Fighting possible removal from Quebec court Montreal - Two weeks before Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Girouard was named to the bench in 2010, a security camera recorded him buying illicit drugs in the back office of a video store, the Canadian Judicial Council alleges in a document made public Tuesday. The information is contained in a 21-page summary of allegations against Judge Girouard, who could be removed from the bench after being caught up in a major Surete du Quebec drug sting, Operation Crayfish. [continues 549 words]
Using undercover agents, the DEA spent four years trying to bring down a cocaine trafficking gang in west Africa. Was the operation a triumph in the global war on drugs or a case of American overreach? By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee On a sultry May afternoon in 2009, a car stopped at the end of a dirt road in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Guards toting Kalashnikov rifles opened the gate to a large house, and the vehicle rolled into the driveway, setting off a chorus of barking by a group of mastiffs caged inside the compound. [continues 5153 words]
How DEA Agent's Slaying Led to Legalization of Extraordinary Rendition BOGOTA, Colombia - Of all the cases of troubling corruption and stunning violence that have characterized the war on drugs in Latin America, few linger as powerfully among U.S. drug agents as the case of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who vanished on a busy street in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1985 while walking to meet his wife for lunch. His body was found nearly a month later. His skull, jaw, nose, cheekbones and windpipe were crushed. His ribs were broken. His head had been drilled with a screwdriver. [continues 1068 words]
Files under review after allegations against Abbotsford officers over search warrants Federal prosecutors are reviewing a number of Abbotsford drug cases after an investigation uncovered 148 allegations of misconduct by 17 officers in the Fraser Valley department. Most of the allegations relate to the documents officers took to court to obtain search warrants in drug investigations. The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner on Wednesday revealed some details of the investigation. "The allegations are serious in nature and primarily relate to issues with the integrity of statements that were provided by police officers to judicial officers pursuant to the authorization process for search warrants," Commissioner Stanley Lowe said. [continues 1117 words]
These are very serious allegations VANCOUVER * Seventeen police officers with the force in Abbotsford, B.C., are under investigation for corruption, deceit and neglect of duty, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner announced Wednesday =2E The Office says the 148 allegations relate to statements the officers provided before search warrants were issued. An officer in Vancouver is also being investigated on separate but related concerns, Rollie Woods, deputy police complaint commissioner, said Wednesday. He said the office is concerned that people may have been falsely prosecuted if officers gave misleading or inaccurate information to obtain search warrants. [continues 315 words]
B.C.'s police complaint commissioner has reviewed hundreds of Abbotsford police search warrants and found problems that could put at least 43 cases in jeopardy. The investigation into the alleged misconduct of 17 Abbotsford officers, which has led federal prosecutors to launch a review of relevant cases, and defence lawyers to question if their clients were unfairly convicted, dates as far back as 2008 and could stretch further. Rollie Woods, the deputy police complaint commissioner, said Thursday that hundreds of search warrants have been scrutinized. He could not provide an exact figure, but said it was more than 500. [continues 731 words]
Probe of 17 Abbotsford Officers Targets Use of Informants That Police Complaint Commissioner Fears May Have Led to Unfair Prosecutions Seventeen police officers in the British Columbia city of Abbotsford - - once known as the "murder capital of Canada" for its gang wars - are being investigated for misconduct, with their chief pointing at how the officers handled informants. The allegations against 8 per cent of the Abbotsford force are being investigated by British Columbia's Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. The commissioner, in a surprise statement Wednesday, said he is concerned the force's conduct may have led to unfair prosecutions and put cases at risk. [continues 707 words]
Two Women Wrongfully Arrested in Drug Operation Say Cops Deliberately Used an Unreliable Informant. Trinidad police arrested 40 people in a 2013 "drug sting" after two detectives botched their investigation and intentionally used wrong or misleading information from an unreliable confidential informant, according to a lawsuit the ACLU of Colorado filed Thursday. None of the 40 people arrested were convicted of drug-related offenses, and the informant later was convicted of perjury. Now, two of the people who were falsely arrested- and ultimately fired because of false allegations they were selling drugs - are suing and seeking damages from the city of Trinidad, less than 15 miles from the New Mexico state line, and the detectives who handled the case. The scathing, 41- page complaint, filed in U. S. District Court in Denver, names Detectives Phil Martin and Arsenio Vigil. [continues 748 words]
