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Dirty blue
Joel Miller | World Net Daily | Posted: June 15, 2004

Residents of Middletown, R.I., were perhaps a little alarmed over the weekend when they found out officials arrested a decade-long veteran of the local police for stealing marijuana from the evidence locker.

No doubt the same goes for residents of Washington County, Ore., when it turned out a sheriff's deputy – a member of the countywide drug team – filched crank taken as evidence in a case.

"In early April, [William] James and his partner confiscated methamphetamine from an undercover buy. The partner thought James had logged the drug as evidence, but James kept a small amount for personal use," reported the June 10 Portland Oregonian. "Another time, James smoked meth after seizing it in a search. He also arranged two personal drug buys through an informant."

Cops are charged with the impossible: effectively enforcing the myriad laws that constitute America's war on drugs. As I explain in my new book, "Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America," not only is prohibition a losing proposition, but it has the singular ability to suck its enforcers into a mire of corruption that twists them into the very thing they are charged with fighting.

The specimens above are hardly alone. These lawmen are just two clippings from last week's news; this stuff – and far worse – goes on every day in most every city, in every state in America, threatening the very legitimacy of the law. I dedicate an entire chapter to the problem of drug corruption in "Bad Trip." I could have written a whole book.

Deputy Teddy Willis, for instance, missed his 2003 retirement ceremony from the Caswell County, N.C., sheriff's department. Just hours before the shindig, Willis was arrested for allegedly buying 15 pounds of pot in a nearby county.

Five deputies in the Sarasota County, Fla., sheriff's department – part of an elite drug-fighting group called the Delta Task Force – framed Sarah Louise Smith by planting drugs in her home. They then lied to jurors, which resulted in her 1997 conviction and loss of custody of her baby daughter for a year and a half. Eventually, the truth came out and Smith settled with the sheriff's office for $275,000, but it turned out that the team had been doing much the same to others from 1995 to 1999 – according to prosecutors, they planted drugs, stole money from suspects and lied to cover it all up.

In March 2002, a pair of narcotics detectives in Jefferson County, Ky., were slapped with a 472-count indictment that included charges of tampering with drug evidence, stealing money from informants, burglary and forging judges' signatures on warrants. The amazing total of alleged offenses came from just 24 of the pair's cases. When the dust settled in February 2003, the worst of the two agreed to fink on his partner for a mitigated sentence. Mark Watson pled guilty to 299 felony counts in exchange for testifying against Christie Richardson, who was found guilty of 20 felonies and a misdemeanor.

One officer nicknamed "the Abuser" not only ripped off dealers on the streets, according to New York's Mollen Commission, he also concocted a protection racket in which the dealers would pay him to look out for their interests. If they failed to fork over the loot, he just robbed them. In one instance, while in uniform, he gunned a dealer, pinched his drugs and enlisted the help of fellow officers to cover up for the deed.

The problem of police corruption is pernicious and pervasive – and it all goes back to drug prohibition.

"The illicit drug market is probably the most lucrative source of police corruption that has ever existed in the United States," explain economists David W. Rasmussen and Bruce L. Benson in their book, "The Economic Anatomy of a Drug War."

Being close to the trade, the vast sums of money and having easy access to all manner of drugs is simply too much for many in law enforcement. They can shelter criminals from arrest and prosecution; shake down dealers for money; confiscate and then sell drugs; help one group of dealers by arresting members of rival drug gangs. Once coaxed into the very world of crime they are charged with opposing, they can do all these things, and much, much more.

As the result of a 1998 FBI sting in Cleveland, some 51 officers were busted on charges of protecting coke dealers moving large amounts of the drug.

L.A. Sheriff Sherman Block led an investigation from 1988 to 1994 that nailed 26 deputies on narc duty for stealing drug money.

In July 2002, four North Carolina officers were sentenced to prison on federal drug-trafficking charges – three of them worked vice for the Davidson County sheriff's office. One officer, David Scott Woodall, sold steroids and cocaine, planned on doing the same with pot and ecstasy, and stole a $160,000 in cash from codefendant Wyatt Kepley, one of two civilian accomplices in the case. Another officer, Douglas Westmorland, helped Woodall filch the money from Kepley, helped fabricate a search warrant for his house, supplied a fellow officer with pot, and stole more than four pounds of coke and some 60 pounds of grass from the evidence room.

