Just another city in the long list of major drug-war-related law enforcement scandals.
Scandal Roils Tulsa Police by Stephanie Simon in the Wall Street Journal gives a good overview of the situation.
A federal investigation into the Tulsa Police Department that began nearly two years ago has unearthed a flood of corruption allegations.
Federal prosecutors allege that a handful of veteran officers, aided by a federal agent, fabricated informants, planted evidence, stole drugs and cash from criminal suspects, coerced perjured testimony, intimidated witnesses and trafficked in cocaine and methamphetamine.
The drug war corrupts. Sure, we don’t have it nearly as bad as in parts of other countries where entire police forces have been bought off, but still, in the drug war, there are enormous sums of money involved, there’s political pressure to make lots of arrests, there’s a culture that treats a certain part of the population as sub-human scum, there’s a sense of real and sometimes unaccountable power that we give to law enforcement, and finally, there are the tactics that are used to enforce drug laws (because the transactions are consensual) that encourage law enforcement to lie and cheat to accomplish goals.
It’s a recipe for corruption.
It’s not like there are full-blown corrupt individuals being recruited into the police force. Many times it’s much more subtle and gradual than that. I often turn to this particular section of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition’s video that explains how it can start.
But, the question you may ask is, how does it get as big as the apparent scandal in Tulsa without somebody noticing?
Until you reach a certain critical mass of scandal, there’s very little to be done, because the police officers hold all the cards.
Several Tulsa-area criminal-defense lawyers say their clients had long alleged that police had fabricated evidence and attributed it to anonymous informants. But they could rarely make a judge take notice, not when it was a suspect’s word against an officer’s.
“You going to believe the police, or someone from the ghetto who has been in trouble before?” said DeMarco Deon Williams.
As it is, that culture may still protect some of the officers on the edge of the scandal.
Four additional officers and one retired officer are under indictment on multiple charges including depriving suspects of their civil rights and distributing drugs. Trials are set for January. All five men deny wrongdoing.
Officer Phil Evans, president of the police union, says he has a hard time believing the allegations. And attorneys for the indicted officers predict vindication. They say the evidence against the officers is flimsy—and relies heavily on the word of convicted criminals.
“This will be a credibility contest and, quite frankly, we welcome that,” said Stephen Jones, who represents indicted Officer Jeff Henderson
Credibility. Yeah. You know, it means more than just whether you wear a uniform (or work for someone who does).
As the property tax rates in Tulsa go up to pay off the inevitable lawsuits, the homeowners should start asking about the credibility of those who sold them this drug war.
I hope this nest of red neck liars and the state get sued out of existence. The next cesspool to clean….Arkansas.
“All five men deny wrongdoing”
… they don’t even feel sorry?
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be framed. Something similar to being buried alive maybe. You are conscious through the entire thing and there is nothing you can do about it.
“I’m hoping to get payback. And justice.”
There isn’t enough “justice” in the world to justify this.
There should be serious consequences for perjury under color of authority. Judges give way too much deference to those in law enforcement. Instead, like too many in positions of authority, they work to preserve the system.
“Officer Phil Evans, president of the police union, says he has a hard time believing the allegations.”
Well, Officer Evans, I don’t wear dark navy sunglasses or rose-colored blinders and I find it very easy to believe the allegations! As do many others on the other side of the “thin blue line.” The cancer is in YOUR house, not ours!
.
.
.
We don’t smoke merrywanna in Muskogee
We don’t take our trips on LSD
but down at the police station
We do enjoy our bribery.
Remember folks, it’s pay 2 play!
…………………………………………………………….
Article in today’s Huffington Post by a Know Nothing named William H Foster arguing the absurdity that medicine shouldn’t be defined at the ballot box without noticing that offering an option is not making a decision.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-h-foster/marijuana-legalization-should-medical_b_793333.html?just_reloaded=1
I’m over there launching truth grenades at him, but the more the merrier.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil
is that good men do nothing…”
One can only imagine how much corruption, kick back and drug thuggery is happening with egomaniacs like Sheriff Joe Arpaio? ” Oklahoma residents stand by and let it happen, looking the other way like redneck Sergeant Schultz’. I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing –NOTHING!”
Remember Tulia Texas? includes…
* Tulia: Tip of the Drug War Iceberg
* Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
* Freedom Rides in Texas
* The Latest From Tulia
* Thank You Miss Rosa
Oklahoma Racism and Corruption Déjà vu
James Geddes-47 90 YEARS-5 PLANTS!
Released July 28, 2003 after more than 11 years behind bars. There was no evidence that James lived at this house, although he was a frequent visitor. He refused to plea bargain as he claimed his innocence and was sentenced to 75 years and one day for cultivation of five plants and to another 75 years, plus one day for possession of marijuana. He was also charged with possession of a firearm and paraphernalia. James filed an appeal on his sentence. In 1995, his appeal came through, which reduced it to 90 years. “I honestly feel like I have been kidnapped by the state of Oklahoma.
