I just heard that the Dallas PD narc squad and the DA's office is going to be under investigation for at least 59 drug arrests.  There's strong evidence that all the busts are bogus set-ups, involved [i]powdered drywall[/i] posing as narcotics, and the DA pushed plea bargains on people knowing they were innocent.  The FBI are now involved.

This pretty much sucks!  

[url]http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/stories/drugbusts_26met.ART0.66855.html[/url]

Ron Kirk

Who?

Here in Oklahoma City there was a minor problem with the lab.  Seems as if the evidence was somehow altered to often support the prosecution.

Same deal with the FBI crime Lab although that deal was hushed quickly.

Same lab problems in West Virginia.
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Anyone detect a trend ????????????
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About a year ago I changed my long-held belief in the death penalty.
I no longer know who is guilty and who has been set-up.
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How many rapist are being released when old evidence is checked for DNA matches ?  (And the DNA does not match.) Too many.

How many innocent are still in jail because the evidence was discarded or is now 'lost'?

Too damn many.
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I'm going to spare everyone my rant on "Grand Juries."

[puke]

I can be a ruthless S.O.B. but find the thought of executing an innocent man extremely repulsive.  The stuff of nightmares.  A sentence of "forever" is reversable.  Death is not.  With the current appeals process that drags on for 20 years or more - we are still not sure we got the right vermin sometimes - and it winds up more expensive than just keeping them locked up.  Certainly some heavy questions to ponder here.

As to the original topic, the entire drug war is a failure and causes more harm through the corruption of our entire legal system than ANY harm the dope could do!!!!!  And that is before we consider the damage to our liberties!!!

M. Mouse,
for probably the tenth time in the last six months I will use this opportunity to state:

I know of no country - not the former Soviet Union - not Nazi Germany - not the United States - NO country that has ever stopped a black market.  EVER !!

Prohibition funded both the Mafia and the Kennedy's.

It's all just bulllschitttt.

Yup, that's right.  Black market = free market.

There's not a damn thing you can do about it and every time anyone tries they end up with terrible corruption and injustices.  Just like we have now.  Funny that the FBI is investigating. Their track record is, well, spotty.  Anyone catch 60 Minutes last night?  I hope they really do rename the FBI building because Hoover was a creep.

Whoa, you guys seem pretty far off base from what I have read.

Apparently, Dallas PD, in string of buys from several folks, PAID large sums of money for drugs that turned out to be drywall, or at least not really drugs. So they got burned. So what? BTW, it is still illegal to sell "fake" drugs in Texas if they were holding forth that the stuff was real, and there is nothing wrong with prosecuting the folks who tried to sell the stuff. Heck they'd probably have to prosecute if they wanted to get their buy money back. There is no grand conspiracy here.

It is also common for police reverse sales stings to not involve real drugs either, for liability reasons (think O.D.). What if the bad guy gets away? Oops. I wouldn't want to write the report explaining how I let contraband out onto the streets.

Ron Kirk

In Illinois, I think the number stands at 13, for the moment, of men who have walked off of death row after being proven innocent. Some of them spent 10 or more years waiting to be executed.
All in the last 4 or 5 years.

Well, that's clear!  And Kenny Hahn to you!

From someone who's sitting pretty close to ground zero and been watching this fiasco envelop the bungling Dallas Police Department a few facts seem in order.

DPD has serious internal problems.  The Chief is an embarrassment to the community.  Has cost the city $14million in lost lawsuits from unjustly and racially demoted senior command staff.  This incident is just another bump in his road.  From officers killing themselves and citizens with stupid driving techniques to shooting wrong parties the whole department has been out of control for years.

This particular incident revolves around one "confidential informant" who pocketed $200thousand last year from some of the worst excuses for police work imaginable.  Cases made where there was no wire, film or direct observation of alleged "deals" to massive amounts of false evidence to tens of thousands of dollars of buy money "lost or unaccounted for".  Not to mention the racial aspect that ALL the parties charges are Hispanic.

