Saturday, May 25, 2013

Entrapment in the 21st Century

First, I will admit I am taking this report at face value, and offering this opinion under the assumption that the facts related by the story are accurate. The relevant facts are the presence of an undercover cop, and the status of the child, a special needs, or special education child.

Here's the story in short. An undercover cop in a high school befriended a kid in the special education section. After failing to convince the special education kid to sell the officer the kids prescription medications, he did manage to beg and pressure the kid into purchasing marijuana for the undercover officer.

Now, my opinion. First you should understand that to me, society should protect those with such disabilities. Punishment for those who take advantage of the disabled would in my opinion, never be severe enough. This Deputy of the Riverside Sheriff's office has gone beyond any limit that civilized society should have. Charges against the child were essentially dropped. Charges against the Cop should have been levied starting with criminal negligence and child endangerment. I can only imagine how inept the deputy must be that to get his arrest he would target Special Education children as his target for entrapment.

I am unable to imagine a punishment severe enough, including historical tortures, that I feel would adequately punish the officer in question. Keel hauling would be too kind for this individual. To have such an individual on the police department is the height of irresponsibility of those within the department who make such decisions. For an incident like this, I would seriously consider that to have the individual officer pilloried would be a good place to start.

Why the District Attorney, or the US Attorney has not gotten involved and investigated the Riverside County Sheriff's Department is beyond me. Civil Rights violations at the minimum should be pursued against the Police Officer. The Sheriff and the Deputy should thank God tonight that I am not on the County Commission, because I would be railing loudly demanding the Deputy be fired in the most publicly humiliating manner possible. I would be on the phone with the prosecutor demanding charges be filed against the Deputy, and his supervisor. I would be voting to reduce the budget of the Sheriff's office since they have so much money they can waste the taxpayer's funds entrapping a mentally disabled child in the High School.

Yes, I am furious about this incident. I would be less furious if criminals had taken advantage of the mentally handicapped in such a manner. Criminals are at least supposed to be the ones taking advantage of the naive. That the supposed good guys would do so is unimaginable. The Deputy who's undercover name was "Daniel" should be pilloried, it would be a fitting response of society for this abomination.

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