Similarly, Darnyl Parker and three other Buffalo, N.Y., narcotics detectives were indicted in 2002 for stealing $36,000 from an undercover FBI agent who they thought was a drug dealer. Parker and another two were convicted. Another Buffalo detective, Rene Gil, admitted to dealing coke while working a year-and-a-half stint on the narc squad. According to the Buffalo News, by his confession, "he shook down drug dealers and split the proceeds with fellow detectives."

These cases are by no means isolated.

According to a 1998 General Accounting Office report, "several studies and investigations of drug-related police corruption found on-duty police officers engaged in serious criminal activities such as (1) conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures; (2) stealing money and/or drugs from drug dealers; (3) selling stolen drugs; (4) protecting drug operations; (5) providing false testimony; and (6) submitting false crime reports."

And remember, these numbers only reflect the guys that get busted. Cops often get away with it. The district attorney in the James case specifically said, "Had he not confessed his crimes, he probably never would have been found out."

Cops rarely rat on each other. There's often shame associated with turning informant. And worse, finks are sometimes rewarded with severe punishment from fellow officers. Just think Frank Serpico. Said one police chief who spent five years working internal affairs in Washington, D.C., "I never encountered an officer willing to talk about the conduct of another officer, even if he was videotaped committing a crime."

Corruption is and will always be a problem. Police are no more angels than the rest of us. But for reasons I detail in "Bad Trip," the drug war exacerbates and inflames the problem of corruption, turning public servants to scoundrels and enemies of their own communities.

Says Hoover Institution scholar and former San Jose, Calif., Police Chief Joseph McNamara, "[T]hanks to the climate created by our drug laws, we have ... small gangs of cops who are the gangsters. They've committed murders, kidnapping and armed robberies – sometimes for, and sometimes against, drug dealers."

Mixing money, power, drugs and the ability to operate above and behind the law is the worst of possible worlds. But that's precisely what the war on drugs has done, and it'll only get worse until we rethink the role we want the police to play in dealing with America's drug problem.


Joel Miller is senior editor of WND Books and author of "Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America." His own company, Oakdown, recently published "Drinking With Calvin and Luther! A History of Alcohol in the Church."

[zombienote: From coast to coast police have been or are involved in rather high profile cases of massive corruption stemming from the "war on druuuuugs". The Iron Law of Prohibition accomodates the phenomena of coercing police to engage in corruption.

The more prohibition is enforced, the more money traffickers make, and the more money to be made, the more only ruthless and advanced criminal elements are involved. These criminal elements are adept at bribery, for example. But police are also underpaid usually and the thought of making extra money, becomes what is called an "attractive nuicance". It invites people to do things they might not otherwise do, but on an industrial scale.

See: Wormscan Classic and Wormscan Current Files. Note that the current wormscan is HUGE - 3.4 megs of facts compiled about police corruption in the war on drugs.]

__________________
Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

 

Hiz Highness

The War on Drugs seems to offer a lot of temptations to law enforcement. I imagine any of us who busted a drug dealer and found him carrying drugs along with $10,000 in cash might be tempted to turn him in with the drugs and say . . . $6000 in cash. You and your partner could both go home $2000 richer, no one gets hurt, and you have the comfort of knowing you took a "bad man" off the street.

I have a co-worker who once told me he thought about becoming a cop. I was surprised, since this guy and I seem to agree on a lot of things. I asked him why he'd want to be a cop and he explained to me that he could make a lot of money by shaking down street level dealers after they do a day or two worth of selling. Apparently as he was growing up (in a pretty rough neighborhood) he'd seen this happen a few times.

-HH

GrooveGuardian

Prohibition creates the crime we wish to destroy

Niteshift

A relative handful of examples, compared to the approx. 850,000 cops in the US. It is hardly convincing.

Particularly when you have to go back to events that happened a decade or more ago to fill up those examples. The Mollen Commission was in 1992, over 10 years ago, investigating things that happened mostly in the 1980's.

The Task Force Delta thing was in the early and mid 1980's as well.

