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Philly Cop Sentenced To 15 Years For Stealing And Dealing Cocaine

Mildred Gaddis — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:27:52 +0000

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ― A former Philadelphia police officer is going to prison for 15 years for plotting to steal $1.5 million in cocaine from a supposed drug dealer.

Prosecutors say 34-year-old Alhinde Weems planned to use his badge to enter a home and rob an undercover agent posing as a drug dealer. They say Weems had his service weapon and planned to use it if necessary.

Authorities say Weems also sold cocaine.

Weems told a federal judge Friday he had been depressed and acting irrationally after suffering a head injury in a 2007 bike accident on the job.

Friends said Weems was under pressure to support his wife, five children and other relatives.

Weems is one of at least five Philadelphia police officers charged in recent years with trying to rob drug dealers.

Cops From Philly Beating Video Get Jobs Back, Free Beer

Man Finds $4,800 In Marijuana In Auction Painting

Mildred Gaddis — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:15:40 +0000

From Associated Press

CANTON, Ga. (AP) — A Cherokee County man found a hidden treasure in a painting he bought at an auction: four pounds of marijuana.

Gordon Clement, 80, discovered the pot stashed inside of the painting, which he bought at a post office auction about five years ago. He found the drugs last weekend when he tried to sell the artwork at another auction.

Text continues after gallery …

Clement planned to ask $25 for the piece. Police said the marijuana was worth about $4,800.

Alarmed, he called his lawyer and turned the painting over to authorities.

Philly Police Charged With Robbing Drug Dealers And Selling Drugs

Mildred Gaddis — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:19:58 +0000

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Three Philadelphia police officers plotted with drug dealers and staged a traffic stop and drug seizure in a scheme to steal $15,000 worth of heroin from a supplier and sell it, federal authorities charged.

Officers Mark Williams, James Venziale and Robert Snyder were named in a 14-count indictment announced Tuesday, along with Snyder’s wife and three suspected drug dealers. The plan went awry when the officers tried to sell the 300 grams of heroin through an undercover federal agent, Assistant U.S. Attorney Virginia Gibson said.

The police officers and two alleged drug dealers were arrested this week, along with Snyder’s wife, Christal. All but the wife were being held pending detention hearings later this week, prosecutors said. It was not immediately clear if the officers had lawyers.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said he would quickly begin the process of terminating them.

“Those three are history,” Ramsey said.

In May, Williams and Venziale staged a traffic stop of co-defendant Angel Ortiz after Ortiz obtained heroin from a supplier on credit, authorities said. With the supplier’s courier looking on, the officers appeared to arrest Ortiz, who was allegedly in on the scheme, and seize the drugs, Gibson said. Ortiz paid those two officers $6,000 for their help and an unidentified amount to Snyder’s wife, the indictment said.

The group then tried to sell the heroin through the undercover agent, prosecutors say.

According to the indictment, Christal Snyder served as a conduit, passing information by phone and text between the officers and the alleged dealers, Ortiz and co-defendant Zachary Young.

The FBI was still looking Tuesday for the alleged supplier, 39-year-old Miguel Santiago of Philadelphia, on drug charges. The intended victim of the alleged robbery, Santiago is the lone defendant not charged with conspiracy.

The officers were assigned to police districts in North Philadelphia and had between four and nine years on the force.

“We do not employ criminals. That’s what they are. That’s how they’ll be treated,” Mayor Michael Nutter said at a news conference.

The Drug Enforcement Administration initiated the investigation based on evidence agents had gathered.

FOP President John McNesby said the police union will not challenge the termination efforts.

“This is an airtight case,” he said. “It casts a dark cloud over all the officers trying to do a good job, out there risking their lives every day.”

Cops From Philly Beating Video Get Jobs Back, Free Beer

Drug Bust or Racist Revenge in Louisiana?