Will Foster 93 Years For Cannabis 12/21/03
In 1996 Foster was convicted of five drug counts in Tulsa, all revolving around the plants he was growing in an underground backyard shelter. Foster says he had 38 marijuana plants. He said hewas growing them to be harvested in rotation –each harvest to
yield about 12 ounces. Prosecuters asserted thathe had between 50 and 70 plants and that he meant to distribute.A Tulsa jury sentenced him to a little over a year per plant,70 years for cultivation. It tacked on 20 years for possessionin the presence of minors, his children. Foster asserts theynever knew.
American Violet – Official Trailer
Well we shall see how this turns out. I am hoping that the government has a good case, with no procedural fuck ups, which is the usual case for cases like this being dropped and forgotten about. This might be a good case for someone with a little media clout to monitor…
Pingback: Drugs, money, police, informants. Scandal in Tulsa. - Grasscity.com Forums
The law enforcement community must live as a brotherhood to exist and support their fellow officers,even when they are wrong,because they must know that their back is being watched. Even though their brethren might be wrong,to admit it could alienate their fellow officers whom they depend on for back-up in the next shots fired call.
As long as the police are put in a position of us against them,to be used as a revenue generating arm of their cities or states,there will be corruption.
November Coalition
Featured at FAMM
Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation
Alert: The National Criminal Justice Commission Act still needs your phone calls to pass this year — please take action today!
In 2009, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and 15 Republican and Democratic cosponsors introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act, legislation that would create a bipartisan Commission to review and identify effective criminal justice policies and make recommendations for reform. The House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Committee have passed the bill, which now has 39 Senate cosponsors, but the bill still awaits final passage during these last few weeks of the Congressional session. If NCJC doesn’t pass this year, it will all have to be done over again in 2011.
THIS WEEK’S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A bad narc in New York and a meth-loving deputy in Minnesota go down.
Get ’em Duncan. I posted three responses to the board at Huff post. They censored two of ’em but one must have slipped in under the wire. Odd though, one of my posts was too long so I divided it n half, and they only took the back half (making it look like a non-sequiter in the process, dishonest bastards).
Lol at this article?
http://www.albanyherald.com/opinioncolumns/headlines/White_flag_up_in_war_on_drugs_111570079.html
Any of you see this? Apparently anyone who smokes a joint can be compared to wife beaters, drunk drivers, and child molesters and need to be locked up because we are drugged out zombies who pose a threat to the community? Not much more I can get out of that article. Opinions?
Wow Albanyreporterguy sounds like a perfect Monkey to test out in a probe to the next solar system. Torture-america at full squawk. Hurts to read that. WTF? Its been said 16 days on the streets without meals or lodging will turn even an educated suit and tie wearer into a hearing-voices swatting-imaginary-flies blithering Frankenstein.
Wars with no end and citizens off the deep end. Great leadership demonstrated by those at the top this past five decades of ideological idiocy.
…What hell it must be to live within a brotherhood that requires you to follow the bad apples off the cliff.
It also speak to the character of the officers that would defend wrong doing within thier own ….all for pride…others must suffer.
We must all be living in a hell of our own making .
Trading Places (1983)
A snobbish investor (Dan Aykroyd) and a wily street con artist (Eddie Murphy) find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires. (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche)
I found its easier to post replies to Huff Post articles @ Facebook. Several publications censor or don’t post or limit words. Also eliminates registering.
A Few Buzzwords 07/13/01
Everything bad about drugs is do to prohibition. Millions of people have non-tragic experiences regularly. Probably why they do them in the first place. Many people are “addicted” to medications that replace the functions their bodies can’t do anymore. Dopamine or Insulin. Diabetics shoot up without sharing needles spreading diseases and receive measured quality assured drugs. Same with outlawing just about any Vice. Drugs, Prostitution or Gambling are 99% safer in a legal status. Ganja isn’t even in the equation. Hemp is as ridiculous as outlawing ketchup. We have to start electing actual people who don’t swallow the beltway acid, and have the ability to comprehend reality when they see it. Not just nod and bend over to gossip mongers whims. Yup many groups or “brotherhoods” protecting their own even when they commit horrible acts. As Un-American as a moneyslut selling its soul. The KKK, Nazi’s and John Birch all sold out Americans the same as DEAth and these Okie pigs. No brotherhood or religion is above the Constitution. Love it or Leave it!