The premise also ignores the fact that people have been corrupted by other, non-drug crimes.

This "crisis" isn't a crisis at all. They are scattered incidents. The facts support that and the implication that it is a "crisis" just maligns the reputations of the VAST MAJORITY of cops who are not corrupt and never took a dime from anyone. And the title, claiming the corruption goes to the "core" in unsupportable rhetoric.

__________________
A burning desire for social justice is never a substitute for knowing what you're talking about. -Thomas Sowell

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is muzzle flash.

Hydrosan

Yeah a handful (96 individuals in this piece alone!) of examples on their own would not be convincing, I wonder if the book is. Plugging the book kinda spoils the impression of reporting without an agenda too IMO.

Trying to imply the reporter had to look to old examples wasn't the best way to retort to this particular piece IMO, he even states the Delta thing you claim was from the mid 80's was regarding cases from 1995 to 1999, the majority the examples are pretty recent too.

One could argue that cops who refuse to give evidence against other cops "even if he was videotaped committing a crime" when found to be widespread in a particular department, is actually institutionalised corruption. And further, that the corrution does indeed go "to the core" as highlighted by the fact that "one police chief who spent five years working internal affairs in Washington, D.C. said "I never encountered an officer willing to talk about the conduct of another officer, even if he was videotaped committing a crime." another former San Jose, Calif., Police Chief Joseph McNamara, "[T]hanks to the climate created by our drug laws, we have ... small gangs of cops who are the gangsters....". Maybe 'institutionalized corruption' is too stong a term for a minority who rely on the camoraderie of colleagues, and their fear of recrimination, for protection; but if it is too strong a term, so is 'unsupportable rhetoric', as clearly the practice does happen.

San

 

Niteshift

Yeah a handful (96 individuals in this piece alone!) of examples on their own would not be convincing,

And remember, that's 96 over a 20 year time frame, compared to the number of current cops alone, let alone the ones that have served at various times and lengths in that 20 years. We could easily be looking at 1.5-2 million people.


Trying to imply the reporter had to look to old examples wasn't the best way to retort to this particular piece IMO, he even states the Delta thing you claim was from the mid 80's was regarding cases from 1995 to 1999, the majority the examples are pretty recent too.

He did have to dig up old cases. Even the ones from 95 are 9 years old. That might not be old for a person, but that's pretty old when you're trying to make a statement about an alleged "problem" today.

If I had a car as old as some of the cases he cites, the state would call is a classic and give me a special license plate for it.


One could argue that cops who refuse to give evidence against other cops "even if he was videotaped committing a crime" when found to be widespread in a particular department, is actually institutionalised corruption.

You could. But that is the exception, not the rule.

And further, that the corrution does indeed go "to the core" as highlighted by the fact that "one police chief who spent five years working internal affairs in Washington, D.C. said "I never encountered an officer willing to talk about the conduct of another officer, even if he was videotaped committing a crime."

DC is a piss-poor example to work with. They had a HUGE problem back in the 80's and 90's when their crime got out of hand. They hired cops so fast that they weren't doing proper background checks. They actually found convicted felons working for 2-3 years before the dept. caught up to them.

Using an abhorration like DC in that time period is not very representative of the state of law enforcement in the US.

And while that individual may not have run across those situations, I have run across more than 40 cases that I am PERSONALLY aware of where cops testified against cops in areas I've worked in. Most weren't about something as serious as corruption. Most were over relatively minor things. If they won't cover minor things, who in their right mind believes they'd cover crimes?

The same with using New Orleans during the 80's. They had a lot of corrupt officers. So much so that even today, if a cop applies in most places and said he worked in New Orleans, he's looked at very, very carefully during background checks.

The VAST majority of cops in the US don't work for huge departments like that. MOST work for agencies of 25 people of less. A sizeable percentage work in agencies of 10 or less officers. Comparing them to an occassional agency that got out of control is not fair by any standard.

another former San Jose, Calif., Police Chief Joseph McNamara, "[T]hanks to the climate created by our drug laws, we have ... small gangs of cops who are the gangsters....".

