Defense attorney Leeroy Banner called it a case built on police, porn, and public pressure. But by early this afternoon, the jury had settled on another word: guilty. After less than two hours of deliberation, a nine-member jury unanimously convicted interdicted police officers Corporal Jason Shaw and Police Constable Leslie Martinez of wilful oppression. The officers were accused of recording a couple during an intimate encounter inside an abandoned building on April fifth, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and then sharing that video in a police WhatsApp group known as “Loyal Group.” What may have started as a private moment quickly became a public scandal. The video spread beyond the chat group, went viral, and left the couple humiliated. That recording, and the decision to circulate it, eventually led to the officers’ arrest and criminal charges. The jurors, five women and four men, entered the deliberation room at 11:30 this morning. By 1:27 this afternoon, they returned with a unanimous verdict. All nine agreed that Shaw and Martinez, as public officers, abused their authority when they recorded and shared the video. In the end, the jury found that the officers’ actions were not just inappropriate or embarrassing. They amounted to wilful oppression, causing real injury to the couple whose private moment was exposed to the public.
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