sta­tis­tics, car stops and pro­duce war­rants.” The memo goes on to say that the depart­ment will col­lect these stats every two hours to make sure offi­cers are performing.

Police spokesman T.J. Smith said of the lat­est alle­ga­tions regard­ing what is now a third video: “This is not an alle­ga­tion of plant­i­ng evi­dence. This is a self-report­ed sit­u­a­tion where the offi­cer felt that it deserved more scruti­ny based on the things that have been in the news. … This is a good prob­lem to have when you are self-reporting.”