Drug bust involving NAACP leader a bust
The old cat-and-mouse game between police and suspected drug suspect ended this week with a mark against the the cops. Prosecutors dropped charges against a man who was arrested last month and charged with two counts of drug possession that had been filed against a passenger in a car driven by the vice president of the Baltimore NAACP chapter.
Prosecutors had already refused to pursue a case against the NAACP official, Ellis L. Staten Jr., 44, who police also arrested on Pennsylvania Avenue and Dolphin Street, a strip known for drugs. A police officer had said he saw a man walk from a large crowd and get into a car and then watched a back-seat passenger hand cash to a man standing at his window in exchange for suspected drugs. The man in the back seat was identified as Kevin Logan.
From an article we published in the Baltimore Sun last month: Officers approached the vehicle and found a folded-up dollar bill containing suspected heroin and two pills of suboxone, also known as buprenorphine, a medication used to treat heroin addiction, in the possession of the back-seat passenger, police said.
Police said they found Staten in possession of additional suboxone pills inside a case, and in the driver's side door. Police also said they recovered a half-smoked marijuana cigarette. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said a passenger told officers that Staten had brought him to the area to buy heroin.
But it turns out, according to city prosecutors, the officer couldn't see what was being passed through the window and the officer wrote in his statement of charges, "Based on the area he was in and the history of the area, the officer believed it was a drug transaction..."
Assistant State's Attorney Shawn Essien told the Baltimore Sun's Melissa Harris: "Being in a high-drug area is not enough to search a car."
Pennsylvania Avenue has been singled out by the mayor -- at an NAACP rally to stop the violence, no less -- as a notorious open-air drug market and cops have flooded the street in recent months. One can argue that they know a drug deal when they see one, and in this case they did find drugs, but knowing it in your heart and proving it in court are two different things. And that this bust involved a leader of the NAACP only brings more attention to a common police tactic. Had this not involved a high-profile figure, would this case still have been tossed?
After the arrests were made public, Staten said he had been in the area to solicit cab drivers to come to a meeting and that he was targeted by police because of his work with the NAACP. I don't think the cop even knew who he was before he slapped on the handcuffs and I don't buy the conspiracy theory.
But the sheer lack of probable cause on behalf of the cop only lends credibility to the NAACP's rhetoric. They're now free to bash the police for shoddy work. It's hard to see a drug deal go down and you cops need some leeway to use their experience to know what's going on. See a man circling your block repeatedly and talking to scantily-clad women standing on the corner, you know there's a prostitution deal going down, but to prove it you need to hear the negotiations. And even then they're often talking in code (even the feds have a hard time understanding mob-talk captured on hidden microphones).
Discerning out drug transactions are just as difficult. A number of years ago after a police officer was caught in a department sting charging an innocent man with drugs he had planted, dealers and users in the neighborhood told me the game doesn't involve catching people red-handed, but finding the drugs and charging the person closest to them. I talked to several people who admitted to being drug users and sellers but who insisted they had no drugs on them when they were arrested.
The cops goofed on this one, if only in that they used a common tactic to bust someone whose complaint would be heard, and the NAACP now has cover to spread its story of being unfairly targeted by a rogue police agency. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle -- and what is not being talked about is why the NAACP official really was up in that area with drugs in his car. The organization could elevate the debate of police conduct by addressing this with more candor, but the cops unfortunately gave them an easy way out.
Comments
I'm more interested in why drugs were found in his car.I think that since charges won't be filed then the NAACP should take a long hard look at him.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 22, 2009 1:31 PM
The NAACP will not take a look at him, they will sweep this under the carpet and go on the attack. I suspect that the only reason that they haven't been calling the arrest overtly racist is because the arresting officer is African American.
Really, to anyone who has a shimmer of common sense, it is clear that he was in the area to buy drugs or to facilitate the purchase of drugs for one of his passengers. I say charge him with it and let the courts sort the rest out, stop cowering to people because they are public figures. Aren't they supposed to be the pillars of truth and leaders for us all. They need to be held duly accountable.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 23, 2009 1:33 PM
I say you do the Crime. You do the TIme. Drugs in anyone one's car is a crime. This Dude should fess up and get help. Don't tell me he's blind and don't know who and what is in his car. Resign dude and seek some help.
We need True to the Life Leaders not Followers.
Peace!
Posted by: FATHER TIME | May 4, 2009 1:59 PM
the baltimore police are not trusted b y the citizens of baltimore
Posted by: larry g | May 4, 2009 2:20 PM