Comments on: More on Ryan Frederick

By: Dave Krueger

Dave Krueger — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:05:16 +0000

It’s a stinkin’ shame that prosecutors have almost nothing to fear when they pull stuff like this. They can destroy people’s lives with impunity.

On the other hand, it surprises me that people give any credibility to witnesses who testify in exchange for a reduced sentence. When I imagine myself in that position I seriously doubt that my own integrity would survive an offer for less jail time.

And this cuts both ways. The burglars/witnesses could just as easily be coaxed into lying by the feds or the local prosecutor. The fact that testifying for the feds against the local prosecutor is much more to my liking doesn’t make the testimony any more credible if it’s paid for with a reduced sentence. But, one could presume that a federal investigation would at least be less prone to a predetermined outcome.

I know. I’m rambling.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:56:21 +0000

Lloyd, because the guy is in police custody, part of evaluating the truthfulness of his claims is considering what he has to gain. If he isn’t the informant, he has nothing to gain by claiming that he is, except for some notoriety. Being in custody and facing charges, he has little to gain, and I’d think something to lose, by embarassing the police. And he has a lot to gain by saying the Frederick claimed he was planning to shoot police, because that lets them charge Frederick with premeditated murder.

And remember that the testimony from the cop in charge of the raid, I think it was Roberts, corroborates Turnbull’s claim that the burglars (whether one of them was Turnbull or not) had been “working with” the police.

By: Lloyd Flack

Lloyd Flack — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:48:11 +0000

Turnbull’s claims if threats against the police by Frederick do not make sense. Since he is obviously lying in this matter do we need to believe him about anything? Could his claims of working for the poilce be lies too? There is nothing unbeivable about what he has said inthis matter but can we trust him? Is he one of the actual informants? Or has he made up these claims, possibly from what he has from the actual informants or someone who knows them?

I think that he probably was saying the truth when he said he was working for the police. It is the simplest explanation. But we have to treat everything he has said with caution.

By: bob

bob — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:55:50 +0000

The state has conspired to commit murder.

Getting the feds to investigate is an optimistic gesture, and worth a try to help Mr. Frederick.

But really, considering the feds (and numb-nut, gutless politicians) are the root of this insanity, I don’t really expect much lasting change to come of it.

They’ll go through the motions, waste some of our money, and end up calling it an “isolated incident” and then proceed to repeat the same insane procedures again and again.

I hope I’m wrong, but hey… It’s the government. It’s what they do.

By: parse

parse — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:45:19 +0000

Ryan Frederick’s case really shows how fundamentally the war on drugs has corrupted U.S. law enforcement.

By: Matt Moore

Matt Moore — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:42:33 +0000

(which I guess is a rather humbling account of my influence!)

If drug case prosecutors don’t already know the name Radley Balko, I’d bet they will soon.

If Ebert had read this blog (or Hit&Run, for that matter) he would have known that you knew the truth about his “informants” and he might have avoided deep-sixing his case with this error. Not that helping prosecutors make their cases stronger is the sort of influence you’d enjoy having…

By: SJE

SJE — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:42:08 +0000

Episiarch is right. More importantly
1. If the cops use burglars to do the raid, there is “plausible deniability.”
2. The cops aren’t at risk of being shot by the homeowner
3. On a warrant, the police can stretch the truth and call the burglar “an informant,” and protect all sorts of behavior under the umbrella of “confidential informant.” If a police officer does the breaking in, its pretty clear criminal perjury when they seek a warrant.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:22:47 +0000

If the cops are willing to lie and break the law to get a warrant to search a place, why not just “make up”” an informant aka Atlanta PD? Why get an actual scumbag to break into a house to find evidence for probable cause, and then lie about how they came upon the probable cause?

How about “we don’t want to get caught like our colleagues in Atlanta, so since we’re smarter let’s use the tactic of having CIs, who usually know other “criminals”, break in and get us some evidence on people so we can make arrests to pad our record, shoot people, and feel like rock stars”?

By: Episiarch

Episiarch — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:23:02 +0000

Why get an actual scumbag to break into a house to find evidence for probable cause, and then lie about how they came upon the probable cause

Because they need to know who to raid. They can’t go raiding randomly, so they have burglars break in and then tell them if they see something they can use as a reason for a raid.

By: z

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:52:33 +0000

I’m not sure I’m buying into this. If the cops are willing to lie and break the law to get a warrant to search a place, why not just “make up”" an informant aka Atlanta PD? Why get an actual scumbag to break into a house to find evidence for probable cause, and then lie about how they came upon the probable cause. Seems an unnecessary and risky step.

By: nemo

nemo — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:50:38 +0000

All this…to ‘protect’ us from inanimate objects (drugs). How stupid…

By: PSYOP

PSYOP — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:03:55 +0000

I don’t know how he thought he could admit evidence from these two “burglars” without having to explain who they were, how the police came to know them, or without anyone noticing the obvious similarities between the “burglars’” stories and the information in the police affidavit for the search warrant. I was speculating that the informant was also the burglar within a week of the raid.

He probably didn’t even think that he would have to bother trying to get away with it, since he likely HAS gotten away with it 99 per cent of the time. If Frederick was killed, instead of Schivers, this wouldn’t be an issue to the public at large. OOOOPS! Good thing people like you were paying attention! Keep up the great reporting on this!