Ex-Cop Goes Rogue on the Drug War, Tells Pot Smokers How to Outsmart the Police

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




Texas Observer / By Michael May

Ex-Cop Goes Rogue on the Drug War, Tells Pot Smokers How to Outsmart the Police
Police admired Barry Cooper when he lied to put drug dealers in prison. Then he flipped the game on them.

May 18, 2010 |


Barry Cooper should know better than anyone that you don’t mess with the police. He was once a cop, and a dirty one at that. But for the past three years, this former narcotics officer has been irritating the hell out of law enforcement, and he’s been steadily raising the stakes, damn the consequences.

It began in 2007, when Cooper gained some notoriety for releasing a self-produced DVD series called Never Get Busted Again. In it, Cooper shows pot smokers ways to outsmart the cops and their drug dogs. He says that if you have marijuana in the car, it’s a good idea to also bring along a cat, since that will distract even a drug dog. Got cops knocking on your door? Cooper says it’s best to lock it shut, and then tell them through a closed window that you won’t let them in without a warrant. The Never Get Busted DVDs have a low-budget charm, especially when Cooper uses footage taken from his own patrol-car camera to illustrate a point. Back then, in the mid ’90s, Cooper had short cropped hair. Cop mustache. He liked to lean into suspects and intimidate them until they did what he wanted. On his DVDs, Cooper will freeze the patrol-car video to point out the ways he got people to confess they were carrying drugs or money. (“Don’t ever touch your face when you are talking to a cop. It’s a sign that you’re lying.”)

Cooper dropped out of college at age 20 to join the police force in the small East Texas town of Gladewater, where he trained his own drug dog and started making big busts on the highway. Cooper was talented enough at seizing drugs that he was eventually hired by the Permian Basin Drug Task Force, a West Texas unit that became notorious for using unscrupulous tactics and was eventually shut down by the FBI in 1998. To Cooper, being on the task force was a great assignment; he learned all the ways to bend the law to rack up arrests and chase down suspects. Cooper was young, and he says the thing he loved most about being a cop was the adrenaline rush. One of his favorite things was to pull people over on the highway and then, just for kicks, incite a chase. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146897/ex-cop_goes_rogue_on_the_drug_war%2C_tells_pot_smokers_how_to_outsmart_the_police/?page=entire

[Stuart G]

1. Good Post..what a waste of time..Pot arrests...sure..nt

[ixion]

2. k/r

Give'em hell, Barry! :applause:

End the stupid drug 'war', now.

[Oceansaway]

3. K&R...n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Most excellent article.

[pattmarty]

5. Sick fuck, using all he's got left just to make a buck. When he was...............

.............a cop he was a piece of shit and selling what's left of his soul, still a piece of shit.

[Divine Discontent]

7. and I love the post below yours too, 'cops hate oversight'.

but I agree that it is shameful that he's using what he's got left to make money off his actions. Inciting a chase??? Good heavens.... how disgusting. How many of these guys are out there?

[liberation]

8. You can take the pig out of the force, but you can't take the force out of the pig

The MO of this douche, simply shows the hypocrisy and utter arbitrary nature of the so-called "war on drugs." Whether the shaft being pushed up our collective rectums carries an official state seal of approval, or a rogue infomercial one... at least to me particular, makes little difference. We're still getting screwed either way. I just appreciate the inside info given to people.

Most cops lose any sort of credibility to me, the minute they join the force. Police in this country (and in other places as well) has little to do with "protect and serving" the community, than they do with keeping the masses in check for the elites. And we have to pay for the screw to top it all off.

Let the pigs eat their own for a change, I say....

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

9. you have no clue what you are talking about

Barry Cooper has helped a lot of people expose police corruption in their towns. He taught me how to spot a police officer signaling their drug dogs to give a false positive so they have "reasonable suspicion" to finish their searches.

Barry was a cop who believed in the Drug War until he saw the damage his arrests had caused; he now does about everything he can to help reverse that damage. The idea that he is "selling what's left of his soul" because he asks $20.00 for a set of 2 DVDs is ludicrous.

Thanks for your opinion, though. :eyes:

[pattmarty]

13. I've dealt with enough cops in my years to be able to count on one.........

...........hand the "good" ones. This shitbag is not one of the good ones. Let him whore his DVD's and maybe bend over or get on his knees if he needs more cash. Who the fuck are you, his brother in law?

[Mike K]

12. You probably have good cause to feel the way you do,

but keep in mind that in any conflict the enemy of your enemy is your friend. The drug war is our enemy and we need every friend we can get in dealing with it.

[pattmarty]

14. You are very, very (I'll be nice here) NAIVE. You would not be able........

.........to trust that motherfucker if you fucking blinked.

