Visiting hydroponics store + tea leaves == illegal marijuana grow operation == armed drug raid

[The Heretic]

Weed Warriors Who Mistook Tea for Marijuana Will Pay Their Victims $150,000

The Leawood, Kansas, couple whose home was raided in 2012 after sheriff's deputies claimed that loose tea found in their trash…

reason.com

The so called war on drugs.

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[Andy54Hawken]

Hmmm....
One lump or two....?
I'll take $150,000 , please.....
Andy

 

[Flymph]

These guys get to keep their jobs?
I'd fire them for gross incompetence or at least bust them down to cleaning slop out of the back of squad cars.

 

[2A2Dend]

Don't Bogart that joint, EH

 

[titsonritz]

Could be worse.

A woman was jailed for 3 months because police thought her cotton candy was meth

 

[Unicykle]

Seems the drug dog was the smartest one of the bunch.

 

[66PonyCar]

Luckily for the family the sheriff didn't plant any drugs in the house after the raid turned up nothing.

 

[Xaevian]

For ever remembered as the Tea-stoned cops...

 

[The Heretic]

For ever remembered as the Tea-stoned cops...

Going to steal that

 

[Flymph]

Luckily for the family the sheriff didn't plant any drugs in the house after the raid turned up nothing.

Probably did the BGC during the raid and realized that would have been the wrong decision!

 

[Alexx1401]

Sadly stuff like this never results in the people at the top losing their jobs and pensions. The way to really slow this stuff down would be personal accountability. The people in charge who screw up this bad should have to pay a heavy price. If that happened the others would start to be FAR more careful.

 

[2A2Dend]

For ever remembered as the Tea-stoned cops...

Heck, it could have been Parsley, Oregano, Chives, even chopped up lawn clippings *sigh*
Bad bust. No way, they would not "plant" something. They didn't have a green thumb.
I'd bet not a one of them know how to cook either.

 

[P7M13]

Sgt Wingo is a bright boy.

But to Sgt. James Wingo of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, who was staking out the store, he looked like a cannabis kingpin.
....
During his second inspection of the Hartes' trash, Burns found the same leaves, which he suddenly decided looked like "wet marijuana plant material." A drug field test supposedly confirmed the presence of THC.
....
The "wet marijuana plant material" was actually loose tea that Adlynn Harte favored. Burns later confessed that he had never seen loose tea before but thought, based on his training and experience, that it looked like marijuana leaves.

Seems like the training material was a form of the blind leading the blind. It's pretty darned hard to mix up camellia sinensis with any of the varieties of cannabis. That's like saying "all asians look Chinese." Maybe the Sgt thought oil of Bergamot smelled like weed too. Where's my patchouli ?

 

[Member 5605]

Waco?

 

[Stomper]

Waco?

More like Paco wants a taco...

 

[The Heretic]

The way to get rid of this kind of crap is to stop making laws that supposedly have the premise of protecting people from themselves (especially when it is a relatively harmless weed) and to start respecting people's rights. This could just as easily been a gun raid as a drug raid.

The "war on drugs" is a farce - made up with racist underpinnings and then extended to maintain control over the populace.

 

[MannyGlocks]

...and to think, I used to admire and respect l.e. ...no longer.

 

[Mike_M57]

...and to think, I used to admire and respect l.e. ...no longer.

Very much this. No admiration without respect, no respect without trust. I haven't trusted LE/lawyers/judges/politicians for awhile.

 

[DunRanull]

SOOOO typical! $150,000 is penny-ante PEANUTS for the heartache, hassle and embarrassment this caused these folks. As well as a much larger award, the sheriff should have been held accountable PERSONALLY for his part in it.
This isnt a "War on drugs", it is nothing less than a war on the liberties of American citizens.
Goddam them all!
Thankfully the People of the State of Colorado have voted to abolish these INEXCUSABLY archaic, draconian, and oppressive laws.

 

[joken]

These police officers should have been fired. They put this family through seven years of hell and tarnished the profession. I have known men like this and they were not police officers. Hitler would have made these little men high ranking officers.