Mildred Gaddis — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:45:34 +0000

From NewAmericaMedia.org:

While Jena Sheriff says he is trying to rid his community of drugs, critics accuse him of exacting revenge against Black residents.
At 4 a.m. on July 9, 2009, more than 150 officers from 10 different agencies gathered in a large barn just outside Jena, Louisiana. The day was the culmination of an investigation that Sheriff Scott Franklin said had been going on for nearly two years. Local media was invited, and a video of the Sheriff speaking to the rowdy gathering would later appear online.

The Sheriff called the mobilization “Operation Third Option,” and he said it was about fighting drugs. However, community members say that Sheriff Franklin’s actions are part of an orchestrated revenge for the local civil rights protests that won freedom for six Black high school students – known internationally as the Jena Six – who had been charged with attempted murder for a school fight.

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One thing is clear: The Sheriff spent massive resources. Yet officers seized no contraband. Together with District Attorney Reed Walters, Sheriff Franklin has said he is seeking maximum penalties for people charged with small-time offenses. Further, in a parish that is 85 percent white, his actions have almost exclusively targeted African Americans.

Click here to read more.

Heavy Oil Lands On Louisiana Shore

REPORT: Jamaican Drug Lord “Dudus” Will Turn Himself In To U.S. Authorities

Mildred Gaddis — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:02:23 +0000

From The New York Daily News

Reputed Jamaican druglord Christopher (Dudus) Coke, the subject of an islandwide manhunt, has reportedly volunteered to surrender himself to officials in New York.

After attempts to arrest him in Kingston turned into urban warfare that left dozens dead, Coke began negotiating with U.S. authorities, federal sources said.

The 41-year-old alleged head of the notorious Shower Posse could be in custody in Manhattan by the end of the weekend. He is wanted in New York on multiple counts of drug-running and gun-running.

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Who’s To Blame For The Violence In Jamaica?

People's Connection — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:09:19 +0000

Who is to blame for the violence in Jamaica? Is it the police? Is it the infamous drug lord Dudus (also known as Christopher Coke)? Is it Prime Minister Bruce Golding for harboring Dudus for so long? Is it the Jamaican Labour Party for supporting Dudus? Is it the opposition People’s National Party for supporting drug Dons of their own? Is it the people of Tivoli Gardens who pledged to sacrifice their lives for Dudus? Is it the U.S.A. for producing and selling the guns that are being used in the gun fights and buying the drugs that are made Dudus so rich and powerful?

The answer is all of the above. The culture of Dons and Garrisons and their connections to politicians and political parties have allowed Dudus to become as powerful as he is. The global economic structure has left Jamaica an impoverished country with little ways of earning money besides tourism, music and drugs. This allows drug dealers like Dudus to replace the government as the leading force that provides for poor communities.

The Jamaican police bare a lot of responsibility for the violence. Police in Jamaica have a reputation for killing civilians and brutality. This is one of the reasons for the tense relationship between the police in Jamaica and people in the Garrisons.

The Jamaican Labour Party has protected and empowered Dudus for years, as they did his father Lester Coke, also know as Jim Brown. Still the opposition party, the People’s National Party has its connections to gangsters and garrisons too.

America has its own role in the violence going on in Jamaica. It was the U.S. who indicted Dudus on criminal charges and demanded that Jamaica arrest him. The USA supported, trained and armed the Shower Posse (which Dudus now heads) to help the JLP fight the PNP in the seventies and eighties, when Jamaica was developing a relationship with Cuba. In many ways the U.S.A. is responsible for Tivoli Gardens becoming the stronghold it is today and Dons like Dudis being as powerful as they are. The guns that are being used by the criminals are being shipped from the US and the US is supplying the Jamaican police with weapons as well. Dudus is rich because of Americans buying drugs not Jamaicans.

Still rather than blaming people for the violence, everybody in Jamaica and the USA should work together to solve the problems. Jamaica must end political corruption and police brutality and, both political parties must abandon the use of Dons and Garrisons to get political support in return for favors.

