TheAgitator.com
More on the Ryan Frederick Case
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008Ryan Frederick is the 29-year-old Chesapeake, Virginia man who shot and killed Chesapeake Det. Jarrod Shivers during a drug raid on Frederick’s home last January. Police say an informant told them Frederick had an extensive marijuana-growing operation in his garage. They found only a few joints—enough for a misdemeanor.
I’ll have a more detailed look at the incredible recent developments in the case in a bit, but the short version is that the prosecution’s case against Frederick is unraveling.
Last June, I reported the possible existence of a second informant in the case, and in an interview, this informant told me that he and the other informant had broken into Frederick’s home three days prior to the raid. Such a burglary would have been illegal, and the police would have been required to note in their search warrant affidavits that the probable cause for the warrant had been obtained illegally (they didn’t).
Worse, last February this man told a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot (who then told me) that the police both knew about and encouraged the break-in, and in fact had encouraged informants to break into private homes in other cases for the purpose of collecting probable cause.
At a pre-trial hearing earlier this month, prosecutors in the case announced that they had testimony from two "burglars" who say they had stolen marijuana plants from Frederick and that, more dubiously, Frederick had then called them and made an explicit threat about killing a police officer. The prosecutors did not say if these "burglars" were also the informants, or if they had been working with the police before the burglary.
That surprising revelation from prosecutors persuaded editors at the Virginian-Pilot last week to publish the details of reporter John Hopkins’ interview in February with the same guy I interviewed, essentially confirming what I reported in June. The details of Hopkins’ interview leave little doubt that the "burglars" who broke into Frederick’s home were also the police informants.
Today, Ryan Frederick’s lawyers filed a brief asking the judge to quash all evidence seized from Frederick’s home after the raid:
Police showed a “reckless disregard for the truth’’ and misled a magistrate to get a search warrant for the home of Ryan Frederick, the man accused of killing a detective during a drug raid on his house, according to his attorney.
Police failed to tell the magistrate that their confidential informant had burglarized Frederick’s property to get evidence to support a search warrant, asserts attorney James Broccoletti. The drug raid that followed on the night of Jan. 17 was a violation of Frederick’s Fourth Amendment right; therefore, all evidence collected should be thrown out, he said in a motion filed in Circuit Court.
This could become another major drug informant scandal. More to come.
God I hope that works. Then get Fredericks out of town since the cops will likely want to arrange for something special for him.
Prediction: if Virginia is anything like Georgia, Frederick can hope for an 11th hour reprieve from the U.S.S.C. someday.
The ruling class will never let a copkiller walk, the facts be damned.
Nice job staying on top of this. If the allegations put out by the informant are true, this is an outrageous scandal that might tip the scales on the drug war a bit towards the “sane” side. While I’m hoping Ryan gets out of this, I’m also hoping the informant is a liar. I’d rather the officers be dumb than criminal.
Tokin42: In this case, they are likely dumb AND criminal.
All cops are criminals by nature of their employment and perceived power, and their lack of screaming at the top of their lungs to EVERYONE about the ruination of people’s lives done by their colleagues. Anything less than this is, at the least, silent approval. There isn’t a single cop that has NEVER violated someone’s rights, NEVER used unjust force, NEVER “popped a woody” over the things they can or could do to “destroy someone”.
“Today, Ryan Frederick’s lawyers filed a brief asking the judge to quash all evidence”
Why would the judge quash the evidence? I thought that Scalia’s “New Professionalism” made the 4th Amendment moot?
And would “all evidence” remove any evidence of the killing of the cop, or only the few joints that were found?
I am very glad that the prosecutor screwed this up so badly. If that evidence is excluded, Frederick stands a far lower chance of a wrongful conviction.
I am nervous though about Frederick’s attorney saying
That could turn this case in many people’s heads. If they take that as an admission that Frederick had a sizable growing operation, then they may well conclude that he was more than a casual user with a joint in his house. The prosecution (probably with media help) would spin this as “This drug-dealing cop killer got off on a technicality!” Even as a lie, it undercuts the public value of a case like this. Though it makes no difference to me, a lot of people would buy it because there is a different attitude about people who smoke and people who sell. Many are willing to look the other way if they think the victim of police misbehavior is himself a bad guy.
…
BTW, my instinct is to distrust people in authority and I am furious at the police (and prosecutor) in this case and in most of the cases we see at this site. But, I don’t think that all cops are bad guys or that they all approve of tactics used in drug raids. Not speaking out against wrongdoing is a failure of courage (and criminal, when one hides specific knowledge of abuse), but that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as silent disapproval, either. I think police are right up there with politicians as the most privileged people in society; they are able to bend the rules, get access, demand favors, etc. They should be held to the highest standards, not the lowest. And I wish every one of them would scream and shout about cases like this. But I don’t think that they are all evil because they don’t.
Silence is consent. You don’t say silent on abuses just to get your 30 pieces of silver. Abuses are also done by prosecutors and judges, and cops have first hand knowledge of these things because they deal with “the system”.
freedomfan,
That is a good point. However, since the defense has not made any admissions about growing marijuana up to this point, and even the prosecution has not claimed that they have any hard evidence of marijuana plants, I’m guessing that it is a misquote in the article.
Something is seriously out of whack here. These people seem to have totally forgotten that WE have hired them to protect us, not to threaten and abuse us. Maybe it’s time we made other arrangements.
Three more data points become relevant here:
1) There was a raid across the street from Frederick’s house a couple months previously and it really was occuppied by those dealing hard drugs…police likely thought Frederick filled the void in the neighborhood and that little verification was needed.
2) Frederick said in an earlier interview that he told the officer arresting him that “people broke into my house a few days ago.” Frederick said the officer replied, “yeah, we know all about that.” Frederick’s account of things is bolstered by the emerging facts.
3) I thought it was odd that if the police had found all the marijuana they claimed was growing in Frederick’s garage, why didn’t they allow news media access to the garage the night of the arrest? This never happened and media were never escorted into the house or garage. Oddly enough, about ten days after the incident at Frederick’s house, another incident made lots of headlines. A thief broke into a trailer in neighboring Portsmouth VA. The incident made the news due to its oddity. It seems the would-be admitted thief felt bad about all the massive hydroponics marijuana growing operation he had uncovered and went to the police with the information. The thief even did interviews with local TV outlets. Media were brought in to see the massive grow operation inside the house-trailer. The walls wer lined with insulation and a sprinkler system strung up along the roof. The trailer was covered wall to wall in potted marijuana plants all standing about 3-4 feet in height. There were no follow-on stories as to whether or not police pressed charges against the thief-turned-informant. Chesapeake and Portsmouth are adjacent to each other. The identity of the thief-informant in both cases is relevant for obvious reasons…could it be that after the raid at Frederick’s house went so badly with such little marijuana present that the informant against Frederick had to come up with something really big really fast to save his butt? Maybe the thief-informant used similar tactics to “help” police in both raids.
[...] few people, like commenter FreedomFan, expressed concern about this comment from Frederick’s attorney James Broccoletti about the [...]