Comments on: Gotcha

By: Fortuna Faveat | KopBusters: honestly, the pinnacle of reality television

Fortuna Faveat | KopBusters: honestly, the pinnacle of reality television — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:54:09 +0000

[...] Via The Agitator [...]

By: FreeYolanda

FreeYolanda — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:52:16 +0000

Odessa Police Department may investigate postings of the Odessa American online posting.

By: coriolis

coriolis — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:37:21 +0000

“How did the cops cops get turned on to the house in the first place?” Here’s how… Cooper, or one of his partners in this prank, penned an anonymous letter and had a woman beg a local minister to deliver it to the police department. The minister did so and is on record in the local newspaper admitting as much. Even the minister suspects Kopbusters of authoring the letter. Cooper has denied this and when asked how he expected the cops to just happen upon this house without any knowledge of it, he flew into an expletive-laced tirade, never answering the question. I’d say the Kopbuster himself was “busted” and his credibility is in the toilet. No, I’m not a cop. But I hate liars, and Barry Cooper is like a bad scientist who manipulates the experiment so that he gets the results he wants.

By: Upturned Earth » Blog Archive » Balko Bait

Upturned Earth » Blog Archive » Balko Bait — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:10:30 +0000

[...] It goes on. Good thing for the Stowers family that they weren’t growing any Christmas trees. [...]

By: Balko Bait « Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler

Balko Bait « Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:46:17 +0000

[...] goes on. Good thing for the Stowers family that they weren’t growing any Christmas trees. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI [...]

By: KopBusters: Candid Camera for the Boys in Blue — FR33 AGENTS

KopBusters: Candid Camera for the Boys in Blue — FR33 AGENTS — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:44:06 +0000

[...] suspected growers, dealers and users is Radley Balko. He is cautiously optimistic about KopBusters, writing: Like Mark Draughn, I’ve been somewhat skeptical of Barry Cooper, the former drug cop turned [...]

By: Leatherneck

Leatherneck — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:20:10 +0000

You go Adam- The truth will be revealed – run scared all you cops, prosecutors, and judges. The truth is feared by all evil men.
Odesaa has blackout on story, but the light switch is flipped on and the cockroaches are running for cover. News Flash cops will be protected, affidavit will be altered – some poor busted dope will take fall. Fed Pros in Midland (Jackson) will try to protect “his boys” the OPD narcs – he has built is resume on their lies in court. Internal police document and testimony of former narc show Midland Fed Pros. conspired with OPD to deny 5th amendent rights. He told them not to record inteviews or confession in cases they wanted to go fed. Just have two cops come testify the “confession” took place. So if I do not want to confess the cops can do it for me in Junells court. Human Rights Violation – you think?
Happy hunting Barry. Confessions -yes / compositions- no!

By: adamreposa

adamreposa — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:07:26 +0000

Could someone show me the case cite where FLIR usage is held to be legal without a warrant? I don’t hold myself out as a conlaw scholar, but I am sure I know more about the 4th amendment and its application in Texas State Constitution and Due Course of Law cases than any of you armchair scholars. I was not in Odessa when any anonymous tip was made to the OPD, but I can say that there was no other basis, BECAUSE THERE WAS NO GROW OPERATION. They either lied on the warrant affidavit, or the judge signed a ridiculous warrant. Either way, Barry is winning. The story is huge and the more right wing authoritarian dolts who come out of the woodwork to say things like “I support cops in everything because I can’t form my own opinions,” the better! Barak would never have been elected if it wasn’t for George W. Bush and Barry would not get so much attention if it wasn’t for government lovers. Oh and as far as my license to practice law, they can get in line.

By: Donklephant » Blog Archive » Kop Busters

Donklephant » Blog Archive » Kop Busters — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:54:34 +0000

[...] It’s a sting operation carried out against police for the all-too-common problem of questionable-at-best probable cause in drug raids. [...]

By: Beware The Man « Beware The Man

Beware The Man « Beware The Man — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:02:50 +0000

[...] The police get busted. Oops! [...]

By: The Crossed Pond » KopBusters

The Crossed Pond » KopBusters — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:50:29 +0000

[...] Outstanding. KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house. [...]

By: Kevin S

Kevin S — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:28:48 +0000

Texas is a one-party consent state. It’s stupendously unlikely Cooper et al. could be charged with wiretapping, unless they were taping internal police communications or something.

By: Cynical In CA

Cynical In CA — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:53:25 +0000

“but whether the local district attorney tries to come up with a crime with which to charge Cooper and his assistants. I can’t imagine such a charge would get very far, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone try.”

Crime = wiretapping

By: Capital Defense Weekly » Blog Archive » Cops busted for ummmm… well….

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:19:07 +0000

[...] Bwahahahahaha. Posted in new developments | [...]

By: mg

mg — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:43:38 +0000

Couple minor points:

- Yolanda was convicted of possession with intent to sell meth – not pot.

- FLIRs are legal, once a warrant has been issued. [I just point this out because the "FLIRs are illegal" text you see on the web are a bit misleading]

I suspect that Yolanders father wanted to nail these guys because his daughter got set up by a co-user/customer – but personally I have my doubts she was guilt free, nor do I think these cops are guilt free.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:04:54 +0000

In regards to my previous post (#22) – It looks like the forum admin who posted the message has now edited it to take out the part about “sent in an anonymous tip”. The bottom of the post has the line:

“Last edited by WildChild on Sat Dec 06, 2008 7:46 pm; edited 1 time in total”

http://nevergetbusted.com/ngbbb/about1999.html

Perhaps it was taken out due to the legal issues involved?

By: Busting Bad Cops « Out Of My Mind

Busting Bad Cops « Out Of My Mind — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:29:48 +0000

[...] Link. [...]

By: Kopbusters - Political Fever - The Political Debate Forums

Kopbusters - Political Fever - The Political Debate Forums — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:41:47 +0000

[...] I can

By: SusanK

SusanK — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:17:37 +0000

BA is right that probable cause is a low standard. However, he is entirely wrong about the “false reporting”. Calling in a fake tip (assuming that is what was done here) is not false reporting if the information is given as a tip (”I think they’re growing drugs” vs. “John Doe at 123 Elm Street is growing marijuana in his home”). The words used make all the difference.
As for the state bar association yanking a lawyer’s license for this – not likely, unless violations of state law are shown. Kind of like getting rid of a dirty cop – not likely, unlelss violations of state law are shown.

By: Lloyd Flack

Lloyd Flack — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:29:07 +0000

BA,

You don’t have to use drugs to oppose prohibition. I think most of the commenters here opposing prohibition don’t use the drugs themselves. They just detest moralistic twits.

As for probable cause, you don’t get it. The response was too quick for them to have got probable cause without breaking the law themselves. There was no way for them to know about growlights without using something like infra-red. But they can only legally use that if they already had probable cause. An anonymous tip is not probable cause.