While we may never know what actually happened between DEA Agent Lee Lucas and his informant Jerrell Bray–a hazardous partnership that rocked Cleveland for the last few years– their story reveals the many dangers that arise when law enforcement hitches its wagon to criminal snitches. In 2007, the Cleveland Plain Dealer began extensive reporting on allegations that Bray, a convicted killer and drug dealer, was using his relationship to the DEA to frame rivals and innocent people and that Agent Lucas had lied to make cases. Eventually, over a dozen convictions were reversed, including those of people who pleaded guilty. Story here. Bray was convicted of perjury and is currently serving 14 years; Agent Lucas was prosecuted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Last month, a jury acquitted Agent Lucas of all 18 charges. Story here. Law enforcement agents are rarely prosecuted for relying on bad informants, so the Plain Dealer’s coverage offers a rare glimpse into the ways that an informant can shape–or deform–official decisions.
Police
Police raids and imaginary informants
Dennis Fitzgerald is a former DEA agent and Miami police narcotics supervisor. He has written an article entitled “Wrong-Door Raids, Phantom Informants, and the Controlled Buy,” in which he not only describes problems with drug informant use, but also some best practices that can counter them. For example, he points out that “the creation of ‘phantom informants’ is a practice that has plagued police departments for decades,” and recommends that police agencies institute better documentation requirements to counter this problem. More generally, he discusses the problem of wrong-door raids and the police practices that generate them. From the article:
During the last 20 years, police have killed at least 40 innocent people while conducting wrong-door raids. According to a study by the Cato Institute, “Because of shoddy police work, over-reliance on informants, and other problems, each year hundreds of raids are conducted on the wrong addresses, bringing unnecessary terror and frightening confrontation to people never suspected of a crime.”
Here’s a link to the Cato Institute raid map. Fitzgerald goes on to identify the problems that lead to such raids, including:
1. Willful disregard for police standard operating procedures governing the use of informants and conducting controlled buys
2. Use of “cookie cutter” affidavits containing boilerplate language from a computer program
3. Blatant lies in search warrant affidavits
4. Creation of phantom informants
5. Supplying drug exhibits “purchased” by a phantom informant
6. Planting drugs in homes when no drugs are discovered during a search.
Fitzgerald is also the author of the book “Informants and Undercover Investigations: A Practical Guide to Law, Policy and Procedure” (CRC Press, 2007).
Recruiting new informants
Here’s a revealing article in the Buffalo News: Walking thin line in Village of Attica: Would-be informant says police coerced her into cooperation. It’s about Bianca Hervey, a 20-year-old college student who got pulled over by police for failing to pay her traffic tickets. The police threatened to put her in jail for the night, unless she agreed to become a drug informant. Although Hervey did not use drugs or have any connections to the drug world, police told her it didn’t matter–she could still work as a snitch and try to set people up. Frightened of going to jail, Hervey signed the informant agreement. When she told her father, attorney Richard Furlong, what had happened, however, he “went ballistic.” Furlong went to the police and to the City of Attica and complained about the recruitment of young people into the world of drugs, but the police and the Village Board refused to change the policy.
This story illustrates how snitching has quietly become such an immense part of the criminal justice system. Many cities have policies like Attica’s, in which police can recruit any potential offender as a drug informant–even a 20-year-old guilty of nothing more than a traffic violation. It was this same type of policy that led to the death of 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman in Tallahassee, Florida, and triggered Florida’s ground breaking legislation on the subject of informant-creation. See post: Florida’s “Rachel’s Law” offers some protections for informants.
“Snitch and you’re a dead man”
Journalism professor and author John Fountain weighs in on the “stop snitching” phenomenon in the Chicago Tribune. He describes urban neighborhoods permeated with fear and insecurity, and takes issue with criticism of residents who are unwilling to talk to police. He writes:
In my experience growing up in an impoverished Chicago community like those under siege, it boils down to an issue of trust. And many who live in the city’s most murderous neighborhoods — who have also witnessed police and political corruption and a trail of broken promises — simply don’t trust the authorities enough to come forward. By doing so, they could be laying their lives on the line. It isn’t that people don’t want to tell. They do. And it isn’t that they aren’t concerned about their neighborhoods. They are. But to come forward is to risk everything, even in a world where “safety” is always relative.
Fountain’s piece highlights a central reason that the public debate over criminal justice is so fractured: people and groups have radically different experiences and expectations. In neighborhoods where police are perceived as responsive, where people do not worry constantly about their personal security, where the legal system seems fair and effective, it makes eminent sense to talk to police. In neighborhoods where none of this is true, it might make sense not to. Such differences in perception show up quite publicly in debates over “stop snitching,” but they quietly affect all aspects of the criminal process, from the way people relate to defense lawyers to the kinds of punishment people consider to be fair. In my view, this is one of the reasons that the “stop snitching” debate is valuable: it encourages the public exposure of some very different legal realities.
Derrion Albert’s death, “Stop Snitching,” and people’s reluctance to talk to police
Yesterday on CNN, Anderson Cooper reported on the terrible story of 16-year-old Derrion Albert who was beaten to death by four other teenagers in Chicago. The beating was captured on videotape–story here. Four people have been charged so far. Police Superintendant Jody Weis told Cooper that no one has come forward to identify three other potential perpetrators, even though numerous people witnessed the event. Weis stated, “We are literally getting killed by this code of silence, this no-snitching rule. We’ve worked hard to overcome it.” Cooper responded as follows:
This is something we focused on a lot on this program over the years. I did a piece on 60 Minutes about it as well. This whole stop snitching effort, rappers are telling people don’t be a snitch. And now the definition of a snitch is not just somebody who is involved in a crime and tries to rat out someone else they were involved with. Now there’s this horrible definition of being a snitch is anybody who comes forward and talks about a crime they’ve seen. That’s just the mentality that cannot be tolerated.
“Stop snitching” is an important phenomenon in urban criminal law enforcement; it is also deeper than comments like Cooper’s suggest, which is why I devote an entire chapter of the book to it. In a nutshell, “stop snitching” is the legacy of three related trends: drug enforcement’s heavy use of criminal snitches, increased gang violence against witnesses, and decades of mistrust between police and poor minority communities. While it is true that rappers often write songs that say “don’t snitch,” rap music should not be blamed for the fact that law-abiding residents of high-crime inner city neighborhoods are often too afraid of retaliation and/or too wary of police to report crimes. Here is an excerpt from the book:
The “stop snitching” phenomenon turns out to be complex, deep-seated, and long-standing. It did not begin with a DVD or a rap song, nor will it end when “stop snitching” t-shirts go out of style. It is simultaneously a criminal code of the street, a reflection of widespread communal distrust of police, as well as, more recently, a tool of intimidation against civilian witnesses. While the phenomenon was born in the penal system, it has spread beyond its criminal roots, a product of the multifaceted challenges of urban crime, gang violence, race, drugs, and policing through criminal informants.
To explain “stop snitching” is not to condone it–the world would be a better place if Chicago residents had the kind of relationship with police that would promote cooperation and information-sharing. But it is also important to give Chicagoans more credit–like so many people in cities such as Baltimore or Newark or Los Angeles, their reluctance to call police often stems from very real personal as well as historical experiences.