The USA needs to change its guns laws so drug lords aren’t able to stockpile weaponry to rival policemen in their countries. It also needs to stop its drug intake so these druglords don’t become the biggest support of income to their countries.

The international community must come together to find for countries like Jamaica have economies and ways to generate income other than drugs. All over the third world we see that drugs, guns and poverty always equal violence and killing. Jamaica is a small country and is as much affected by laws in the U.S. as Americans are.

If the U.S. can change its laws on drugs and guns to prohibit men like Dudus from becoming rich drug lords, with small armies that have arsenals of weapons, we can prevent future incidents like the one in Tivol Gardens. If the international community and rich first world nations can change the system of neo-colonialism that leaves third world countries poor and dependent on rich ones, drug dealers could no longer rival governments for power and the cycle of guns, drugs, poverty and violence can finally end.

As Jamaican Drug “Don” Escapes, U.S. Lists Prime Minister As His “Criminal Affiliate”

30 People Killed In Jamaican War Between Police And Drug Gangs

People's Connection — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:40:00 +0000

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Thousands of heavily armed police and soldiers barged past barricades into the capital’s most violent slums on Tuesday, clashing with die-hard defenders of a gang leader sought by the United States. At least 30 people have died, officals said.

Jamaica’s security forces, reeling from bold attacks by masked gangsters loyal to underworld boss Christopher “Dudus” Coke, were in the midst of a nearly daylong assault in the heart of West Kingston’s ramshackle slums, long afflicted by gang strife.

On Tuesday, the third consecutive day of unrest, masked gunmen in West Kingston vanished down side streets barricaded with barbed wire and junked cars intended to block outsiders. The sound of gunfire echoed across the neighborhoods in Jamaica’s south coast, far from the all-inclusive tourist meccas of the north shore.

Police spokesman Corporal Richard Minott told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the fighting in West Kingston alone has killed 26 civilians and one security official. Police had reported that earlier fighting killed two officers and a soldier.

It was not immediately clear what was happening inside the patchwork of slums where Coke’s supporters began massing last week after Prime Minister Bruce Golding dropped his nine-month refusal to extradite Coke, who has ties to his political party.

Kingston streets outside the battle zones were mostly empty, schools and numerous businesses were closed, hospitals offered only emergency services and the government appealed for donations of blood. The government on Sunday implemented a monthlong state of emergency.

The violence has not spilled into the capital’s wealthier neighborhoods, but gangs from slums just outside the capital have joined the fight, erecting barricades on roadways and shooting at troops.

In Spanish Town, a rough community just outside the areas where the government has installed a state of emergency, police reported that a firefight killed two local people, including a little boy.

Video courtesy of ABC News. For more visit ABC News.com

In the gang-heavy town of Portmore, police said gunmen sprayed bullets at a minivan ferrying local people. It was not clear if anyone died.

But West Kingston, which includes the Trenchtown slum where reggae superstar Bob Marley was raised, remains the epicenter of the violence.

Gangsters loyal to Coke began barricading the area’s streets and preparing for battle immediately after Golding caved in last Monday to a growing public outcry over his opposition to extradition. Jamaica’s leader, whose represents West Kingston in Parliament, had claimed the U.S. indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence.

Security Minister Dwight Nelson said “police are on top of the situation,” but gunfire was reported in several poor communities and brazen gunmen even shot up Kingston’s central police station.

The drug trade is deeply entrenched in Jamaica, which is the largest producer of marijuana in the region and where gangs have become powerful organized crime networks involved in international gun smuggling. It fuels one of the world’s highest murder rates; the island of 2.8 million people had about 1,660 homicides in 2009.

In a sun-splashed island known more for reggae music and all-inclusive resorts, the violence erupted Sunday afternoon after nearly a week of rising tensions over the possible extradition of Coke to the United States, where he faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

He leads one of the gangs that control politicized slums known as “garrisons.” Political parties created the gangs in the 1970s to rustle up votes. The gangs have since turned to drug trafficking, but each remains closely tied to a political party. Coke’s gang is tied to the governing Labor Party.

