Reginald Shareef at Roanoke. They were all freed in trials where the jury believed that the police or prosecution had gone overboard to convict. This process is called jury nullification and it is perfectly legal.
Jury nullification occurs when the reputation of an agency is put on trial.
This certainly happened in the Simpson case. Attorney Johnnie Cochran used the history of LAPD corruption as a counterweight to evidence of guilt. The issue of jury nullification is also a concern for the city of Los Angeles in a current civil suit. This argument sounds specious because police had evacuated its own wounded in the midst of a raging gun battle. Given the current LAPD scandal, its history, and the possibility of jury nullification, the city will likely settle this case out of court.