Entrapment - Police whores and stupid fundamentalists

[elucidator]

There are further oddities about all this that I am unable to resolve, the Google trail goes cold.

Item the first: if appears that this operation was not part of the regular police force, but a special School Police (as noted above, that their budget was up for review).

…The news of the busts comes as the district proposes to slash about $4 million from the school police department’s budget and eliminate 17 filled officer positions and 24 filled police aide positions…

Another article I saw suggested that this represented about 17% (?) of the school police budget. (Cant cite it, cant find it, take it for what its worth…)

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/schools/undercover-drug-operations-at-jupiter-royal-palm-and-1463644.html?sort=desc

(Aside: if you would like to have a better opinion of our pit posts, read the comments…)

So, these weren’t regular cops? Were they as fully trained and vetted as a regular cop, or were they like the “farm team” of guys hoping to make the grade?

Oddity the second: Mr LaBoy was clearly busted for probation violation, on this we can agree. But he was busted for selling drugs on school property, a crime which gets extra whoopity-do status since it so neatly aligns with Our Worst Fears

http://www.cbs12.com/articles/county-4737421-beach-palm.html

…A special state statute allows for enhanced charges on people that sell drugs near a school…

But it appears that Mr LaBoy got probation, not the lengthy jail sentence one might expect.

And another note

…Investigations are ongoing at those and other schools, Kelly said, without naming the others. Officers who were working undercover at Jupiter, Royal Palm Beach and Park Vista will continue to pose as students, although they might be moved to different schools. Operation D Minus is expected to continue through the next school year, he said…

Are they kidding? Move the same undercover operators to different schools after this? Might not someone suggest to whomsoever is planning this clusterfuck that the news has likely gotten out? High school kids may be hormone addled and deranged, but seriously? Even the totally legitimate “new kid in school” will be lucky if anyone even talks to them!

There’s a lot of fairly strange shit going on here, but there is no source for truth, the trail goes cold.

My speculation is that this was Amateur Night for Kiddy Cops. That the investigation was so poorly accomplished and so proceduraly unsound that the truly onerous charges were quietly dropped, and the miscreants hustled through The System, offered probation for guilty pleas, and the whole thing quickly shuffled aside. YMMV.

“Operation D-minus”. Aptly yclept.

[newcomer]

Talk about intelligent design, eh?

But he (the “terrorist”, op.a.) had to cancel that trip because the feds put him on a no-fly list. Ten days later an undercover agent convinced the teenager that it must have been God’s will.
…
When Mohamud apparently grew reluctant to die as a martyr, they changed the plan to one that would allow him to escape and travel the world instead. When he wound up broke and despondent about his summer job gone bust, they gave him $2,700 in cash so he could get his own apartment, isolated from roommates. Every time he backed off, the FBI reeled him back in.

So, this kid wants to pull out of FBI’s entrapment plan and go fishing in Alaska. What’s a natural next step? Well, put the kid on no-fly list and then convince him that it’s “meant to be”.

But, that’s not really astonishing.

This is:

“They had been watching him for a few years, and nothing happened,” said Atlanta criminal-defense attorney Meg Strickler, who isn’t involved in the case but has defended many clients in federal prosecutions. “Only when they pushed did he bite.”
But entrapment isn’t much of a lifeline for Mohamud, Strickler told The Daily Beast; not because it isn’t valid, but because of the politics involved.

Ah, well, the life goes on. His wont but yours will, eh? With little bit of anxiety but still.

Tricked Into Terrorism?

[septimus]

@Bricker

… And why should the kid’s story be taken as true? As the source story acknowledges about the interbiew of the undercover officer:

She doesn’t remember it quite the way Justin does though.

Since we’re in BBQ Pit, may I mention that Brickhead is a pretentious liar, who delights in twisting half-truths.

I know he’s the Board’s dandy right-wing “intellectual”, but that just shows that in the land of buffoons, a cynical lawyer can be king.

It’s easy to see why the Brick doesn’t link to his “source story”. He took that quote completely out of context:

Robbie Brown:
“I interviewed the undercover officer who played Naomi. She’s a 25-year-old new recruit with the Palm Beach School’s police force. She wouldn’t give me her real name, and only agreed to a phone interview if her supervising sergeant could listen in. She wouldn’t talk to me about any specific cases, or kids at the school, including Justin. But she did confirm that she was asked to prom. She doesn’t remember it quite the way Justin does though. Mainly, she says she didn’t say yes.”
Naomi:
“I told him I wasn’t going just because, since this is not where I spent the last three years of high school, I didn’t really want to go to the prom. And I had to pay for the ticket and everything else. I was like, no, it’s too much money for me. And he bought it.”

