Drug warriors burned in sting operation.
It seems the cops in Odessa, Texas, have been burned and burned good. One charge levelled against drug warrior cops is that they will routinely lie in order to secure search warrants. They will concoct anonymous sources, invent fake drug buys, and use other tactics to dishonestly manipulate the system so they can get their personal high by raiding someone’s home.
One local resident of Odessa, Raymond Madden, was upset when police arrested his daughter Yolanda on pot charges. A police informant later admitted he planted the evidence on the girl but she still sits in jail. So this resident hired ex-cop and reformed drug warrior Barry Cooper to prove that the police are skirting the laws.
Cooper wanted to show that the police simply are refusing to do the work for a “legal” drug bust. If cops are told that a drug dealer is operating from a specific location they are supposed to investigate before conducting a raid. We know, from the numerous raids that the police don’t bother. They pull out their guns like some sort of tin-pot Rambo and only try to find out the facts after they have already destroyed someone’s home, and often, after taking the lives of innocent people.
Knowing that the cops don’t care about legality it was relatively easy to set them up. Mr. Cooper and his on-line reality show, Kopbusters, rented a house in Odessa. The house was basically empty save a couple of Christmas trees growing under some grow lights. But the entire house was under constant surveillance by on-line video cameras. Apparently they spread the word the house was used for drug dealing but, and this is important, they did nothing illegal and NO drugs were ever dealt.
If the police had followed the law they would first investigate and only conduct a raid if there were confirming evidence that the information they received was correct. You don’t conduct potentially deadly drug raids without confirming the facts, at least you don’t if you care about killing innocent people and about the law. Any investigation of the house would show no drug activity and thus no raid should follow.
Of course the police raided the house. Once Kopbusters knew the illegal raid was being conducted on an empty house -- confirmed by the video of the event they showed up with the media. The police refused to hand over the search warrant since it would show what they told the judge in order to secure it. What they couldn’t have told the judge was the truth.
Watch the news broadcast above for more information.
Labels: police misconduct, war on drugs
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