Expert: Jack Toomey - 5/23/2006

Question

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Followup To

Question -
Numerous people in and around our small town are being pulled over by a
single police officer for things such as "making too wide of a
turn", "not using a blinker", "going too slow".  He says he wants to
search the car, and it doesn't matter if you say yes or no, he searches
it anyway.  If that person does not have drugs in the car, he plants the
drugs in their car.  This is not only happening to the young kids, it is
happening to older (40's, 50's, 60's) people that have probably never
touched drugs in their lifetime.  Complaints have been made to the
Town Council and the Police chief, but it still continues.  I have
contacted the FBI, OSBI, and the DOJ but they don't seem to be able to
help.  This police officer needs to be stopped! Due to previous experiences with the DA, we don't feel as if he would help us.  Where do we go from here?


Answer -
   I find it hard to believe that this police officer would plant drugs in the cars of people in their 50's and 60's.  What prosecutor is going to take such a case to trial?  This whole thing sounds very fishy but you are there and I am here knowing nothing about it execept what you have told me.  I would think that after enough of these supposed 50 and 60 year old people come to court charged with drug possession that some judge or prosecutor is going to realize what is going on.
Exactly! But this has been going on since December.  And, this is also why we don't feel we can go to the DA.  What do we do in the mean time?  People just keep getting charges filed against them.....over and over and over!

Answer
    Ok let me explain something.  You claim that you don't want "go to the DA".  The DA means the district attorney and it is his office that is prosecuting these supposed 50 and 60 year old drug defendants.  The DA would know by now that there is a flood of cases appearing on the docket with the same officer as the arresting officer and older people as defendants.  The assistant DA's have to recognize this unless they are incredibly naive.  

  I'm not sure how you have knowledge of all of these cases but it sounds a little fishy to me especially after you say you have reported all of this to higher law enforcement agencies.