So what does the Chief do when the sh!t hits the fan in the local press?  Call the FBI to investigate a corrupt department?  No, he called the DEA to do an Audit of Procedures.  Kind'a like after the bank's been robbed calling the florist to rearrange the flowers in the lobby.

Finally the local DA has to request FBI investigation since the Chief has this little problem.  Seems the Chief got caught snitching on a FBI sting of some more corrupt DPD officers selling stolen goods.  So there's not a lot of good blood between DPD and the Feds.

Bunch of bad actors need to go down for this job.  But it will take a lot more than that to begin the cleanup of DPD.

Actually, the people who got charged and jailed, and in one case, deported, all claim that they had nothing to do with drugs, period.  Considering the circumstances, it is quite likely that they are telling the truth.  

As far as selling fake drugs goes:
1) Real drug dealers who buy large quantities of drugs have no compunction about sampling the goods then and there.  Anybody about to palm off fake drugs would be aware of this type of Quality Assurance program.  In one case, the transaction involved 60 kilos of cocaine.
2) The black market in narcotics is not kind and gentle, and takes a dim view of people selling fake merchandise.  Methinks their careers would be short, one way or the other.  There is no way that 59 people were selling fake drugs.

As far as the Hispanic angle goes, nobody knows (yet) if that was a factor or not.  Maybe the informant had something against Hispanics, or maybe he just thought that they would make the best victims, considering some of them didn't speak good English.  Ironically, the police officers who handled the informant have Hispanic surnames themselves.  Nothing like doing a service to your community!

This whole affair just makes me so disgusted with the war on drugs and what it has become.

Ron Kirk is the mayor of Dallas.  I don't live there, so that's all I know about him.

Actually Ron Kirk recently stepped down as mayor in order to run for a seat in the US senate. Ron Kirk also happens to be black, and when he chose someone as the new police chief for Dallas, out of all of the qualified applicants he chose to hire a sargent with hardly any qualifications named Terrell Bolton who also happens to be black. (I have no problem with black people, but this appointment was obviously racially motivated)

Since Chief Bolton has taken command the Dallas PD has been plagued with problems and incidents.

I just did a quick search to find out what year he took over and I thought it was 2000, but it was 1999. I also found an interesting site you might want to visit to read couple of incidents about Chief Bolton. [url]www.chiefbolton.com[/url]

Anybody stop to think that there may have been actual cocaine seized during the drug busts, but it was later switched out from the evidence room with powdered drywall?

That would explain the extremely high standard of living that some of the local PD enjoys.

Ya'know Bud when I cross the lake and pass a big new Lexus and the driver is wearing DPD blue I do sometimes wonder.

Did'ya see the headlines in the Morning Snooze today?  DA is dismissing another load of cases.  I mean just saying go away and get lost we don't want to see or hear from you.  If there are laws on the books about dealing fake drugs then you have to suspect DPD is more than just a little dirty.  I mean they're basically opening the jailhouse doors over these fake drug cases.  The cops and DA would do their usual overcharging song and dance unless they know a bunch of them would go down too because of it.

Per the Dallas County HCAD:

*************************************
Tax Year: 2001 Tax Agent: n/a -
Total Improvement Value: $330,480.00
Total Land Value: $206,400.00
2001 Total Market Value $536,880.00

OWNERSHIP DATA

Owner Name: KIRK RONALD & MATRICE E
Address:
Street: 6342 MERCEDES AVE
City: DALLAS State: TX Zip: 752143006

____________________________________________
Tax Year: 2001 Tax Agent: n/a -
Total Improvement Value: $204,950.00
Total Land Value: $24,000.00
2001 Total Market Value $228,950.00

OWNERSHIP DATA

Owner Name: BOLTON TERRELL D &
Address: GLENDA D
Street: 5141 WHISPERING OAKS DR
City: DALLAS State: TX Zip: 752361739
*******************************************

Yep, Ron Kirk and Terrell Bolton are both doing pretty well for "public servants."