Vices Are Not Crimes
Updated 12.11.10
Remember Tulia? Race, Cocaine, and Corruption
WAKE UP!! http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Alliance-Contras-Cocaine-Explosion/dp/1888363932/ref=pd_sim_b_4
Peter, a few weeks ago on another forum I made the observation that things shouldn’t be treated as criminal if a significant minority of people believe it should be legal. With 46% of the American public in favor of cannabis consumption and probably better than 10% of adults who enjoy cannabis keeping it criminal is beyond the pale. This is precisely the situation that Thomas Jefferson called the “tyranny of the majority”. Some rocket scientist prohibitionist responded:
Oh Mr. Rocket scientist do newspapers cover people getting fined $100? OK, maybe in my state they would because Maryland doesn’t see many affirmative defenses in medical cannabis cases. But it does happen, and I have a killer lawyer lined up. He actually got some people in PG County with 30 plants off with a medical need defense. Remarkable because Maryland’s lame medical cannabis law doesn’t mention cultivation, seemingly limits the affirmative defense to petty possession of no more than an ounce, and that PG County authorities shoot people’s dogs as well as furniture delivery guys dead without provocation. (See next post for details)
I thought about it for a moment, stunned by the totally incomprehensible analogy. Wow, it’s absurd enough when they compare it to isolated incidents of kiddie rape. 25%?? WTF???
I responded:
Please notice: If you don’t know what NAMBLA is don’t Google it, this is one case when it really is better to be ignorant. You certainly DO NOT want to visit their website. I would certainly prefer to be wholly unaware of its existence.
The reference to the Good Neighbor Pharmacy at 401 Walnut St Red Bluff, California 96080 came from me pointing out that meth is a prescription drug. I Googled to find the name of a real pharmacy in Red Bluff so that these kooks would be more easily able to identify with the example.
Seriously, Red Bluff California is about a backwater, hayseed, rural farm community, and these people are acting as if having a significant presence of organized criminal syndicates for the police to bust is as natural as a beaver building a dam.
They never did answer my primary question about the level of organized criminal activity in Red Bluff in 1970. I sincerely doubt that organized criminals had been operating in Red Bluff since the repeal of the 18th amendment through at least the middle to late 1990s. Finding significant criminal syndicates in Red Bluff demonstrates the futility and abject failure of public policy which some people like to call the war on (some) drugs. It really kills me that there are people who can’t grasp this concept, and instead cheer the police as drugs become cheaper, more potent, and more widely available on demand
As Mrs. Gump likes to say, “Stupid is as stupid does”
I said:
Oh ya like an alarm clock is going to do it. If over sleeping was the problem, it would have never been outlawed. This is old fashioned Fascism and being awake and ignorant is the problem. Its not just that America is asleep, they’re being fed goofy pills via the corporate media outlets. Plus almost 75 years of prohibition has caused cannabinoid deficiency, the hardening of the mind and herd mentalities required to maintain the status weird yuppie philistines. Chaos brings profits.
Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb by Nick Schou
Editor’s note: It’s not easy when a colleague, let alone a journalist you hold in the highest regard, commits suicide. When Gary Webb took his own life two years ago, he and I had both been working at the Sacramento News & Review. In the days that followed, I fielded numerous phone calls from well-meaning folks who were convinced that he had been shot by the agency he went after in his famed “Dark Alliance” series. My personal belief is that the CIA didn’t need to kill Gary; they’d already set his demise in motion by employing “unnamed sources” to discredit him in the nation’s major print media. To the very end, Gary complained that no one had ever disproved a single fact in his series. The fact that so many respected newspapers so eagerly took this bait, and that one of our nation’s last true investigative reporters had been driven to such desperation, is something I could not reconcile then or now.
Kathmandu and the Black Prince
“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
when the need for illusion is deep.” — Saul Bellow
Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage
“A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion …
as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils
and imaginary defenses against them.” — H. L. Mencken, 1918
Demonizing Drugs
Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn
OK, maybe in my state they would because Maryland doesn’t see many affirmative defenses in medical cannabis cases.
Dude you’re in Joyce Nalepka territory. I’m surprised they haven’t outlawed hemp birdseed in pet shops.
Joyce Nalepka – Worlds Stupidest Prohibitionist
Anslinger-Bush-Hearst-Nixon-Hitler-Nalepka Déjà vu 02/19/10
Joyce Nalepka, president of Drug-Free Kids: America’s Challenge, points out that recovering cocaine addicts say that the high from cocaine is so intense that you never stop wanting it. She points to the case of former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, who was caught twice using cocaine. Barry was caught in one case as a result of a police sting and another because of court-ordered drug testing.
Don’t you believe Obama when he says he quit drugs? “No,” replied Nalepka. “And I didn’t believe Mayor Barry either.” …
“I would never vote for an elected official who was ever a drug user,” she tells AIM. “We have to get this country back to being an honorable nation with honorable people running it.”
Woman Crusades Against Hemp Law
Joyce D. Nalepka’s battle against marijuana began in 1977 with a Kiss. When she went to the rock band’s concert with her two sons, she saw the pervasiveness of pot and a drug culture that threatened children.