I've talked about McNamara before. He is a professional windbag who makes a LOAD of money, working in a liberal think tank, criticizing EVERYTHING the police do, not just about drugs and corruption. Even while he was an active chief, he was widely disregarded in LE as a kook.

Knowing what I know about him and his history, including him makes the author less credible, not more.

Maybe 'institutionalized corruption' is too stong a term for a minority who rely on the camoraderie of colleagues, and their fear of recrimination, for protection; but if it is too strong a term, so is 'unsupportable rhetoric', as clearly the practice does happen.

It is unsupportable because the VAST, VAST majority of cops are not corrupt and never even consider it. Corruption is the exception, not the rule. To imply that it's otherwise, or even that it is rampant, is unsupportable with anything factual.

iGame3D

It does not matter how old the cases are, it does not matter that the cops that aren't corrupt are goody two shoes. Its ignorant to think a report or book could be compiled based on just a year or two of information, when this drug war has been going on since 1937.

The point is: PROHIBITION ENCOURAGES POLICE CORRUPTION in corruptable human officers, who violate the public trust and safety they are paid to "protect and serve".

Not every case of corruption is reported, this very minute there is a corrupt cop out there somewhere committing a crime because the war on drugs allows him to make a profit from being a criminal, a profit that would not exist if drugs were legal and regulated. There is another cop committing a crime that has nothing to do with drugs, but this site isn't about "all the other crimes and crap in the world", so why should this report focus on those?

You are just one cop, and you admit to 40 cases of cops in trouble.

Minor incidents or major, thats still a lot of screw ups being admitted by only one man who is not omniscient enough to watch dog every cop in this country.

I can't even count 10 people that I've worked with in the past 20 years that have been in trouble with the law. To my knowledge none of them carried a gun, a badge, or got a paycheck provided by tax payers.

Maybe if we ask our politicians for the death penalty for corrupt cops we can clean up the system a bit.

Imagine the mass execution that would have to take place in these cases. That would send a message to future officers considering the potential power and profits of being traitors of the public trust.

Plainsman1963

As much as I am opposed to the war on drugs, I don't think when we win it there will be fewer corrupt cops. The corrupt ones will just figure another angle to exploit.

Just as there are corrupt lawyers and corrupt doctors and corrupt marijuana activists, there will be corrupt cops.
Goes with having corrupt human beings.

__________________


"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe

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rick

This is easy to disagree with...

I often have to pinch myself at the numbers, too, NS. See, the way I look at it is that the "numbers" usually say there was around 600,000 - 800,000 drug arrest each year. I smile and realize to myself that this is only a fraction of the actuall drug activity going on, surely you would have to agree with this. The police are certainly not catching 100% of drug offenses.

Well, I have to apply this same logic to the police catching police regarding drug related corruption. If your numbers say 100 cops out of 850,000 - I would smile and realize to myself that this is only a fraction of the actuall crimial offence going on. Critical thinking should always be used by all individuals if we are ever to see eye to eye.

Here's part of the problem with this, and im not telling you anything you dont know so I am surprised by your logic. These police curruption studies are only released every 7 - 10 years or so by varying Depts' of govt. We (activists) use the latest information available to us. If you have statistics that are much more recent I for one would be happy to see them, to do an analysis comparison to these stats from 10-20 years ago. My gut tells me that if I know anything about graphs, I bet this on goes up with time.

Here's about the latest report I could find... "Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representitives. (Law Enforcement - Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption) (PDF)

http://www.marijuana.com/pdf/currupt.pdf

I'll dig through it some and see what I can come up with...

Actually, I believe that these reports are very specific to "Drug Related Police Corruption". I didnt see any situations where drugs were not the cause of the corruption. But, I understand what you are saying, and I bet it applies to most of the Sin Laws you are sworn to protect, as an officer of the law, ie Gambling, Prostitution - heh, you've probably been to one of those parties or two...hehe, you know...I have. Nothing better than a police batchelor party.

I disagree wholeheartedly. It is a crisis. We see it as a crisis and it is not at all surprising that the law enforcement community would NOT see it as a crisis. Addicts rarely do, right? The fact is that a small majority IS ruing the reputation of thousands. Happens everyday - welcome to my world, which I also consider in crisis. My friends and family are in jail because of sin laws cops' break everyday and night, one way or another. That is unjust and you are paying for it, which is also unjust.