[:(!]

When you look at these numbers realize this is Dallas not San Fran.  A half-million dollar McMansion here is a NICE place.

So Kirk lives in the "M" streets...hmmm.  Where's Whispering Oaks?  East Dallas too?  Not too shabby for a guy who was sargeant a couple years ago.

Please, perhaps Mr. Kirk is simply frugal !

The former Chief of Police in Mexico City lived in something like a 30,000 square foot house and had about 100 people working in house or on the grounds.

And he managed all this on his $10,000/year salary !

Pony B.,
in this case I'd bet race had little or nothing to do with the successor selection.

I figure Kirk promoted the person most likely to give his worthless a** the most cover and that person happened to be black.

The "Kirk's" of this world tend to limit their loyalty to themselves.

You can bet your ass had it been a white mayor who passed over more qualified blacks to hire a white sargent it would be a race issue.

Equal opprotunity is a two way street......

Cops in trouble? There's a surprise.

And in Texas, no less!

Try not to think of Dallas and Texas in the same thought.  Dallas is an eastern city more like Atlanta or Detroit than San Antonio or Houston.  Same kind of problems too.

It's said Dallas is where the East ends and Fort Worth is where the West begins and that's pretty true.

No bet.

Dallas is undoubtedly the sphincter hole of texas political "ass"pirations.  can you imagine what will happen if kirk makes the senate! maybe he will propose the legislation to make a golden highway from california to new york that never gets built but sees billions of taxpayers dollars into his fat little wallet. i cannot think of a dallas politician that the mere mention of their name doesnt make me want to gag. john "wiley" price, "whora" miller, terrell "boltin' for tha door", et al are politicains in the finest regard.  even those like miller are so far removed from the "little people" they procalaim to represent that it is laughable.  and dont even get me started about dallas's "minority" representation!  the true crime in dallas is what has been passed off as "minority" representation.  just because the necks under the white collar criminal are brown, does it really help the image of blacks and hispanics? speaking of which, the topic of this thread regarding these phony drug busts is laughable to the point of making me consider a job in the "confidential informant" arena.  this informant (who likely gives out kickbacks from his "salary" to the DPD who in turn planted the evil "gypsum") clearly picked the least likely schmucks to defend themselves in a court of law.  most of these people were not "hispanic", "latino", "chicano" whatever.  the were frickin' mexican nationals!  they know no english, most work labor intensive jobs in workshops etc. and look like they are struggling to out food on the table while the "informant" is zipping past me on Central Expressway in his Escalade with four harry hines hookers in the back and a full DPD motorcycle escort up to his phat crib in plano.
its a damn good thing that all the highland parkies have allready made their millions of the backs of the poor because at least there is one safe haven in dallas from political chicanery???

Am I reading this right? A sergeant?
That would be like promoting a military sergeant to General.

As you can probably tell, I don't care much for Ron Kirk. Anyways, the funniest thing I've seen happen in a while was during his resignation speech. A bunch of the stations were going to show it because he is making a run for the senate, but at the same time there was a stolen 18 wheeler chase going on. The truck had caught on fire and was running down the highway slinging burning pieces of 'stuff' all over the place, all while dragging a forklift behind it. Here he is giving his little speech and all anybody wants to see with this flaming 18-wheeler.

I hope that days media disaster is only a hint of the things to come......

Now the Dallas PD is into busting every dry-waller they can find it's only a matter of time before they go after roofers.  Gettin' high all the time...

That'd be for all that "black tar" heroin! LOL!


It's reassuring to know that there's no shortage of asshole politicians in every state... oops, am I repeating myself?

[:)]

Naw, you're just being repetitively redundant and when addressing "asshole politicians" that is permissible.  (Source:  Hoyle's Book of Grams)

[:D]

Good one [;D]