Now, the Silver Spring, Md., grandmother, passionate about her cause, has a new target: a four-year pilot program that one day may allow industrial hemp to grow alongside corn and wheat on Maryland’s pastoral farms.
Hemp leaves belong to the same family as marijuana.
Last month, Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening signed into law a bill establishing the program. At the bill-signing ceremony, Mrs. Nalepka — armed with a bumper sticker reading “Boycott Pot (and ALL hemp products)” — made her way into the picture.
Aw Duncan, stuck back in Maryland eh? I had a friend who worked in on of your local TV markets in sports broadcast. He wound up leaving there because of a fiendish coke habit he picked up…what is it about the D.C. area and coke anyway?
Everybody flees to the Left Coast eventually, why U fight it?
The good thing about this town’s coke habit is we have almost no incidence of meth heads.
Don’t forget your other friend from DC that ended up on a 4 year coke binge.
I’m not fighting it. My wife has family here and so it’s not even on the table for discussion. Maybe when the nephews and nieces come of age. I don’t think I could handle being a California tax payer the way their state’s government burns money for almost no benefit. I almost dropped dead when I made my first purchase in California a few years back and they tagged on over 10% in sales tax. Goddammit that supposed to be a small surcharge, not a tip.
California? Who said anything about California? I live in the OTHER Washington. My wife’s family is in Michigan. That’s why my move to Spain isn’t on the table for discussion here….
Tweekers? oh yeah, we got tweakers up here alright. Funny thing about meth, you know. I can’t quite recall where I saw this but it seems that the rates of addiction, and the levels of use among addicts varies according to the purity of the drug. When there is pure meth (well, you’ll never find pure meth), or “cleaner” meth around, rates of abuse skyrocket. When the drug isn’t pure, people don’t use it as much.
Meth heads aren’t so bad, just never show ’em where you live. But if you’re lucky and catch them at the right time, they’ll sell you their house for twenty bucks. Plus they reduce the average number of teeth per capita here, keeping the extra dentists out of our fair state. (“huh?” you’re saying, “you have a problem with extra dentists?”) And I live out here near the Rez, so there is an extra-special racial element to meth addiction in this county. The VERY good news is that restrictions on the sale of precursor chemicals have made it more difficult to manufacture high quality meth. Thereby reducing the rates of use up here. That’s right, it actually works in the case of meth to reduce addiction rates. People complain about having to ask their pharmacist for OTC decongestants, but it’s small price/
One more word about methamphetamine. As a psychologist, I firmly believe in harm reduction when dealing with intractable addiction. Meth addiction is not as intractable as alcohol addiction or addiction to opioid drugs. Meth in my experience isn’t as difficult to kick.(that may just be because the ‘intractable’ meth heads die before they make it to treatment) Furthermore, as a drug, meth is so destructive to the body and health of the user, that I’m not sure a maintenance program could even be considered ‘harm reduction’. While it may be a ‘cost reducer’ to society, the user still suffers greatly fom the physical toll the drug takes. So for those reasons, as well as those related above I am not a believer in maintenance programs for meth. Luckily, use seems to be tied to purity, as I indicated before, and the use levels can be controlled that way. Fire away.
As one who has used meth regularly about 20 years ago, mostly as a study aid, I have to admit it is a drug which I could’ve easily became addicted to. It makes you feel so good that it is hard to explain.
When I was high, it was awesome, I thought I could do anything and understood everything, but coming off of it was so hard it broke me of the habit. If I would’ve had a steady, cheap supply, I’m afraid that I might have ended up as a statistic.
However, as a Libertarian, I think that everyone has a right to their bodies and to change the chemical reactions to achieve a desired effect. We should be allowed to fail and suffer the consequences and possibly learn from failure. Maybe in Libertopia, there would be more unbiased research and information available to those who want to try some kind of legal, safer(?) meth.
The problem with Meth is that it is so destructive to the individual. We don’t allow self mutilation in this culture, or suicide, just because they’re choices available and don’t involve other people. It is not legal to drink poison. And I’m not in favor of legalizing Russian Roulette. Substitution is a policy that has some potential. Perhaps cannabis substitution? It has shown promise with other drugs. The nature of addiction in alcohol and heroin is different, in that these drugs set up long term craving, and physical dependancy in different ways. Largely if a person can get clean off meth, it s easier to stay clean long term. Criminal penalties surely don’t help, I’m not suggesting that.
Hmm missed this until now.
DC, what the heck do you call a Prince Albert piercing if not self mutilation? It makes my package pull itself up into my body to hide just thinking about it.
-‘: I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives up to date information *”*
Magnificent site. Lots of helpful info here. I’m sending it to several pals ans also sharing in delicious. And naturally, thanks to your sweat!