What a hypocritical lying jerk.

[Bricker]

@septimus

Since we’re in BBQ Pit, may I mention that Brickhead is a pretentious liar, who delights in twisting half-truths.

I know he’s the Board’s dandy right-wing “intellectual”, but that just shows that in the land of buffoons, a cynical lawyer can be king.

It’s easy to see why the Brick doesn’t link to his “source story”. He took that quote completely out of context:

What a hypocritical lying jerk.

I said she doesn’t remember it as Justin does. She says she doesn’t remember it as Justin does. The context I used that quote in was to criticize taking every inference in that story as gospel.

What, specifically, is wrong with that? What “context” did I ignore?

[septimus]

@Bricker

I said she doesn’t remember it as Justin does. She says she doesn’t remember it as Justin does. The context I used that quote in was to criticize taking every inference in that story as gospel.

What, specifically, is wrong with that? What “context” did I ignore?

“She doesn’t remember it quite the way Justin does though. Mainly, she says she didn’t say yes (to accepting the invitation to the prom).”

I don’t think you’re stupid. Nor do I think that you believe the quote (“doesn’t remember it quite the way”) which clearly applied just to the prom invitation specifically was represented in context by you. (She may have remembered other parts of the story different from Justin but that’s not what the source story claims.)

You are so pretentious with your half-truths. I didn’t bother to click in the “Bayesian” thread but the charges against you there are what we’ve seen from you over and over and over. You probably make millions of dollars a year bamboozling low-IQ jurors with your faulty reasoning and misapplied statistics. Congratulations!!

What irritated me most was when you bounced into my thread, defending your hero Karl Rove without even bothering to read the charges against him in OP. That’s so disrespectful, I doubt I will ever show you respect again. It’s as if you had written

[QUOTE=Brickhead]
I know nothing whatsoever about Karl Rove, but I’m sure he’s a hypocrite so I’m on his team. Why should I waste 10 seconds reading OP, when I can spend the ten seconds frothing at the bit and spouting right-wing gibberish?
[/QUOTE]

Bah!

[Bricker]

@septimus

“She doesn’t remember it quite the way Justin does though. Mainly, she says she didn’t say yes (to accepting the invitation to the prom).”

I don’t think you’re stupid. Nor do I think that you believe the quote (“doesn’t remember it quite the way”) which clearly applied just to the prom invitation specifically was represented in context by you. (She may have remembered other parts of the story different from Justin but that’s not what the source story claims.)

You are so pretentious with your half-truths. I didn’t bother to click in the “Bayesian” thread but the charges against you there are what we’ve seen from you over and over and over. You probably make millions of dollars a year bamboozling low-IQ jurors with your faulty reasoning and misapplied statistics. Congratulations!!

What irritated me most was when you bounced into my thread, defending your hero Karl Rove without even bothering to read the charges against him in OP. That’s so disrespectful, I doubt I will ever show you respect again. It’s as if you had written
Bah!

Look, I don’t know how often I can admit error in the Karl Rove instance. I did it several times in that thread, and I think in other threads, and because I was wrong, I’m happy to do it here too: I was absolutely completely, and totally wrong in that thread.

I should have more carefully read the cites. I didn’t. I argued against something that wasn’t the case. I made a very clear and very obvious mistake, for which I take full and complete responsibility.

However, that doesn’t make me an arsonist, child molester, tax cheat, or Scientologist. So I won’t apologize for any of those things.

Nor will I apologize for this thread. My point was clear: the writer accepted, without hesitation, the claims made by the accused, even though he admits that the undercover officer has a different recollection. he does not share details. He does say “mostly” she says she didn’t say yes about the prom, true, but at the very least, there was some other area of factual disagreement. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be “mostly” but “her ONLY disagreement was about the prom.”

[Clothahump]

@Frank

Instead they strung him along, abetted him, and waited until they could make a great deal of publicity out of it. Typical FBI.

That would string him along, watch him closely and try to roll up anyone else involved when the arrest is made. And that is typical police work at any level - try to catch as many bad guys as you can at one shot.

[VinylTurnip]

@Clothahump

That would string him along, watch him closely and try to roll up anyone else involved when the arrest is made. And that is typical police work at any level - try to catch as many bad guys as you can at one shot.

This seems like good policy, provided you accept a common fiction: that there are in this world such things as “good guys” and such things as “bad guys,” that they’re all born that way, and that one will never, ever (even with relentless prodding or abuse) become the other.

[elucidator]

Maybe. If I have any chance at Heaven, it won’t be for being good, but for not being as utterly rotten as my natural inclinations.

