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 ...
|
“I’m calling her a criminal,”
-read “We need criminals to do our job for us”
Nice admission chief.
Also, shouldn’t the F-troop have been handling a gun buy?
I’m tired of the fight and what it has done to our liberties. Legalize it all. Set up “bars” for using it, all of it. Maybe mandate that car keys must be surrendered and cab fare paid upon entry. Make it cheap, tax the he!! out of it, and let the scumbags use it. Even at 100% tax, it will be cheap compared to illicit prices.
I don’t touch any illegal substance, but I know where to get anything you could name. Any aware person does in any major city. The “War on Drugs” is a failure. We need to deal with it.
Will some abuse? Sure, but they do now. The “law” doesn’t stop anyone (see above).
Will more OD? Yup. It’s called chlorine in the gene pool, something we desperately need as a society.
Evidently, messing with the police is what was dangerous.
She wouldn’t have died if the cops hadn’t been negligent.
Uh huh. She never would have had anything bad happen to her while she was dealing dope out of the drug house she was running.
Mandatory prison time @ hard labor for using it!! (Pot)
///////////////////
Well look who’s here: it’s JOE STALIN!
Hey Uncle Joe, I bet we’d all have a laugh if we knew some of YOUR secrets that make you pant, hey?
Oh right, the guy on this thread who caught 50 people over a period of time smoking dope, didn’t hire illegals, they were all foreigners. Probably Swedes and Canadians.
Anyone with a Commercial Drivers Lisence(who actually drives for a company) has to be tested on a yearly basis and are subject to random testing in Texas. Everyone else is subject to pre-employment. It doesn’t solve the problem. One driver passed his pre-employment and then quit one morning 3 months later because his name had been pulled for a test that afternoon when he finished his route.
No, WE bad a bad choice for giving a young woman four years unless she did something she wasn’t trained to do, and having pot a criminal offense in the first damn place.
They’ll be paying her family a load of money.
21. God alcohol is legal and so are cigarettes!
You don’t know that.
Fact is, she is dead, and its the cops fault.
I asked myself the same question.
lol
She was dealing drugs long before she was arrested. In fact, that's what she was arrested for.
Well, the generation that never tried pot and never discovered for themselves that all the propaganda was a lie is dying out. Like the dinosaurs, they will go away, and the laws will change.
Just using alcohol as an example. It is legal and used for recreation and abused on a regular basis. The majority of people who drink don’t drink to buzz. They drink to get drunk.
My old church’s Youth Director used to have a saying. “What one generation tolerates, the next will embrace.”
That is because pot isn’t addictive.
Yeah, and she is dead because of the cops screwing up.
They will pay.
Well pot screws your decision making capacity so you decide being an agent provocateur for the filth is a good choice.
Yep that's it. Pot to Blame!
I know this is a joke a “professional”. ROTFLMAO
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.