Welcome to the real world.

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Niteshift

The point is: PROHIBITION ENCOURAGES POLICE CORRUPTION in corruptable human officers, who violate the public trust and safety they are paid to "protect and serve".

The same case could be argued for almost any law. That's my point.

I've never said that no cops are corrupted by the drug war. I admit that. But cops were corrupted BEFORE 1937 and probably will be if the drug war ends. They've been corrupted by prostitution, gambling, burglars, extortionists etc.

Not every case of corruption is reported

Nor is every case where a cop RESISTS corruption. That've almost never reported.

There is another cop committing a crime that has nothing to do with drugs, but this site isn't about "all the other crimes and crap in the world", so why should this report focus on those?

It's called "context". Look it up.

You are just one cop, and you admit to 40 cases of cops in trouble.

Minor incidents or major, thats still a lot of screw ups being admitted by only one man who is not omniscient enough to watch dog every cop in this country.

I can't even count 10 people that I've worked with in the past 20 years that have been in trouble with the law. To my knowledge none of them carried a gun, a badge, or got a paycheck provided by tax payers.

Whoa there Captain Assumption.........back up a second.

You are hearing "40 cops that broke the law". I did NOT say that.
I DID say Most weren't about something as serious as corruption. Most were over relatively minor things.. Relatively minor things are violations of POLICY, not usually law.

Hell, you could take me as an example. When I was investigated and punished for failing to follow policy..........when I did NOT arrest a guy for possession of mj and instead destroying the 1 gram or less at the scene. I was in violation of the policy on "evidence" destruction. (I put evidence in quatations because I can't figure out how it's evidence if I didn't charge him). A fellow officer, who witnessed the destruction, had to testify that he saw me do it.

Did I violate a LAW? Did that make me CORRUPT? No and no. But a cop testified against another one over a "relatively minor thing".

Get it? So stop ASSUMING that I said it was all about law violations.

L.A. Sheriff Sherman Block led an investigation from 1988 to 1994 that nailed 26 deputies on narc duty for stealing drug money.

Now see, here is what I mean about CONTEXT. You throw that sentence out there and it looks bad. Until you look at the CONTEXT.

That is a 7 year period. That's 3.7 cops per year. Let's round it UP to 4.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's dept. has 8,989 full time officers. Do you realize how many cops that is? And it's not even counting the part-time ones.

At 4 per year, That is .0004% of his agency each year!!!!!!!! Even is it was 26 per YEAR, that would be .0028%.

This is where context comes into play.

That would send a message to future officers considering the potential power and profits of being traitors of the public trust.

And I support rooting out corrupt cops, trying and jailing them. I've even told on this forum how I put MY OWN SUPERVISOR in jail.

His crimes had NOTHING to do with drugs, it had to do with GREED, which is what most drug corruption has to do with. Just like ending the drug war won't make all the dealers suddenly become honest and get "real jobs", it won't make all corrupt cops suddenly honest either.



[b]As much as I am opposed to the war on drugs, I don't think when we win it there will be fewer corrupt cops. The corrupt ones will just figure another angle to exploit.

Just as there are corrupt lawyers and corrupt doctors and corrupt marijuana activists, there will be corrupt cops.
Goes with having corrupt human beings.[/i]

Very well said Plainsman.

I often have to pinch myself at the numbers, too, NS. See, the way I look at it is that the "numbers" usually say there was around 600,000 - 800,000 drug arrest each year. I smile and realize to myself that this is only a fraction of the actuall drug activity going on, surely you would have to agree with this. The police are certainly not catching 100% of drug offenses.

Well, I have to apply this same logic to the police catching police regarding drug related corruption. If your numbers say 100 cops out of 850,000 - I would smile and realize to myself that this is only a fraction of the actuall crimial offence going on. Critical thinking should always be used by all individuals if we are ever to see eye to eye.

There is a difference though.

First, cops are in a closed enviroment. They are already identified, unlike drug users. So IA knows who their suspects are before they look for anything.

