Pubdate: Thu, 16 May 2002
Source: Houston Press (TX)
Copyright: 2002 New Times, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.houston-press.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/199
Author:  John Suval

DOOBIEOUS BUST

Undercover Cops Infiltrate A Pro-Pot Event, But Don't Weed Out Much From 
The Crowd

May 4 was more than just another Saturday night at Fitzgerald's. Roughly 
500 people gathered at the gritty rock 'n' roll venue to mark Liberation 
Day, an international event for the decriminalization of marijuana. While 
bands jammed on the upstairs and downstairs stages, drug-reform advocates 
dutifully distributed information on medical marijuana and postcards to 
send to politicians and editorial boards. An occasional whiff of ganja 
sweetened the dark, smoky air.

"It was a liberation fest. It wasn't a crack house," says 26-year-old 
Taunya Poole, a volunteer for the National Organization for the Reform of 
Marijuana Laws. "I've seen more drugs at a rodeo or a Willie Nelson concert."

For the police, the event made an irresistible target. The posters, 
distributed around town by the thousands, had billed the occasion as the 
"Million Marijuana March" and promised "a fat sack of some of Houston's 
finest rock performances." A large marijuana leaf adorned the promotional 
art for good measure. Police spokesman Robert Hurst says that officers were 
well aware of the planned event.

"Officers had developed some information through undercover 
intelligence-gathering that there would be some people inside the club 
during the event that might be selling controlled substances or marijuana," 
he says.

The police designated no fewer than 20 officers to stop the reefer madness.

 From the beginning of the evening, the crowd of mostly twentysomethings 
detected strangers in its midst. It wasn't so much that these individuals 
were older or dressed in a forced-casual style. It was their crazy 
desperation for drugs. Some attendees say the strangers repeatedly badgered 
patrons to sell them pot, coke, ecstasy -- anything, man.

Trent Moss, the bass player for the band Geek, had just left the stage and 
was hanging out on the balcony with friends. The 19-year-old had spent the 
week working construction, thinking of sweet moments like this when he 
could kick back with a beer after another rockin' set. An African-American 
man who appeared to be in his thirties approached him and asked if he had 
any weed. Moss brushed him off with a noncommittal "maybe later."

After that, Moss could not go anywhere without an annoying tap on the 
shoulder and the reminder, got that weed? Moss says the man really wanted 
to buy, but Moss wasn't selling. The young man finally gave him half a bowl 
to just go away.

"I said, 'Dude, if you want some so badly, I'll smoke this with you.' "

Throughout the bar, others had similar encounters. The undercover sniffing 
became an out-and-out raid sometime around 10 p.m., when several squad cars 
and a paddy wagon converged on the bar at Studewood and White Oak. 
Narcotics officers stormed through the crowd, zeroing in on selected 
individuals and slapping handcuffs on them. Officers patted down suspects 
- -- women included -- without reading them their rights or telling them what 
they were being arrested for, says Sara Fitzgerald, who has run the 
Heights-area bar for about 25 years.

"Is this not an overkill?" she thought to herself. "Why are you ruining 
these young people's lives?"

Jennifer Johnson, 26, says she was thrown up against a wall and handcuffed 
to her friend John Holmes before the cop realized he had mistakenly 
detained her and let her go. Holmes would be charged with selling an 
ecstasy tablet.

As the officers worked the room, alarmed patrons urged their friends to get 
rid of their drugs. The police made two more sweeps of the bar that night. 
All told, eight people were arrested and seven charged with drug offenses, 
according to spokesman Hurst. The total booty coaxed from the offenders: 
about one gram of marijuana -- enough perhaps for a few joints -- six 
ecstasy tablets, two Xanax and a dozen tablets of the prescription drug 
Tenormin, a beta-blocker that a 15-year-old girl sold to an undercover cop.

The charges were "very damn minor for such a rampage on a peaceful 
setting," says Dean Becker, one of the event's organizers and vice 
president of the Houston chapter of NORML.

Moss got busted for the delivery of one-third of a gram of marijuana. 
Another quarter-gram was found in his shoe. He was packed into the paddy 
wagon with the others and spent the night in jail. He is charged with a 
class B misdemeanor, which carries a maximum of 180 days in jail and a 
$2,000 fine.

"He's pursuing a career in music, not trying to be a fucking drug dealer," 
says friend and bandmate John E. Corrigan, who believes Moss was entrapped 
by the pesky narc. But spokesman Hurst says undercover officers who suspect 
illegal activities "will do anything they can to see if it's true."

"They're good actors," he says.
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