Texas Town's Police Dept. Shut Down

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060304/ap_on_re_us/chief_arrested

TROUP, Texas - The police chief and a sergeant in this eastern Texas town were arrested on drug and evidence tampering charges and the department shut down.

Police Chief Chester Kennedy was charged Friday with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. He was released from jail on a $400,000 bond.

Sgt. Mark Turner, last year's chamber of commerce Officer of the Year, was booked into Smith County Jail late Thursday on a misdemeanor delivery of marijuana charge and a third-degree felony charge of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

Turner was being held on bonds totaling $500,000.

The department's equipment was seized by officers from other law-enforcement agencies.

[Demeter]

1. Now THAT'S What I CAll Fighting Crime!

Somewhere in Texas, the wind has shifted....

Let's hope it blows the bastards all out to sea.

[TomInTib]

15. Which bastards ? n/t

[lakeguy]

2. this is some pretty scary shit......

FABRICATING evidence? you got no alibi in this part of TX and you just might wind up guilty until proven innocent.

how is it that these crooks are always getting awards and medals?

[TAPat]

3. Some friends of mine

were sent up on trumped up (planted) drug charges in Rockwall, Texas a number of years ago.
It cost them over $30,000 in legal fees, etc. to get it cleared up.
They felt sure they were pulled over in the first place because they had a rainbow flag bumper sticker.

[Ezlivin]

10. Appearance is everything

I live in the "drug bust capital" of Texas (or so it seems). Every week the local paper lists all the people busted for "failure to signal lane change". The local cops pull over any car that looks like it "doesn't fit in" and ask the same question: You don't mind if I look in your vehicle, do you?

It works every time. And the results speak for themselves.

The only reason they don't hassle with me? I drive a plain minivan, no stickers, have short, neat hair and say "Yes sir" and "No sir". My next door neighbor is a police officer and works on the drug task force. I am surrounded, yet without trouble.

It sucks to say this, but you have to dress "straight" and drive a plain (unadorned with political stickers) car or truck to avoid being hassled.

I say this from experience, having had long hair, bumper stickers and too many roadside encounters with inquisitive police officers trolling for something.

As Rummy might say: Do I wish it was different? Yep.

[tenshi816]

11. "failure to signal lane change"

Boy, I know that one all too well. Even now, years since I've been pulled over for a ridiculous reason like that, I'm still obsessive about signalling even when there's not another car in sight anywhere.

[Ezlivin]

12. Ha ha! Me too. I'll signal at the end of my street and it's a dead end

Must be my military training or something, but my hand instinctively flicks that lever when I make a lane change or turn. I've caught myself flicking it on at 2:00 am on a deserted road.

[tenshi816]

14. Funny you say that...

I got pulled over in the wee small hours when I was about 19 because I didn't stop all the way at a 4-way stop sign. There wasn't another car anywhere around me, but next thing I knew I was being pulled over for running a stop sign. At 2 a.m. In Georgia.

Weirdest thing was, after the cop searched my car - which he of course had no right to do, but no way was I going to argue it with him - and written me a ticket for running the stop sign, he actually had the nerve to ask for my phone number so he could call me for a date sometime.



Edited to add: Later on, when I was taking driving lessons in England to prepare for the very difficult UK driving test, my instructor used to chastise me for obsessive signalling. He said that if no one was behind me, I didn't need to signal. Didn't make any difference, I still do it.

[WhiteTara]

20. sounds like a nightmare

glad they got out, but of course, no one ever paid them back for their misery, right? Why don't people file wrongful arrest suits right and left over these kinds of incidents? BTW Welcome to DUTAPat :hi:

[boobooday]

4. The drug war has corrupted many a law enforcement official

Talk about temptation . . . poorly paid, often poorly treated cops busting people carrying wads of cash and drugs with enormous street value?

We'd have to be hiring an all-Saints police force to avoid the inevitable on that one.