Second, IA has powers and abilities to investigate things in depths and manners that, if applied to regular citizens, would cause a MASSIVE public outcry from BOTH liberal and consevatives. They CAN and DO start these invasions based on nothing but anonymous phone calls or "gut feelings". And unlike an anonymous tip that might cause the police to look at something and gain more evidence to get a warrant etc, they need nothing else. It's difficult to explain this in a short paragraph or two, but it's actually VERY invasive and violates a lot of rights the rest of you enjoy.

Third, your whole theory is based on the assumption that it's so much more prevelant than is found. Granted, there are corrupt cops that are never found. But honestly, cops are terrible at being corrupt. Most can never keep it a secret for long and, like the Hell's Angels say, 2 can keep a secret if one is dead. Other than that........ it tends to come out.

And regarding the 850,000 number I used, that's actually low. According to the 2002 UCR, there are 941,139, but that number doesn't include a lot of speciality agencies, nor any federal agencies.

Here's part of the problem with this, and im not telling you anything you dont know so I am surprised by your logic. These police curruption studies are only released every 7 - 10 years or so by varying Depts' of govt

However, something that was found and abated in the 1980's is hardly representative of something today and you know that. Hell, I was in high school when some of this went on. How is the activities of cops that happened when I was going to practice and watching cheerleaders indicitive of my actions as a cop today?

Would it much different than me taking a bunch of people from Woodstock, dressed in tie-dye and bell bottoms, and holding them up as an example of what the pot smoker today is "really" like?

We (activists) use the latest information available to us.

When it suits your purposes.........you and I both know that old numbers abuot mj arrests get thrown around here routinely when the current numbers are lower.

Actually, I believe that these reports are very specific to "Drug Related Police Corruption". I didnt see any situations where drugs were not the cause of the corruption. But, I understand what you are saying, and I bet it applies to most of the Sin Laws you are sworn to protect, as an officer of the law, ie Gambling, Prostitution - heh, you've probably been to one of those parties or two...hehe, you know...I have. Nothing better than a police batchelor party.

And that's part of the problem.........focus only on corruption as it relates to a single cause (drugs) and it starts to look worse than it it. If all you have is a hammer, all your problems start looking like nails.

I disagree wholeheartedly. It is a crisis. We see it as a crisis and it is not at all surprising that the law enforcement community would NOT see it as a crisis.

I'm looking at it in context Rick. Just like the above example about the LA Sheriff's Dept. 26 cops sounds like a lot..........until you look at it being over 7 years and spread among 9,000 cops. That puts it into it's true perspective.

The fact is that a small majority IS ruing the reputation of thousands.

But that's my point Rick..........it is a SMALL, a VERY SMALL number and this whole thing is being foisted on the MAJORITY improperly.

Now you know damn well that I could make an arguement, based on the same logic, that pot smokers are pedophile. And you know I don't believe that. But I could provide you with stats about the percentage of pedophiles that smoked pot, make allusions saying that since we don't catch them all, there must be so many more that doing it, etc.

And none of it would be reflective of the majority of pot smokers. But if I presented it to someone who was to only hear myside, or already had a bias, it would sound pretty convincing. Pretty soon, they'd start thinking that anyone who smokes pot is just looking for a child to molest.

That's what is happening here. You are taking the actions of a very small number, adding a dash of "we know this can only be a fraction" and then casting a shadow across every single one of them.

That is unjust and you are paying for it, which is also unjust.

And I feel that taking numbers and instances out of context makes it worse.

I think Plainsman put it very well. Nobody denies there are corrupt cops, just as there is corrution in any profession. But corruption in cops and government existed LONG before 1937 and will exist if the drug war is ended.

I mean hell, look at one of the worst cases of corruption permeateing a city government that you can find.........Tammany Hall. They reached into almost every area of city government and controlled virtually everything, right down to hiring. And that had nothing to do with drugs. That was about greed.

And that's what corrupt cops are about....greed. Take away drug laws, and they'll find some other way. My gut feeling tells me that lawman in the 1800's were probably corrupt in ways that would send a modern cop into fits, taking pay-off's from this landowner or that saloon.

I am absolutely against corruption. Have no doubt of that. But I'm also against presenting things out of context and trying to make the problem sound more prevelant than it is.