Story Archive

Milligan’s Mulligan

First of all, Nakiko Sidik Diallo wasn’t speeding. Aurora, Colo., Police Officer Matthew Milligan, who stopped Diallo for speeding, now admits this. Then, according to Diallo’s lawsuit, came the search without probable cause. But the best part came after Milligan discovered a lunch box in Diallo’s trunk. Milligan searched it at 1:33 a.m., finding neither drugs nor paraphernalia. That, the lawsuit says, is shown by his body camera. But then the recording stops. And somehow, miracle of miracles, a few minutes later, when another officer searched it on Milligan’s suggestion, that same lunch box turned out to contain cocaine, a scale, and baggies (with dollar signs on them, no less!) Diallo was arrested and — despite the police department’s refusal to compare the prints on the evidence to Milligan’s when they didn’t match Diallo’s — he was acquitted. But by the time he was found not guilty, he’d spent 17 months in jail. (AC/Denver Post) ...Do police get to make up the facts, or are they bound by them?