One gang member after another survives a shooting in Ottawa. But make no mistake, says defence lawyer Joseph Addelman, "they are trying to kill each other." And how does he know? "I represent them all. I know who these guys are. I can't sit here and say names, but I know." As Ottawa grows and the addiction to crack cocaine spreads, he says, the drug trade is growing more lucrative. "It is such a scourge, such an addictive substance, that it has taken hold in so many of our neighbourhoods (and) the stakes have gone up," he said. "When the stakes go up, the money stakes, so, too, do the violence stakes." [continues 278 words]
The Ruling Limits the Ability to Seize Family Members' Homes That Were Used by Drug Dealers. In a potentially precedent-setting decision, a Pennsylvania appellate court has restricted the circumstances under which prosecutors can seize homes used by convicted drug dealers. The 5-2 majority opinion by Commonwealth Court applies to homeowners who can show they had little or no involvement in the illegal activity. The ruling in the case involving a 69-year-old West Philadelphia widow, and the settlement of two seizure cases in a federal lawsuit Dec. 20, constitute twin setbacks for the city's civil forfeiture program. [continues 464 words]
False Witness Ronnie Coogle said he didn't mind snitching for the Tampa Police Department, even when it meant lying and faking drug deals. But his life changed forever when one of his targets wound up dead. The scene beaming from the bedroom television wasn't special, another drug bust in a decaying north Tampa neighborhood. Ronnie 'Bodie' Coogle squinted at the screen. He recognized that street, lit by ghostly pulses of red and blue. 'Bodie,' his wife said, lying beside him. 'You see this?' Coogle turned up the volume as the 11 o'clock news cut to cops in black ballistic vests, standing amid the inky silhouettes of sabal palms. After a minute he sat up and grabbed his cellphone. [continues 4657 words]
S.F. Officers Convicted of Stealing From Drug Dealers A San Francisco police corruption scandal, triggered by surveillance videos that appeared to show officers as thieves, registered its first verdicts Friday when a federal court jury found two veteran officers guilty of stealing property and thousands of dollars in cash from drug-dealer suspects to enrich themselves and defraud the city. The jury took 31/2 days of deliberations to unanimously find Officer Edmond Robles guilty of five felony charges and Sgt. Ian Furminger guilty of four. Jurors acquitted them of four charges, including conspiracy to deprive the public of their honest services, and deadlocked on a theft charge against Furminger. [continues 781 words]
Runaway Crime Has Been Replaced by Rogue Executive Power Whether your metric is the use of the executive branch's awesome investigative and prosecutorial powers to punish the administration critics, the stonewalling and misleading of congressional investigations, or the racially discriminatory enforcement of civil rights laws in violation of the Constitution's equalprotection principles, the Obama Justice Department is the most politicized in the nation's history. But the conversion of the rule of law from a foundation of ordered liberty to a political weapon may have at least one silver lining. Growing public alarm over the abuse of executive power spotlights some wayward prosecutorial practices that have been building for decades. Among them is civil forfeiture. It has devolved from a useful tool for defunding major criminal enterprises to a dangerous gutting of due process for ordinary Americans. [continues 707 words]
Officials Defend Practice, 'Stops Criminal Activity' The amount of money the Albuquerque Police Department receives annually from federal forfeiture proceedings has doubled in the last five years, exceeding more than $1 million in the 2014 fiscal year, according to police records. That money is in addition to what the city receives from seizing and sometimes selling vehicles used in repeat DWI cases. Overall, Albuquerque received about $11 million from 2010 through 2014 fiscal years from property seized by law enforcement, according to the records. [continues 872 words]
After securing a guilty plea and an agreement to cooperate from one San Francisco police officer, federal prosecutors have added theft and corruption charges against two veteran officers accused of taking money and drugs from suspects. The timing of the new federal grand jury indictment against Sgt. Ian Furminger and Officer Edmond Robles suggests the additional charges resulted from statements by former Officer Reynaldo Vargas. Vargas was charged in the original indictment in February, along with Furminger and Robles, but pleaded guilty to four felonies on Oct. 21 and agreed to testify against his former colleagues. [continues 371 words]
