Despite body-camera video that appears to show a New York police lieutenant planting drugs on an innocent Black man in 2024 — a case that ended with the dismissal of the man’s charges — the officer faced limited consequences.
A grand jury last year declined to indict New Rochelle Police Lt. Sean Kane in the case involving Ivin Harper, a 47-year-old fitness instructor who operates a nonprofit that feeds people in his community.
The department’s Internal Affairs Division found that Kane had violated departmental policy and demoted him to police officer. Kane later resigned and took a job as a deputy with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
Harper filed a lawsuit last month. He and his attorney, David Fisher, joined Atlanta Black Star for the video interview below, where they discussed what they described as systemic racism and the protections afforded officers accused of fabricating charges against Black people.
“Before the video, it was torture,” Harper said. “I could not sleep, and I was really down. I was scared to death of going to prison.”
Harper said his legal-aid attorney obtained the body-camera footage but did not have time to review it herself. She allowed him to go through the videos, and he said he discovered the footage that led prosecutors to dismiss the charges against him.
It was the last video he watched.
“This thing was so blatant,” Fisher said.
“It was caught on camera, and yet internal affairs refused to do anything about it. The prosecutors refused to do anything about it.”
Watch the video interview below.
Bodycam Video Appears to Show Drugs Being Planted
The incident unfolded on May 29, 2024, after Kane drove to an apartment complex where Harper stood beside his car talking with friends.
“Ivin, come here,” Kane said, prompting Harper to run.
Fisher said Kane lacked probable cause to stop Harper. Harper said he ran because Kane had developed a notorious reputation in the community for targeting Black residents.
“The police officer had no reason to come up to him in the first place and start an investigation,” Fisher said.
“He’s just standing there on the street corner, talking to his friends in his car. He was doing absolutely nothing wrong.”
“People who are affluent or live in nice neighborhoods, or maybe not minorities, never had that experience. They can’t truly understand why somebody would run.”
“But frankly, it’s logical in a lot of circumstances for somebody to not want to get involved with police and run from police.”
Body-camera footage appears to show Kane receiving drugs from bail bondsman Gregory Davis. Kane had a brief phone conversation with Davis before turning off his body camera, according to the footage.
Fisher believes Kane obtained the drugs while the camera was off. When Kane activated the camera again, the video shows him holding a small bag containing a white powdery substance as he drove.
Kane may have turned the camera back on without realizing it would capture a 30-second video buffer without audio.
The footage then shows Kane stopping at a car in the apartment complex and reaching beneath the front tire well, appearing to retrieve the drugs.
“It’s going to be one for felony drugs,” Kane tells a dispatcher after returning to his car, claiming Harper placed the drugs there while running away.
Grand Jury Declines to Indict Officer
Police impounded Harper’s car but did not arrest him until July 10, 2024. Prosecutors dismissed the charges on Aug. 23, 2024.
Harper said the arrest harmed his work as a celebrity fitness trainer and actor, as well as his standing in the community.
“I did all this work, turned into a celebrity fitness trainer, turned into an actor, turned into a better human, turned into everything that I wanted to become, and I was striving to go even further,” he said.
“I was on an upward trajectory, and then something like that happens, so now the picture of me in my community is not the same picture of me anymore.”
“Now I’m not the actor, now I’m not the celebrity fitness trainer. Now I’m that a__hole that f_cked his life up,” Harper explained.
“But I knew I had to stay strong and keep going through everything I was doing.”
Fisher said Harper could have faced roughly a decade in prison if convicted. Kane could have faced a similar sentence if prosecutors had charged and convicted him of planting drugs, Fisher said.
“Grand jury proceedings are secret unfortunately and we don’t have a transcript of it,” Fisher said.
“But I have a sneaking suspicion they never put that bodycam video into the evidence because I don’t know how a jury could look at that video and say this officer did not commit a crime.”
“They either didn’t introduce it or gave some ridiculous instructions to the grand jurors, possibly because who knows what this would unearth?” Fisher asked.
“Because they know Officer Kane had done this many other times. And last thing they want to do is unearth a dozen or more convictions that need to be overturned because of similar conduct.”
