Posted on 07/25/2008 8:49:03 PM PDT by bamahead
After being caught twice with a "baggie" of marijuana, 23-year old Rachel Hoffman was reportedly told by police in Tallahassee, Florida that she would go to prison for four years unless she became an undercover informant.
The young woman, a recent graduate of Florida State University, was murdered during a botched sting operation two months ago.
"The idea of waging a war on drugs is to protect people and here it seems like we're putting people in harm's way," said Lance Block, a lawyer hired by Rachel's parents.
The Florida Attorney General's office says it is reviewing the procedures and protocol of the Tallahassee police.
"I'm calling her a criminal," Tallahassee police chief Dennis Jones told 20/20, who maintains that both drug dealers and drug users are considered criminals to his department.
Under Florida law, possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana is a felony.
The Tallahassee police chief says Rachel was suspected of selling drugs and she was rightly treated as a criminal.
"That's my job as a police chief to find these criminals in our community and take them off the street, to make the proper arrests," Jones told 20/20.
Rachel's case also is raising questions about how police recruit and use informants in undercover operations.
"There need to be some safeguards here," said Block, the Hoffman family lawyer.
The young woman received no training before being sent to an undercover meeting to buy a large amount of drugs and a handgun from two suspects.
Police says Rachel was killed by the very handgun she was supposed to buy.
"I don't think she understood the risk or danger that she was in," said Block.
Rachel was in a drug court diversion program when she became an informant.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Baby boomers are over 40, a protected class, you can’t not hire them for that, its discrimination, and age discrimination will cost a business plenty.
I beg to differ Limey. Cut off for baby boomerdom is 1964. I was born in 1965.
So if they busted your 22 year old daughter for pot, it's OK with you if some 290 pound hogjawed AH sits her in a room and threatens her 2 years in the joint, or go out and make dope and gun buys for us, while unarmed and untrained...
This is OK with you?
Re-read my last post to you. No sense retyping something if you're not going to address it.
If you call me a Limey based on my screen name, then you must be a flatulent canine.
Nothing personal. One of my best friends name is Nigel...;-)
I said doing drugs (even marijuana) has negative consequences. If she had not been busted in possession of marijuana a second time, would she still be alive? I guess, in her case at least, that mj was inherently gangerous.
She died in the execution of a sting she was coerced into.
...to avoid four years in prison.
I would bet that Ms Hoffman did not have to deal with people that used guns in her dealings of little bags of pot. If the police knowingly sent her in to buy guns, they should be prosecuted for manslaughter, as Ms Hoffman was a drug dealer not a gun dealer.
For the record, not a Brit.
Redcoats means something else to me, its a mascot name.
Sounds to me like you're not very good at hiring.
Why stop at only the drugs you like? Opium is made by God too, so you say that everything that’s natural is good. Clearly that should be legalized on the same grounds right?
Or are you a hypocrite?
All 50 of them?
BS.
“Sounds to me like you’re not very good at hiring.”
In construction uou don’t intervieww the grunts before hiring.
“How did you catch them? On the job?”
yes.
Let me get this straight, so in your business, over a period of time, you walked up and found over 50 people smoking pot?
Is that right?
So sorry. The screen name and use of the term “at university” in a previous post kind of clued me in. Where are you from?
Singapore pretty much does that, and has very little drug problems. I’d go on their model. The pothead hippies on here are ridiculous with their ‘it doesn’t affect anyone negatively’ nonsense.
It’s not hard when you are talking about 5-600 people a year.
Opium must be processed.
Pot grows wild.
BTW, Opium is used for pharmaceuticals, Morphine helps millions.
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