Michael Keeley and his wife are legitimately confused. Police in Georgia arrested three men in their rental property in October after finding meth inside their car. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security and Clayton police then searched the rental property for additional drugs and evidence. According to the Keeley’s, they did not look hard enough. When Keeley and his wife and 9-year-old child went to the home that day to clean it for the next tenant, they found eight bags of narcotics hidden behind the walls. They called police which came right over . . . and arrested the couple in front of their nine-year-old child. They say it was the local Clayton police who were abusive — grabbing their phone and yelling at them. They told Keeley to stop lying and that they knew no one broke into the home. It is not clear why Keeley would call to report his own drugs.
They say that police further stated that they were going to send their 9-year-old to the Department of Family and Children Services. Fortunately, a neighbor came forward to take the boy. They spent two days in jail before securing their release but prosecutors and police have not dropped charges. They are still facing a court date on the criminal charges. ICE publicly stated that they did not charge the couple with any federal offense.
If the underlying facts are true, it is difficult to see the basis for the arrest or how any remotely competent prosecutor would not step in to end the injustice. Moreover, there is no indication that the police officers have been reviewed for their actions in this case for possible discipline. Chief of Police Gregory Porter (right) remains silent on the case.
Source: WSVTV
Applicant for job of police officer in that town must require IQ lower than age
>”remotely competent”< That is the oprative phrase. In Georgia? I doubt it very seriously.
can’t seize the property if you rent. arrest the property owners and forfeiture follows. wars on drugs cost money.
In the end, this appears to be a case of bad police work, regardless of who conducted the initial search. Although I did read of an incident a couple of years ago in which an individual (probably here in Florida), called 911 to report the theft of his marijuana, it should have been clear in this instance that whatever was found had been left by the tenants. There will not be a prosecution, but there may well be a false arrest suit.
So quiet it is here. No one willing to ask the obvious followup questions? Who covers up this? Many, or course, but how high up. Why is the press silent as usual. Why are ACLU, etc silent? WTF are we going to do about it?
Turning USA into a police state is quite a profitable growth industry. And thus for prison profiteering too.
I’m confused.
From above, “Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security and Clayton police then searched the rental property for additional drugs and evidence.”
The link doesn’t say who actually did the search, just authorities.
If all three groups searched and none of them found the drugs, are all three groups incompetent? Did they all assume that the others looked in the overlooked space? How did the holes get in the walls where the drugs were found by the house owners? Did one or another of the three groups plant the drugs?
Here’s the Times-Pic article link.
“If the underlying facts are true, it is difficult to see the basis for the arrest or how any remotely competent prosecutor would not step in to end the injustice.”
With respect Professor, it’s not a matter of competence. It’s a matter of money.
As I mentioned previously in commenting on your post on the pretextual jailing of students, local governments and law enforcement make big bucks off by warehousing non-violent ‘offenders’ in for-profit prisons.
An <a href="http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/louisiana_is_the_worlds_prison.html"expose by the Times-Picayune explains how the system works in Louisiana, and is also applicable to the for-profit prison system in Georgia.
In states with for profit prison systems, like Georgia, local officials are heavily incentivized to keep the flow of prisoners coming, with the underlying facts of the case of little if any interest to officials wholly invested in viewing successful prosecutions in terms of dollar signs.
In cases where the incarcerated are illegal immigrants, there are also increased incentives because of the additional Federal money available.
My guess about the case above is that the local boys were upset about being ICE’d out of the profitable collar, so they have decided to prosecute the landlords to make up for some of the lost cash.
Of course, all this is despicable and immoral, but this is the ‘justice’ system many states operate under, and we will not be able to change that system until we stop assuming assume the cause of these injustices is mere law enforcement incompetence, rather than venal profiteering.
From reading the story, it seems like it was ICE that searched the house and failed to find the drugs while it was local police, not the feds, who arrested them. So, the idea that the police are retaliating because the couple showed their incompetent search is not correct. I’m going with sheer incompetence and the corrupting influence of the war on drugs as my explanation for this police screw up.
Also from the story, “I feel that we were violated because we put our trust in you [police] to protect us and you turned it against us,” Keeley [the husband] told Channel 2, adding he will be “forever reluctant to pick up the phone and dial the police again.”
When I was a child, I was taught that the police were my friend. I constantly preach to my children that if they’re ever questioned by the cops to immediately ask for a lawyer and not to be questioned. Police have no one to blame but themselves for the growing lack of public faith in them.
Good Lord.
A little OT:
“2 Chicago cops say blowing whistle led to retaliation”
“Officers allege in federal lawsuit that they were penalized for going to the FBI”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-cop-corruption-whistleblower-suit-20121102,0,6731887.story
“The two veteran Chicago police officers were sent to the Ida B. Wells public housing complex to work undercover and catch drug dealers. But what Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria found was nothing their bosses wanted to know about, the officers allege in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court.
The two officers, according to the lawsuit, discovered that colleagues on the police force were shaking down drug dealers and framing innocent people. But when they told their supervisors, they were told to “disregard” the wrongdoing. And when, as a last resort, they went to the FBI with their claims, high-ranking police officials labeled them “rats” and retaliated against them by putting them in do-nothing jobs.
“This is what will happen to you if you go against sworn personnel,” Spalding said in an interview at her lawyers’ office. “If you don’t want a code of silence, you don’t treat officers like this. … It’s cost us everything. My career is over. … Nobody wants to work with me anymore.”
“I almost feel punished for doing the right thing,” Echeverria added.”
It’s hell trying to sell a house where meth has been cooked. That shit is poison and the house is literally a toxic waste site.
Seems the police are embarrassed that they were proven to be incompetent
“If the underlying facts are true, it is difficult to see the basis for the arrest or how any remotely competent prosecutor would not step in to end the injustice.”
The key word there – like it is an analysis of the police’s actions – is “competence”. Specifically the lack thereof. Hopefully competence and adult supervision will be had in the form of a judge who will dismiss the with prejudice and a nice big subsequent civil suit against the overreaching police and prosecutors.
Just learned a new lesson.
Don’t ever suggest that the police were negligent in their duties (ie searching the house for drugs in this case). Retribution guaranteed.
The worst is that if the owners had not searched, the police would have done a re-newed search, found the drugs where they had left them imtentionally, and charged them with conspiracy, the found drugs being proof of “payoff” by the drug makers.
What the police would do if the drugs left by them were not there, that I have not figured out yet.
100 g meth to the best suggestion.
The couple is charged with tampering with evidence – 8 bags of meth. If the Keeley’s found it so easily, why didn’t the cops? btw, when the Keeley’s went to the house they found the door open, a window broken, and parts of the walls cut into. It was in the cutouts that they found the drugs. Another case of incompetent cops. They’re lucky they weren’t tasered or shot.
“If the underlying facts are true, it is difficult to see the basis for the arrest or how any remotely competent prosecutor would not step in to end the injustice. Moreover, there is no indication that the police officers have been reviewed for their actions in this case for possible discipline. Chief of Police Gregory Porter (left) remains silent on the case.”
“What disciplinary problems?”
This is why I handle things on my own. Reporting petty crimes to the police just gets you into trouble. I’ve learned that lesson three times in my life and that is all I need to know. I would throw the drugs away – flush them, maybe. But I would not have called the police… And the end result is exactly what I would expect.
Rental property….
You have to be kidding me right….