Mr Lubinda said, вЂњBut President Lungu is saying, please, I know it is me that you are going after, please come to me if there is anything that you suspect that I stole. He allegedly said he was aware that the harassment of his close associates and former ministers was just a ruse as he was the one they wanted. PF vice president, Given Lubinda who has been speaking with President Lungu said the Head of State challenged the new government to go after him if they think he stole rather than persecute innocent people. That police official told investigators the idea was to give people monitoring police radio transmissions the impression that вЂњwe had more officers out there doing regular stuffвЂќ at a time when the department was overwhelmed by protest activity.FORMER President Edgar Lungu is dismayed by the arrests and harassment of his close associates including the raid on the Esther Lungu Foundation Trust, an organisation run by his wife. OPA contacted the departmentвЂ™s operations center and intelligence unit and learned there had been a miscommunication effort approved, ordered and led by a captain who later became an assistant chief and then left the department.

OPA couldnвЂ™t locate any relevant video and launched an investigation. There was no investigation into the hoax until late 2020, when Converge Media journalist Omari Salisbury asked OPA for body camera video from the officers who had supposedly tailed the Proud Boys group. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in late May had sparked large-scale protests in Seattle, with the police barricading streets around the East Precinct and deploying tear gas. The Proud Boys ruse was deployed at an extremely tense moment. The officers used poor judgment, but their supervisors were mostly to blame for failing to provide adequate supervision, Myerberg determined. Myerberg didnвЂ™t sustain allegations of policy violations against four officers identified as having taken part in the chatter. The two employees who ordered and supervised the misinformation effort and who Myerberg sustained allegations of policy violations against have left the department, according to the case summary. It appears unlikely, however, that anyone will face punitive actions. Fabricating the group of Proud Boys violated department policies, Myerberg determined. The June 8 radio chatter was part of an approved вЂњmisinformation effortвЂќ that police leaders knew about, according to WednesdayвЂ™s closed-case summary by Myerberg, which is now under review by police department leaders for disciplinary rulings.

Though some people in the zone may have brought guns regardless of the chatter, the ruse вЂњimproperly added fuel to the fire,вЂќ Office of Police Accountability Director Andrew Myerberg concluded. Social media posts warning about the Proud Boys group by people monitoring police radio transmissions caused alarm in the protest zone. вЂ¦ They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation.вЂќ The officers who participated described a group gathering by City Hall and delivered reports such as, вЂњIt looks like a few of them might be open carrying,вЂќ and: вЂњHearing from the Proud Boys group. The ruse happened June 8, 2020, hours after the police department abandoned its East Precinct and as protesters were starting to set up the temporary zone that was later called the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP.

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