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Monday, December 15, 2008

Busting The Criminals (low level)

In the U.S.A., low level criminals (police), particularly in certain jurisdictions, routinely violate the highest laws of the land in favor of legislative crime.

From Drug Law Blog:

http://druglaw.typepad.com/drug_law_blog/2008/12/stinging-back-texas-police-trapped-in-reverse-sting-by-fake-grow-house.html

Stinging Back - Texas Police Trapped in Reverse Sting by Fake Grow House The still below is from a remarkable video of a sting conducted to catch police officers rather than drug dealers.

Setup

Mark Barry Cooper, the former narcotics detective behind the book DVD Never Get Busted Again, wanted to demonstrate that police lie on warrant affidavits in carrying out drug raids. So he set up a house in Odessa, Texas containing nothing but some grow lights and a couple Christmas trees. According to a description of the sting,

The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster's attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster's secret mobile office nearby.


Full video of the police entry:

And here is a TV segment on the raid:

Cooper's claim is apparently that police must have either lied to obtain a warrant or used illegal thermal imaging cameras. Tough to know for sure what happened without more facts, but it certainly looks a little fishy!

(Hat tip: Pete, and before him, Radley Balko.)

(Thanks to the commenter who caught some errors in this post.)

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