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undercover police operation in school targets students for low level drug offenses

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E

entheogenic-gnosis

Rising Star
I have always been skeptical when I hear of operations involving undercover officers posing as school students trying to purchase marijuana or other drugs, however apparently this actually does happen...

I couldn't believe that they would waste the time, resources, and effort to entrap kids for low level drug offenses...

In the article below, they had agents in their 20s posing as high school students, and basically they would just constantly bother these kids, asking for drugs. They ended up arresting an autistic teen and many other students...

It's pretty messed up stuff.

this story was a clear example of drug war over kill, targeting suburban teens in their schools for small bags of cannabis or their prescription pills is a clear over-reach, these undercover officers should be infiltrating criminal organizations, not infiltrating our high schools...

www.rollingstone.com

How an Autistic Teen Got Targeted By an Undercover Cop

He was a friendless high school loner struggling with autism. So why did an undercover cop target him as a drug dealer?
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com

Though it smacks of suburban myth or TV makebelieve, undercover drug stings occur in high schools with surprising frequency, with self-consciously dopey names like "Operation D-Minus" and, naturally, "Operation Jump Street." They're elaborate stings in which adult undercover officers go to great lengths to pass as authentic teens: turning in homework, enduring detention, attending house parties and using current slang, having Googled the terms beforehand to ensure their correctness. In Tennessee last year, a 22-year-old policewoman emerging from 10 months undercover credited her mom's job as an acting coach as key to her performance as a drug-seeking student, which was convincing enough to have 14 people arrested. Other operations go even further to establish veracity, like a San Diego-area sting last year that practically elevated policing to performance art, in which three undercover deputies had "parents" who attended back-to-school nights; announcing the first of the sting's 19 arrests, Sheriff Bill Gore boasted this method of snaring teens was "almost too easy."

The practice was first pioneered in 1974 by the LAPD, which soon staged annual undercover busts that most years arrested scores of high schoolers; by the Eighties, it had spread as a favored strategy in the War on Drugs. Communities loved it: Each bust generated headlines and reassured citizens that police were proactively combating drugs. Cops loved the stings, too, which not only served as a major morale boost but could also be lucrative. "Any increase in narcotics arrests is good for police departments. It's all about numbers," says former LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing, who now works with the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and views these operations with scorn. "This is not about public safety – the public is no safer, and the school grounds are no safer. The more arrests you have, the more funding you can get through federal grants and overtime."



Read more: How an Autistic Teen Got Targeted By an Undercover Cop
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-eg
 
This same type of event happened at the high school I went to in the late 90's

Quite literally identical to the story cited, female student, enrolled longer if I remember correctly. Made lots and lots of friends. Bust happened in the last week of school for the year, early morning, many many many arrests.

They even did the bust at the same time the junior high school students were visiting the school for an orientation...

This was a small town in California, quite small infact.
 
oversoul1919 said:
Sad, so sad. :( War on drugs is still going strong. :(

Will this madness ever stop?
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I wouldn't say going strong, more like a last-ditch effort to cling to a cash cow helbent on extortion. The policies are changing, with the social climate. Other countries in the UN favor an end to abolitionism. furthermore, the cost to society is greater than the taxpayer dollars spent. lawmakers are realizing that, with increased pressure from the public to implement change.
 
I am constantly afraid for my high school son. The kids apparently have no 4th amendment rights in a school, and they search the kids before informing the parents with frequency.
 
I don't have verification, but I have heard that the local police and school districts in my current area are running a program where they actually bring some cannabis into an elementary class, ignite it, get all the kids familiar with the smells, with the idea being that they are then able to alert authority when they smell it in the future.

I can imagine many young kids inadvertently alerting law enforcement to their parents activities, which is the real goal of programs like this IMHO.
 
Continuum said:
I am constantly afraid for my high school son. The kids apparently have no 4th amendment rights in a school, and they search the kids before informing the parents with frequency.
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You should have seen my face when I saw the things my kids were PMing to each other on FB using my work computer. They got a long speech from me. After 45+years walking the planet I have seen enough go down that I figured it was time for the talk. Eyes rolled at first but it is knowledge we need to not be afraid to share. God forbid our kids screw up and they come to our homes. These stories exist already...
 
I don't know about undercovers where I'm at but I'm sure they do exist. At my nieces middle school, where she just finished her 6th grade year, she told me that narcotics police come to the school 3 times a week, and at three different times of day they search every inch of every students belongings. She says they will flip through every page of every book, and check in every little pencil pocket. She says they are primarily searching for cocaine and "molly", which due to all these searches my niece knows all about these substances. Need I remind you these kids are ranging from 12-14 years old. Maybe I was just naïve, or perhaps just the times are changing, but didn't even learn fully about marijuana until 9th grade and beyond, especially for these other substances. Very startling to say the least, I can hardly wrap my mind around getting being involved with drugs at that age, let alone getting in such serious trouble as a felony drug offense. I guess their motive is an intimidation factor, to "scare them straight", but nothing justifies that sort of invasion, kids hate school as it is, and mandatory drug searches just increase the "prison" feel IMO
 
I can't imagine any parents would support this kind of thing if they were fully aware of what goes on. It's one thing if kids do something stupid and get caught red-handed, but it's totally another to put them through "bunk check" three times a week plus.
 
it takes two to tango.

Yes the government is overreaching and doing absolutely disgusting things all the time, but the government is not a supernatural entity, the government is compromised as humans. Even if the government is highly corrupted, it takes normal people like you and me to be the cops that do the disgusting work, nobody is forcing them to be undercover agents for this type of stuff.
 
ymer said:
it takes two to tango.

Yes the government is overreaching and doing absolutely disgusting things all the time, but the government is not a supernatural entity, the government is compromised as humans. Even if the government is highly corrupted, it takes normal people like you and me to be the cops that do the disgusting work, nobody is forcing them to be undercover agents for this type of stuff.
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While undoubtedly there are a few of what we might consider "normal" people in law enforcement, my experience is that that line of work tends to draw in (and endlessly promote) people with a number of personality traits that are generally seen as negative / harmful / dangerous in the general population.
 
furhenden said:
ymer said:
it takes two to tango.

Yes the government is overreaching and doing absolutely disgusting things all the time, but the government is not a supernatural entity, the government is compromised as humans. Even if the government is highly corrupted, it takes normal people like you and me to be the cops that do the disgusting work, nobody is forcing them to be undercover agents for this type of stuff.
Click to expand...


While undoubtedly there are a few of what we might consider "normal" people in law enforcement, my experience is that that line of work tends to draw in (and endlessly promote) people with a number of personality traits that are generally seen as negative / harmful / dangerous in the general population.
Click to expand...
Norm Stamper (a former Seattle Police chief-turned whistleblower, who wrote the excellent book 'Breaking Rank') estimated that 5% of any given police force were people drawn to the job because they were predators. That is, looking to use the power that comes with the badge to get sexual power over women.

Presumably, that number goes up if you don't restrict yourself for officers interested in specifically sexual assaults, but also include the broader spectrum of folks interested in holding power over other people.

I recommend his book to anyone interested in American Police Brutality and the role of the police in perpetuating systemic oppression.

Blessings
~ND
 
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