Racial Disparities Still Exist in Enforcement Not even the threat of legal penalty has kept marijuana users from making it the most commonly used recreational drug after alcohol and tobacco. But in black America, marijuana's harsh penalty is evergreen: It is a consistent gateway into jails that lock away mostly young black folk, including those who don't have prior arrest records. Society colors our perception of the people who use marijuana. White marijuana users are often perceived as good people who made a mistake; black marijuana users bear the stigma of "criminals" or "thugs." The gap in perception has real consequences, as seen in the inequitable arrests and unjust sentencing across racial lines. Every day, the danger of this disparity floods our legal system, and nothing short of legalization of marijuana use will stem the tide. Fifty-eight percent of Americans already support this policy, and it is time we affirmed their wisdom. [continues 559 words]
Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles. The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department's Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request. [continues 2766 words]
Hundreds of Pounds of the Drug, Jewelry and $800,000were Seized From Firms With Colombian Ties. Federal agents seized hundreds of pounds of marijuana, 161 pieces of jewelry and $800,000- including nearly $450,000 stashed in the trunk of a car-from Colorado pot businesses with Colombian ties, according to records obtained Wednesday by The Denver Post. The forfeiture document, in which federal authorities formally seek to confiscate the items, offers the most detailed account yet of the allegations stemming from Denver-area raids executed in November. They were the largest-ever federal raids on the Colorado marijuana industry. [continues 928 words]
The tragic heroin overdose death of a student at UMass Amherst raised grave doubts about the risks of a policy that allowed campus police to recruit students as confidential informants. University administrators are right to suspend the program while a comprehensive review is completed. A Globe investigation revealed that UMass Amherst police officers caught the student, identified only as Logan, selling drugs on campus and recruited him to work as an undercover informant instead of suspending him from school. They did not pursue any criminal charges, nor did they notify the student's parents of his drug offenses. [continues 286 words]
UMass Amherst will review a campus police program that uses students as confidential drug informants, following a report on an informant's fatal heroin overdose. I was so incensed after reading the front-page story Sunday about the UMass Amherst police using students caught with drugs as so-called informers ("Hooked. Terrified. Trapped," Page A1, Sept. 28). This particular young man died. My heart breaks for his young life and for his family. This should not have happened, and I hope his family pursues this case on behalf of their son. [continues 185 words]
Re "Hooked. Terrified. Trapped.": It doesn't sound as if UMass Amherst is taking this student's heroin overdose seriously. There should be signs all over the place about what happened to him. Wherever there are young people, there is access to all drugs. That's the deal everywhere and anywhere; make no mistake about it. The campus police should not be using these young people as informants. I really sympathize with what the police have to do, but these kids are too young to be caught up in it, as we clearly see in the case of the student in this story. He thought he was getting away with it, but he sounded a few days later as if he knew he really was not. [continues 65 words]
The University of Massachusetts Amherst will suspend the use of confidential informants pending a full review of its program. The University of Massachusetts Amherst said Tuesday that it will suspend the use of confidential informants pending a full review of the program after a disclosure that a student informant for campus police died of a heroin overdose. Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said he ordered the program's suspension along with a more comprehensive review than was previously planned. In a campuswide e-mail to students on Tuesday, Subbaswamy indicated that the program could be terminated, after the review. [continues 166 words]
The University of Massachusetts Amherst defended its use of students as confidential informants. AMHERST - The University of Massachusetts Amherst announced Monday that it will review aspects of a campus Police Department program that uses students as confidential drug informants, after a disclosure that an informant for the university police died of a heroin overdose. The university defended the program, but said it will review whether to require informants in drug cases to get help for possible addictions and whether to notify parents when a student is recruited into the program. [continues 116 words]
To the editor: Thanks for the article (Sept. 8) on our district attorney's attitude towards marijuana crimes. His acknowledgement that the black market (prohibition) creates potential danger for marijuana sellers is spot on, but his assertion that sellers are targeted by law enforcement for their own protection seems a bit off the mark - unless those his office has sent to prison are thanking Charles Branson for keeping them safe. Unlikely. Maybe one contributing factor to the potential danger for sellers is how armed home invaders fare in court - sometimes getting plea agreements resulting in probation. In one high-profile case, the defendant received probation, a waiver from the requirement to register as a violent offender, and a record that omitted the fact that a gun was used in the commission of the crime. That sends a stern message to would-be armed robbers! [continues 154 words]
