Barry Cooper produces a television show called Kop Busters that aims to expose crooked cops. A former lawman with 8 yrs of specialty drug interdiction, Cooper first garnered national attention with his video "Never get busted again," which is a tutorial on how LEO operates and how to handle an encounter. Just recently, TX police fell for Barry's undercover "sting."
[EDIT] The original source I read this from inaccurately stated Barry's site was shut down, but it was probably tied up with a rush of traffic, hence my earlier title.
Barry and his crew set up a fake marijuana grow operation in Odessa, Texas, and supposedly within 24 hours, it is raided. I hope whoever compiled and submitted the "evidence" to obtain a warrant for this "grow op" gets fired. Many critics claim that police lie in order to secure search warrants- say a neighbor calls police and says they saw plants under bright lights (not a crime in the least), police will illegally survey the property with a FLIR camera (detects heat and "hotspots") and claim that they smelled marijuana or that a confidential informant notified them of a grow op. They get the warrant signed, and raid the place where they may or may not be marijuana plants.
I have no idea as far as numbers, but most of these illegally based raids
probably do result in grow ops being exposed, since its pretty obvious what a grow up looks like on a FLIR camera. If someone has grow lights on in their house, it will appear on the camera. Police must obtain a warrant to use FLIR however, but its clear that many use it anyways. Unfortunately, most people with a grow light in their house are probably growing marijuana, but raids do happen where police find nothing but an indoor vegetable garden or orchids in the basement.
I applaud Barry Cooper for his efforts, and hope that many more fraudulent raids are caught on tape and given national attention. These are pieces of irrefutable evidence that the War on Drugs is an utter failure that wastes billions every year.
News release/video here
Barry Cooper's Youtube footage
UPDATE- Here is an mass email sent 1am Sat morning to people on his mailing list
The only disinformation you have ever received from me is when I announced
KopBusters was still at the drawing table in Hollywood. The truth is we have
had a team of eleven detectives working secretly in Odessa, Texas the entire
time. I could not divulge that information because it would have compromised the
operation and since the police get my newsletter, I wanted them to be relaxed
and think we have not started yet.
The operation was a success. We busted the dirty cops with a dummy grow room
that triggered an illegal raid on our KopBusters house. Our attorney was
arrested and released.
Click here to read all about it and watch the Channel 7 News story:
Peace, Love and NeverGetBusted
Barry and Candi
Ha-ha!