I’m sure you can relate, Vinny, thinking about how many times you were inspired to an utterly wretched pun, and turned it aside with stern fortitude. At least twice by now, right?

[VinylTurnip]

You have no idea.

[Rhythmdvl]

@Bricker

However, that doesn’t make me an arsonist, child molester, tax cheat, or Scientologist. So I won’t apologize for any of those things.

I noticed you didn’t say you’ve stopped beating your wife. :dubious:

[aldiboronti]

There’'s not enough crime around that the police actually have to go out and create it? Wouldn’t they be better employed solving crimes that they didn’t help to instigate?

But of course this is the joy of such operations. By creating the crime there is no question but that they will catch the criminal. Looks great on the record.

[BigAppleBucky]

13 Years in Prison for $146 Forgery Is Justice?

The prison-industrial complex grinds on.

[SteveG1]

@Little_Nemo

Exactly, if everything the student is saying is true then the case will be thrown out of court. Police sting operations have to show that the defendant had a disposition to commit the type of crime that pre-existed the police contact.

I have a very VERY dim view of entrapment and 'agent provocateur" tactics.

However, in the Sixtes “we” had a very good policy whoch is still good advice…

*Do NOT buy your shit from someone you don’t know. You can’t be entrapped unless you let it happen. *

It might be fun to report the “provocateur” to some other uninvolved cops

[newcomer]

Keep 'em coming…

@Article

Five people described as anarchists were arrested Monday in a Cleveland-area park for allegedly trying to blow up a bridge, sources tell Fox News.
…

According to the complaint, the suspects initially planned to use smoke grenades to distract law enforcement so that they could topple financial institution signs atop high-rise buildings in Cleveland. However, the plot later called for C-4 explosives contained in two improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, to be placed and remotely detonated, according to authorities.

I wonder “who” suggested C4 would suit the purpose much better.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/01/5-arrested-for-allegedly-trying-to-blow-up-ohio-bridge/

Ah, well… the answer is blowing in the winds of Google:

@Another article

The members of this group had a strong desire to commit acts of violence but no idea how to do it. At one point, a member of the group says what they needed was “mainly bleach,” because, he said, that’s what land mines and hand grenades were made with during World War II.
…
The informant brought in two people he said could help them get explosives. These people were actually FBI undercover agents.

Smooth.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/01/11485641-5-anarchists-nabbed-in-plot-to-blow-up-ohio-bridge?lite

[newcomer]

More - U.S. teen arrested in Chicago car bomb plot | CBC News

Best part

The affidavit said the Daoud was active in jihadist Internet forums

[gamerunknown]

@Bricker

I am instead prepared to accept society’s extant judgment

@Bricker

a poll, perhaps

Asked and answered. I say that as a believer in direct democracy: I have an unfounded eternal optimism in the electorate, on the assumption that they can not perform any worse in the aggregate than the current Congress of the US (and the populace’s special interests and lobbyists happen to be everyone’s special interests and lobbyists, at least in principle).

@Bricker

so-called “victimless” crimes

Care to expand on this?

[Bricker]

@gamerunknown

Asked and answered. I say that as a believer in direct democracy: I have an unfounded eternal optimism in the electorate, on the assumption that they can not perform any worse in the aggregate than the current Congress of the US (and the populace’s special interests and lobbyists happen to be everyone’s special interests and lobbyists, at least in principle).

Care to expand on this?

This is a thread spanning back more than six months, and for some reason you have chosen to quote my words without the links that would allow me to go back to that post.

So, no. I have no recollection of what I was saying with that phrase.

[kaylasdad99]

@Bricker

This is a thread spanning back more than six months, and for some reason you have chosen to quote my words without the links that would allow me to go back to that post.

So, no. I have no recollection of what I was saying with that phrase.

i agree that in this age of “quotes that give one the ability to direct back to the referenced post,” that’s kind of a dick move. Still, perhaps I can assist.

The post with the “extant judgement” phrase.

The post with the “so-called ‘victimless’ crimes” phrase.

My apologies if you find that my action here has been the opposite of “assistance.”

[Bouncer]

@elucidator

I have little doubt that somewhere there are men plotting against us all. But the FBI has no idea who they are, where they are, or what they are doing.

I will bet you one nickel that after the fact, there will have been tangential information that would’ve led to discovery of the real plot, had they not been so focused on their own made up plot-designed-to-justify-the-budget.

Like say, the owner of a flight school calling in to the FBI about some suspicious dudes wanting to learn how to fly 757’s.

Only next time it’ll be a maritime school and liquid natural gas carriers. Or a truck driving school and how to handle chemical trucks. Something minor, like that.

Regards,
-Bouncer-