[Coyote_Bandit]

5. Somebody I know

spent 6 hours on the roadside in Texas waiting for a drug dog a few years back. He was pulled over on what he insists was a trumped up traffic charge (failure to signal a lane change). Cop ticketed him and asked to search for drugs. He refused consent and had to stand outside and wait for the drug dog. About 2 weeks later the same cop was arrested for planting drug evidence.

[LostinVA]

6. Gosh, wasn't Tulia in Texas? Why, yes it was!

[acmavm]

7. Seems like most of these set ups occur in Texas or California. Don't

forget, California cops are regularly getting busted for this shit to. Just this week as a matter of fact.

[LostinVA]

8. Yup, I saw that

[B3Nut]

9. Just more reason to stay out of those states.

I think an organized tourism boycott would be a great idea, myself. Hit the lying bastiches in the pocketbook. That sort of behavior on the part of "police" officers and "judges" defeats the whole purpose of even having a law enforcement agency and a justice system...they need to all be nailed to the wall for the violations of their oaths and breaches of the public trust.

But I've said before...unless you're a rich, white, Republican male, there is little hope of getting true justice in America.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[havocmom]

16. Decided back in 84 to avoid Texas for the rest of my life.

Grandma died and sis & I drove back to St. Joe from AZ. Left after work and drove straight through. Put is in Texas before dawn.

Miles and miles of miles and miles. Every so often, a sign stating that traffic was patrolled and laws enforced by unmarked cars. Told my throttle jockey sister I would drive as she was notorious for her lead foot. I am religious about turn signals too. I wanted to drive so there would be less likelihood of being pulled over on desolate stretches of road by an unmarked car. Hell, they would have had to shoot to kill to make me stop on those stretches of highway if they were in unmarked cars at that hour!

Don't know if Texas still uses unmarked cars, and won't go to find out. Any place that 'enforces traffic laws' with unmarked vehicles is disregarding the safety of women at best and making excuses to abuse people at worst.

Don't mess with Texas, indeed. Lots of lovely people there I would enjoy visiting, but not until they rein in the good ol boys riding the highways and thinking they ARE the law.

[kineneb]

17. depends on where in CA

Coastal areas are pretty cool, and the rural counties are so poor they don't have enough staff to hassle drivers; they are more interested in busting meth labs. The CHP is pretty straight; they care more about moving violations. I would watch out for the local cops/sherriffs dept.s in the Sacramento/San Joaquin valleys, since those are more "red" areas.

[OnyxCollie]

13. Having seen COPS more than a few times,

if you are pulled over for some moving violation, are handed a ticket, and then asked by the friendly, curious police officer if you would consent to a search of your vehicle, JUST SAY NO! After you receive your ticket for your moving violation, you should be free to go.

[High Plains]

18. Drug war corruption is EVERYWHERE

It ain't limited to redneck Texas towns.

[High Plains]

19. Never waive your rights. NEVER.

If the cop is asking for permission to search (even if it sounds like a command), it's because he doesn't have the right to search. Just say no to warrantless searches.

There is a nice instructive DVD available from Flex Your Rights (www.flexyourrights.com)

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. There are some ways in which your Law and Order is superior

to ours in the UK, but generally, in terms of law enforcement, you have a very sick country: police, courts and prison system. The inevitably diseased fruit of your military-indistrial complex, I suppose.

Some of your posts, here, have an improbably nightmarish quality to European minds, yet compared to the experiences of some of the African-American guests (film and TV actors, I believe) on the Oprah Winfrey show...., e.g. as perpetrated by a particularly vicious, indeed satanic, low-life excuse for an air-hostess in one case, and a very large bullying lout and the judge who condemned his victim to imprisonment, though the victim who killed his assailant had been badly injured and fighting for his life. He was the father of one of Oprah's guests, an insurance salesman and a family man. You can imagine how his young family suffered, when deprived of the bread-winner.

[genieroze]

23. I got that video, I made my kids watch it.

[0007]

24. Never never no mater how inconvenient it may be at the time.;

[bmbmd]

22. Well, to be fair, the Troup police did solve the mystery of the

Murderous Methodist-

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/killer_clergy2/7.html