Marc and Jodie Emery on life in jail, their role in the legalization movement and the plan to seek 'political revenge' Marc Emery's two decades of marijuana activism and entrepreneurship have earned him the nickname "The Prince of Pot" and 23 trips to jail. The most recent, a 4 1/2-year stint in U.S. federal custody for his mail-order pot seed business, is now at an end. Awaiting deportation back to Canada, he spoke to Maclean's about his plans for the future from inside a Louisiana detention centre. His wife and fellow activist, Jodie Emery, joined in from their Vancouver home. [continues 1548 words]
Elk River may add a new weapon to the local war on drugs. Funding for a new drug task force detective is in the city's preliminary budget for 2015. Council members heard more about the position during a budget work session Monday and expressed some support for it. But a final decision won't be made until the budget is finalized later this year. Under the plan, the Elk River Police Department would assign an existing officer to the Sherburne County Drug Task Force as a detective, and hire a new entry-level officer to fill that vacated position. Total cost is estimated at $67,000 to $77,000. [continues 413 words]
Livingston County Sees 22 Percent Drop in Patients Over Two-Year Period While Colorado is smoking pot -- medical and recreational -- by the ton, according to a recent report, the number of medical marijuana patients in Livingston County has decreased. Proponents of medical marijuana say this is due to intimidation by law enforcement. "Individual communities within each county are permissive or restrictive based on their own beliefs," said Rick Thompson, editor and blogger for The Compassion Chronicles. "Howell is not pleasant toward medical marijuana patients, but Livingston County rural areas are not quite as difficult." [continues 803 words]
Throw away almost every preconceived notion about marijuana. In the past month... * Rock Island aldermen unanimously welcomed a $135,000 investment from a Chicago-based firm eager to win our region's medical marijuana growing rights. * A former chief of the Illinois State Police under Republican former Gov. Jim Edgar signed on as chief of security for this marijuana cultivation company. * The White House declared marijuana a state's rights issue, an endorsement that portends a dramatic shift in federal enforcement. [continues 394 words]
91% of Those Locked Up Were Racial or Ethnic Minorities The nation's top gun-enforcement agency overwhelmingly targeted racial and ethnic minorities as it expanded its use of controversial drug sting operations, a USA TODAY investigation shows. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has more than quadrupled its use of those stings during the past decade, quietly making them a central part of its attempts to combat gun crime. The operations are designed to produce long prison sentences for suspects enticed by the promise of pocketing as much as $100,000 for robbing a drug stash house that does not actually exist. [continues 833 words]
At 79, Longtime S.F. Attorney Going Strong As He Prepares to Defend Alleged Mobster Raymond 'Shrimp Boy' Chow On Thursday morning, Tony Serra will put on his best $10 suit and loose secondhand shoes to begin what could be his last big courtroom battle - the defense of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, presumed leader of a Chinatown money laundering ring and a central figure in an indictment that has also targeted state Sen. Leland Yee. The hearing, in federal court before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, will involve 29 defendants. Among their lawyers, Serra will be easy to spot - shaggy side hair, broken teeth, loud tie, but still at his fighting weight of 195 pounds and arguing for his client at every turn. [continues 2318 words]
Man Claims He Was Paid in Drugs for Brokering Deals in Las Vegas, NM A one-time target of a federal narcotics investigation claims U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and informants "reignited" his crack cocaine addiction to help their undercover investigation into drug dealing in Las Vegas, N.M., during an operation called "Smack City." Aaron Romero claims in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that he was a longtime crack cocaine addict who was so poor he had finally stopped doing drugs for months until an informant working for the DEA approached him to broker drug deals in exchange for a portion of the drugs the informant purchased. [continues 534 words]
TAMPA - Before the sirens and stretcher arrived on a hot night in May, there had been only one call to police about 906 W Knollwood St. It came from the house's renter, Jason Westcott, and he was looking for help. A man who had partied at Westcott's home was plotting to rob him. An itinerant motorcycle mechanic, Westcott didn't have much - two televisions and a handgun that once belonged to his brother were perhaps the most valuable possessions in his 600-square-foot house in Seminole Heights - but he was terrified by his would-be intruder's threats to kill him. [continues 2645 words]
