Remember this incident from last May?
Christine Casey, patient coordinator of North End Club 420, tells the Weekly that the detectives from the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNet) who came to her house in Olalla (west of Vashon Island) handcuffed her 14-year-old son for two hours and put a gun to his head. They also told the kid to say good-bye to his dad, Guy Casey, because the dispensary owner was going to prison.
And as the detectives looked for cash to prove that the dispensary was illegally profiting from pot sales, Casey says, they confiscated $80 that her 9-year-old daughter had received from her family for a straight-A report card. Where did they find it?
In the girl’s Mickey Mouse wallet, according to Casey. She also claims that the cops dumped out all her silverware, busted a hole in the wall, and broke appliances. She alleges too that the cops finger-wrote “I sell pot” in the dust covering the family’s Hummer, which the cops then seized. (WestNet did not return repeated calls seeking comment.)
At the time, I wrote:
Once again, WestNET is claiming that a “police operative” repeatedly bought marijuana from the Caseys without showing a medical marijuana authorization. The Caseys deny it. If the Caseys are telling the truth, it’s just another reason to put pressure on our state’s Congressional delegation to eliminate WestNET’s federal funding.
Today, the Tacoma News-Tribune reports what nearly everyone in the medical marijuana community has known for quite some time:
Pierce County prosecutors have dismissed numerous drug charges filed last year against two men who run a Tacoma medical-marijuana cooperative.
Guy Lewis Casey and Michael Jonathan Schaef – who operate the Club 420 cooperative on Oregon Avenue – had been scheduled for trial in April.
Deputy prosecutor Jennifer L. Sievers filed paperwork Tuesday dismissing the case, saying that after further investigation she had “doubts as to the veracity” of a confidential informant who fed information to police.
Just as with the Bruce Olson case, the WestNET drug task force used the word of an untrustworthy “informant” in order to justify their invasions on law-abiding members of the medical marijuana community. Again, it’s time for our representatives in Congress to ask why this group continues to receive federal funding in order to destroy the homes of innocent people and terrorize their families.
Seems they have a cause of action. Did they get their stuff back?
Thank god we got another pot grower out of business. Now, off to Costco to by a crate of Pinot Gris, few cartoons of Camels and then by the liquor store to get some bourbon. Thank GOD my government is keeping ‘drugs’ off the street!
And the police wonder why so many don’t respect them anymore. What ass hats. It’s ONE thing to enforce a law, do a search on a warrant, fine. But don’t be DICKS doing it.
i guess we are luck that informant wasn’t selling information on yellow cake, eh??
Totally off topic, but cause for celebration:
Boeing just won the contract for the next generation tanker, based on the Boeing 767. About 11,000 aerospace jobs in Washington State have been saved.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local.....ker24.html
(Note: the PI was first to release the news, I haven’t even received the official Boeing press release in my in-box yet).
Hey! I’m willing to be an untrustworthy “informant”. I have quite a list of people I’m really sure are involved with drugs in a big way. Troll for one. He’s got to be on drugs.
@4
when do those jobs move to South Carolina?
@7, it was hard to fathom this contract going to France and Alabama, but with this President, stranger things have happened. I was nervous as Hell.
@4
Great news, and if I haven’t already told you before, you’re always allowed to take threads off-topic.
@8 & 7: I didn’t know Obama was responsible for Acts of Congress. I thought there were three branches of government. Is Obama responsible for Supreme Court decisions as well?
@10. Oh, wait, this was not an act of Congress. My bad!
The real reason that law enforcement does not favor legalization of cannabis is that it reduces the need for law enforcement guys out there persecuting otherwise law-abiding citizens who might choose to indulge in a little recreational use of the hemp plant. We’re talkin’ jobs here!
Westnet = thugs with badges.
Port Orchard is a corrupt, back water, slum.
Great news about the tanker deal……
KC-46A All the Way!!!!
Back to the topic at hand….
Until the law of the land changes, this will continue to happen. Legalize it already.
Thug Life????? What? This thread isn’t about Rush Limbaugh?
Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend.
Last summer a narcotics task force sealed off the house next to mine, handcuffed the residents and paraded them out into the street, festooned the property with yellow police tape, and posted half a dozen officers to guard the property during the eight hours it took to get a search warrant to seize the tomato plants up on the roof.
@16
Was that even reported in the news anywhere? Did they get an apology from the police at least?
16, 17: You both overlook the power of modern hi-tech genetic biology. Tomato plants! Now there is a clever ruse.
While I understand the local pride…I have news for all celebrating the tanker deal…the money could have been better spent on long term infrastructure and public investment, and also created good high paying jobs in the process.
Now, back to dope.
As someone who wishes to see our troops brought home and the military reduced I’m not jumping for joy. Maybe one tanker is enough.
How many federal dollars does Westnet get for these busts? Anyone know?
@20 It seemed obvious to me at the time that The Great Tomato Bust was fueled by federal narcotics dollars. The cops made a great show of what they were doing — almost as if they were making a Hollywood film. And it had “Your Federal Tax Dollars Hard At Work” written all over it. This happened on a street where we can’t get simple traffic enforcement (as in: people doing 50 mph on a residential street posted at 25). But that, of course, would require nonexistent local dollars.
@17 I told them, to hell with an apology, get a lawyer.
Obviously the WestNET drug task force is a costly labor union boondoggle. That’s the only possible explanation.
@23 Yeah, that’s gotta be it. Get rid of the unions and democracy, and this kinda shit won’t happen anymore.
I’m also in favor of reducing our military footprint around the world, and investing money in high-paying jobs locally. But the tanker contract seems to accomplish that purpose: It reduces the need for huge foreign air force bases if we can project force as needed over long distances with aerial refueling capability. And since we WERE going to have a tanker, then it might as well be one which is built by union workers right here in Washington State, instead of buying airplanes primarily made by French and German workers overseas (the “made in Mobile” was always an EADS smoke-screen).
@16,
This might be the link everyone needs to read about it:
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2.....ot_enf.php
It may be profitable to rat on your neighbor’s tomato plants. Here a quote from WestNET’s home page.
All calls are confidential and may results in rewards up to $5,000.00. This number is 1-800-388-GROW (4769).
They want to specifically want to go after tomato growers because those plants look like cannabis plants. Who knew that tomatoes were dangerous!
“she had “doubts as to the veracity” of a confidential informant who fed information to police.”
Another curveball, in the dirt-low and outside.
h/t @3
The bases are required for the refueling ops and other logistics. There’s a ton of MAC bases (just counting USAF) overseas to support.