1 Fired, 4 Suspended in Botched Drug Sting

Full article - WFTV Orlando

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- An investigator was fired Thursday and four other Tallahassee police officers were suspended two weeks without pay for their roles in a botched drug sting that led to the death of a young informant.

A grand jury reported Aug. 1 that it found police undercover operations negligent in the shooting death of 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman, who was killed in the aborted sting in early May. Two men -- Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw -- await trial on first-degree murder charges.

Hoffman, a recent Florida State University graduate, had been arrested for using and selling marijuana and ecstasy. Police said the drug investigation was a way for her to avoid prison time.
She was given $13,000 to buy drugs and a gun from suspected dealers at a park in a sting arranged by police. Her body was found two days later in rural Taylor County.

Prince George's Raid prompts call for probe

Baltimore Sun

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

After the raid, Prince George's County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights' mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.

What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home in this small bedroom community near College Park.

Yet neither county Police Chief Melvin C. High nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson have apologized to him, his wife or her mother, Georgia Porter, for the raid that traumatized the family and killed their black Labrador retrievers, Payton and Chase.

Thursday, Calvo called on the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate the raid and other similar actions by Prince George's law enforcement. He said officers burst into his house without knocking or announcing themselves, in violation of the warrant they had.

"Trinity was an innocent and random victim of identity theft. Apparently, so were four or five other county residents whose names and addresses were stolen and used as addresses on drug packages," Calvo said at a news conference outside his house, near a garden of tomatoes and strawberries.

"However, Trinity and our family have not been treated as victims of a crime. Instead, our home was invaded. Our two beloved Labrador retrievers are dead. My mother-in-law and I were tied up for nearly two hours," he said. "We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us."

Massive DEA Raids Planned for Humboldt

Humboldt Herald

The Federal Drug Enforcement Agency is sending 200 agents to Northern Humboldt to crack down on marijuana growers, according to sources. The full-blown bust-a-thon will take place June 22-30.

300 houses have already been targeted by way of high electric bills. Perhaps our readers at PG&E can tell us to how the feds got those records. Did they use warrants or just ask nicely?

While some of the upcoming busts will target illegal operations under California law, others will take aim at patients protected by Prop. 215. Will Humboldt County Sheriffs or city police participate in raids that violate laws of the state?

FBI Raid Linked to Political DVD's (Tommy Chong)

Prison Planet

Actor and comic Tommy Chong says he is linked to FBI raids Wednesday in Newport and Clermont County's Union Township.Chong tells Local 12 federal agents were after thousands of DVD copies of a documentary he recently made.

Tommy Chong, 30 years ago, appeared in the movie that made him famous, "Up In Smoke."
But today, Tommy Chong is 69-years-old and selling a different movie, called "The United States of America Vs. Tommy Chong."

The documentary details Chong's 2003 federal prosecution and guilty plea for distributing drug paraphernalia. He was selling pot pipes online. Chong served nine months in prison.

But Chong says agents seized 10,000 DVDs of his documentary.

20 Suspected Pedophiles Captured In France

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/01/content_6988532.htm

PARIS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 20 people have been arrested in France as suspected pedophiles after the European Union (EU) launched a massive crackdown on the criminal group Monday, French police said Wednesday.

Among the arrestees, three allegedly molested children during trips abroad, and another three were believed to have filmed children porno scenes abroad. Police also seized about 1.5 million illegal images from one suspect's computer.

The European-wide raid, codenamed "Koala", followed traces discovered in an operation on suspected child molesters in Australia in 2006, during which police found some 3,000 suspicious e-mail addresses.

The operation was supervised by Europe's police agency Europol and Eurojust, the EU agency in charge of coordinating judicial affairs.