CORNELIA, Ga. -- A toddler caught in the middle of a drug raid was seriously injured Wednesday when a police flash grenade exploded in his playpen. The raid in which the 19-month-old child, who is recovering at Grady Hospital's burn unit in Atlanta, was injured was at a house in Habersham County. Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell, who described the device in various ways - a "stun grenade" and "flash grenade" and "flash bang" - said there was no indication that a family with four children were guests in the suspected drug dealer's house when his team went in and threw that flash grenade to try to arrest the suspect. [continues 377 words]
Probe gives rare look at how group operated - and how it terrorized Dixon neighbourhood Anthony Smith is lying on the pavement, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head. It's the early morning of March 28, 2013, and Smith, nicknamed Bucks, has been murdered during a brawl outside Loki Lounge, a busy King St. W. nightclub. He has been gunned down by a young man from a rival group, an act of violence powered by a toxic mix of rage, neighbourhood warfare, cough syrup and alcohol. [continues 2775 words]
This is the fourth article in a series that's focusing on heroin and related drugs' growth, prevention, treatment, distribution, law enforcement and policy in Athens County and southeast Ohio. For law enforcement, the battle against heroin is a battle against supply. Even illicit drugs follow the economic law of supply and demand. So while law enforcement in Athens County supports efforts to combat addiction and decrease the heroin customer base, the main task at hand is to cut off supply by going after heroin dealers. [continues 1045 words]
MOBILE, ALA. - "That situation didn't define who I was," Clarence Aaron, 45, told a group gathered for a weekend celebration at the Mobile high school he attended more than two decades ago. When at age 24 he found himself in federal prison in 1993 - after he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense - he felt what he called the "stigma." But the former LeFlore High varsity football star refused to give in to the bitterness of receiving a life sentence while career drug dealers received decades' less time. He had a plan: Follow the rules. Work hard. Even in maximum security, "be the best person I can be." [continues 1012 words]
District Attorney's Funding Grants to Prosecutors' Group at Issue The U.S. Department of Justice will withhold as much as $30,000 in grants to San Diego County because of a disagreement over spending of money and assets seized in criminal cases. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has granted tens of thousands of dollars from forfeited assets to the California District Attorneys Association, a professional group. The subject of the dispute is $29,400 of federal funds that went for an office lease for the prosecutors group. Dumanis is active in the statewide education and advocacy organization and has served as its president and vice president. [continues 706 words]
At about 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 5, Vermont State Police Trooper Kevin Hughes and patrol commander Sgt. Michael Studin pulled over a Chrysler 300 and a red Honda Accord traveling together on Interstate 91 in Springfield. Studin's affidavit says the Chrysler's windshield was cracked and one of the Honda's taillights was cracked. The police found one of those minor violations only after the Chrysler's driver gave permission to search the car. Hidden inside a spare tire in the Chrysler's trunk were 740 one-dose bags of heroin, Studin said. [continues 2379 words]
The Durham boom has been something to behold, from the American Tobacco Campus to the ever-expanding reputation of Duke University in the City of Medicine to the Durham Performing Arts Center, drawing big shows and big performers and big audiences from all over. So why can't a city with so much going for it get the police department right? Here we go again. Now a coalition examining drug law enforcement and punishment has offered documents it says support its contention that there is racial profiling in the Durham Police Department's drug enforcement unit. In the cases examined by the coalition, called Foster Alternative Drug Enforcement or FADE, all suspects were black or Hispanic. [continues 401 words]
Why are so many drug prosecutions in Manitoba falling apart? They were touted as major victories in the province's war on drugs, with more than 100 kilograms of cocaine being seized by police during four separate investigations. Tirath Bal, Gurdarshan Hansra, Kuljinder Dhillon, Alejandro Chung and Andy Koczab all faced the prospect of double-digit stays behind bars if convicted for their alleged roles in bringing an estimated $10 million worth of cocaine into Manitoba. But all five men are free today after the cases against them collapsed, the result of several different factors that have many in the justice system wondering what message is really being sent. [continues 1323 words]
In September 2012, the then-captain of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office's Vice and Narcotics Unit predicted that efforts to curb prescription drug use could be a "double-edged sword" causing users to seek out heroin instead. Now, 18 months later, that prognosis looks spot-on as the streets of Wilmington and highways of Brunswick County are awash with heroin, a drug Ben and Jon David, the district attorneys for New Hanover and Brunswick counties, respectively, both call "suicide on the installment plan." [continues 2327 words]