[Mike K]

15. I'm not suggesting that you let him manage your checkbook.

But if he opposes the drug war he is a valuable ally -- in spite of your personal feelings.

There is an ex-DEA agent named Michael Levine who wrote, The Big White Lie, which is critical of the drug war. I personally despise all DEA agents but I regard this one as an important ally in the cause for marijuana legalization.

So I fail to understand what you're talking about when you say these guys are not to be trusted. Trusted with what? They've already declared their positions and they have credentials that neither you nor I have. Whether you like it or not, ordinary people tend to listen to them because of their backgrounds.

Bottom line: Michael Levine and this other ex-cop is more important in terms of my specific concerns than you are. And vice versa.

[pattmarty]

17. There's an ex California judge that wrote a book on his reasoning...........

.........why "most" laws should be changed. I can't think of his name right off, but check out your library if interested. These are the kind of CREDIBLE people "we" need on our side, not some dishonest, tainted EX-cop that sounds like some kind of fucking cowboy. If you want to change the laws, get smart, credible RESPECTED spokesmen. I have had experience with these kind of wild west shitheads in the past and they CAN'T be trusted.

[Juche]

6. cops hate oversight

Which is why we need as much as possible. I admire anyone who can pull that off. Internal affairs officers are among the best.

[Soylent Brice]

10. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

kick

[Mike K]

11. Regardless of personal feelings toward this ex-cop,

any law-enforcement (or former law-enforcement) voice that opposes marijuana prohibition and the drug war is worth a thousand ordinary voices. People will listen to them.

There is an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

It makes sense to join and support them. (It's not necessary to send money.)

[mbperrin]

16. Well, he hasn't exactly outsmarted the police every time.....

http://sleepless.blogs.com/george/2010/03/kopbuster-barry-cooper-arrested.html

March 04, 2010

Kopbuster Barry Cooper arrested
OAOA.com is reporting that Barry Cooper of Kopbuster fame has been arrested for filing a false report and possession of marijuana.

You will remember that in 2008 Mr. Cooper conducted a local operation that resulted in a police search of a fake grow house in Odessa, Texas. Scroll to the bottom for links.

Mr. Cooper has refined his tactics since then, and he has produced a very interesting video of a sting operation he conducted on a police officer in Liberty Hill, Texas. The whole 46 minute video is available at Youtube. The first third or so shows him setting the trap. He targeted one particular police captain, and as luck would have it, that's the officer who responded to Mr. Cooper's report of a suspicious bag. If it can be believed, the officer took cash from the bag, discarded the bag, and neglected to file a report. The video continues with Mr. Cooper confronting the Liberty Hill Police Chief. And it ends with about five minutes of what appears to be a police dash cam video of the offending officer doing a drug dog walk-around with a dog who needed coaxing to provide an incriminating alert.

As for Mr. Cooper's arrest, an updated account can be found at TrueSlant.com. Apparently, Mr. Cooper was attempting a similar sting at Florence Middle School in Williamson County, but things took a turn when the bomb squad showed up to investigate Mr. Cooper's sting package as a potential bomb. Mr. Cooper was jailed for filing a false report. Apparently, that was enough reason to search Mr. Cooper's house where, allegedly, a small amount of marijuana was found.


more at link

[pundaint]

18. I'll be happy for any exposure he can give to hypocrisy, but I have no illusion

that he is working for anybody but himself. If he felt so bad about contributing to the problem, profits might have been designated for a fund to help relieve the misery he's caused.

[Mike K]

19. I have no doubt that this fellow is motivated by self-serving

interests. But the things he is doing provide effective opposition to the drug war by exposing narcs for what they are. Yes, he's a scumbag -- but he's pulling the covers off himself along with his former colleagues.

For those who find Cooper repugnant, I'm not suggesting that you hook him up with your sister. Just understand that his enemy is our enemy and his background makes him an important ally.

[Bert]

20. Give him a break

I heard an NPR article about this guy. He was the exact type of sleaze that most people know about when he was an officer, and he is doing his best now to thwart them. This has come at the expense of his being under the microscope. Now the police are making it a point to harrass him, lost his stepchild because he had some weed when they did an illegal search of his house. They could illegally search anyone's house anytime and we all know it. He is hardly profiting.

I admit I am sickened by what he said he did, but guess what? He admitted it and he is making it harder for other asshole cops to make their quotas off of busting people with weed. There are thousands of them out there right now who do what he did. We live in a police state and we need more like him to step up. How many millions will we throw in jail for doing something less harmless than alcohol, tobacco and any of the drugs that are pushed on us daily by corporations? Please California vote yes for legalizing and start this ball rolling, we need some kind of victory to spur progress.