DURHAM -- A coalition presented evidence Wednesday that it says shows Durham police paid informants extra money for convictions in criminal cases without telling defense attorneys or the district attorney's office. The FADE (Fostering Alternative Drug Enforcement) coalition says the documents support its claims of racial profiling by the Durham Police Department's drug enforcement officers; all the suspects in the cases were black or Hispanic. Ian Mance, an attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said the documents indicating $300 paid to informants as a "bonus" for convictions and/or testimony show the department participated in unconstitutional conduct. [continues 526 words]
Who Stands to Benefit From Outing Informants in a Dirty Cop Case? Daisy Bram and Jayme Walsh were in trouble. So the streetwise couple did what most would do: They went to the police for help. Now, they're in worse trouble. Bram and Walsh - alleged former heroin users and, now, former heroes of the medical marijuana movement - were outed as former San Francisco Police Department confidential informants on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle. They were enlisted by Mission Station officers to provide details about the street to police in exchange for leniency on their own drug troubles - and then became key witnesses against the same police in the biggest scandal to hit the SFPD in recent memory. [continues 788 words]
Grand Jury Alleges Theft of Property From Occupants in Residential Hotel Five veteran San Francisco police officers and a former officer faced federal corruption charges Thursday after a threeyear investigation that began when the city's public defender released surveillance videos purporting to show officers abusing and stealing from residential hotel dwellers. The grand jury indictments allege that after the FBI and San Francisco police launched a probe in March 2011, they learned three of the officers had stolen a batch of seized marijuana two years earlier. One of those officers, Reynaldo Vargas, delivered the pot to a couple of street informants, told them to sell it and then took a split of the proceeds, federal prosecutors said. [continues 972 words]
FBI Built Case After Couple Said S.F. Narcotics Officers Enlisted Them to Sell Pot It was an incredible claim at the time. A recovering heroin addict - caught trying to sell more than a pound of marijuana in Golden Gate Park - accused San Francisco narcotics officers of enlisting her to sell drugs they had seized as evidence. No one believed Daisy Bram's claims back in 2010. But they are now at the heart of a federal indictment of two current officers and a former officer on charges including drug conspiracy, theft from a government program and civil rights violations. [continues 1364 words]
Measures Would Tighten Law Named For Woman Killed In Mission Gone Awry TALLAHASSEE -Nearly seven years after a young Pinellas County woman was killed while acting as a police informant, lawmakers will decide whether to strengthen the state law named after her. Among possible changes is one sure to generate debate: Subjecting law enforcement officers to a felony charge if they don't follow 'Rachel's Law.' The law, in honor of Countryside High School graduate Rachel Hoffman, was passed in 2009 to protect those known as confidential informants, or C.I.s for short. [continues 781 words]
Cato Wishes He'd Looked Closer at Suspicions That Officers Lied in Pot Case The Dallas Police Department's second-in-command has acknowledged he mishandled a case in which two officers were accused of lying about the circumstances of a major drug bust. First Assistant Chief Charlie Cato said last week that he should have more thoroughly looked into allegations that Officers Jon Llewellyn and Randolph Dillon concocted their account of what led them to a marijuana grow house in South Dallas. [continues 1180 words]
Students fascinated by final RCMP Youth Squad presentation Some of them stared intently at the officer, while some were feverishly taking notes as he spoke. And the rest? They had worried looks on their faces as Chris Piper, an undercover officer from the Richmond Drug Target Team, revealed the reach illegal substances has across the city. It was an eye-opener for many in the 45-strong RCMP Youth Squad program - an eight-week program for invited Grade 10-12 students who've shown a special interest in the emergency services. [continues 513 words]
Drug users testifying in a murder case in Franklin County, Pa., two weeks ago called them snitches and rats. The witnesses had nothing nice to say about confidential informants - "snitches get stitches" was one of the gentler comments. Yet, many of them either had provided police with tips themselves or assumed their close friends had done so. The four-day court hearing dealt with the 2010 fatal stabbing of Kristy Dawn Hoke by Jeffrey Eldon Miles Sr. A judge sentenced Miles to life in prison for first-degree murder. [continues 780 words]
Crime Officers Ask to Come in and Count on Suspects Not Just Saying No Police say Shelton Green and Crashunda Wrenn had plenty to hide. Specifically: 82 credit cards, 55 driver's licenses and ID cards, 39 Social Security cards, 16 personal checks, six Medicare cards and three passports, according to an affidavit. After officers received a tip about the South Dallas house where the items were stashed, all they had to do was knock on the door and ask nicely to go inside, police say. [continues 892 words]