The U.S. State Department said it was “the responsibility of the Jamaican government to locate and arrest Mr. Coke.” A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman denied widespread rumors that U.S. officials were meeting with Coke’s lawyers.

Coke’s lead attorney, Don Foote, told reporters his legal team had planned to have talks with U.S. officials at the embassy but the meeting was canceled.

Foote refused to say whether Coke was hunkered down in the barricaded Tivoli Gardens slum or was somewhere else in the country.

Black Babies Screened More Often For Drug Exposure

People's Connection — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:34:00 +0000

NEW YORK (Reuters) – African-American newborns may be more likely than their white counterparts to be screened for prenatal drug exposure, even in the absence of risk factors for it, a study at one medical center suggests.

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Research shows that newborns admitted to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) have a higher-than-average risk of having been exposed to illegal drugs during pregnancy. If staff suspect prenatal drug exposure, they may test an infant’s urine or feces for evidence of it.

Some NICUs, though not all, have specific guidelines on what factors should trigger a newborn drug test.

The new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, shows that even at a center with such guidelines, there are racial discrepancies in rates of drug screening.

The study team examined medical records for more than 2,100 newborns admitted to the NICU at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York in 2005 and 2006.

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More Minority Babies Will Be Born Than White Babies This Year

Jamaican Prime Minister Agrees To Extradite Reputed Drug Lord To U.S.

People's Connection — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:17:42 +0000

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s prime minister now says he will allow a reputed drug kingpin to be extradited to the U.S., ending a nine-month fight with Washington but raising fears of a violent backlash from the suspect’s supporters.

The announcement Monday night marked a reversal for Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who faced mounting public pressure to drop his opposition to the request for Christopher “Dudus” Coke. The wanted man allegedly controls a band of gunmen inside a barricaded neighborhood of west Kingston that Golding represents in parliament.

As rumors of the government’s decision spread before the official announcement, the streets of downtown Kingston emptied as businesses and government agencies closed early out of fear of violence. Coke’s supporters have been rumored to be stockpiling weapons to prevent his arrest since the extradition request was revealed in August.

But Coke’s lawyer, Tom Tavares-Finson, said his client is prepared to fight extradition in court. He said there would be no violence on Coke’s insistence.

“Absolutely not, he just wants us to go to court,” Tavares-Finson said.

Coke has ties of loyalty to Golding’s Jamaica Labor Party, which like the main opposition party has loose affiliations with organized crime dating to the 1970s when political factions armed gunmen to intimidate election rivals.

In a nationally televised address Monday night, Golding said his party had become improperly involved in the dispute and expressed remorse for his handling of the case.

“This matter of the extradition has consumed too much of our energies and attention and has led to a virtual paralysis that must be broken,” he said. “The minister of justice, in consideration of all the factors, will sign the authorization for the extradition process to commence.”

Golding did not indicate how long it would take before security forces move on Coke.

The prime minister had stonewalled the extradition request since it was revealed in August with claims that the U.S. indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence.

His handling of the case, in particular his authorization of a U.S. firm to lobby Washington to drop the request, provoked an outcry that threatened his political career. With opposition parties and public sector groups calling for his resignation, the governing party vouched for him following a high-level conference over the weekend.

He said he offered his resignation on Sunday but it was rejected by the party.

Golding’s opposition to the extradition strained relations with the United States, which questioned the Caribbean island’s reliability as an ally in the fight against trafficking in a State Department report earlier this year.

A businessman known for his work as a show promoter, Coke has kept a high public profile in the ghettos west of Kingston, reportedly handing out cash and school supplies to needy children. He is also credited with helping to keep order by using his authority to punish thieves and other criminals in an area where the government has little presence.

Coke’s father was Lester Lloyd Coke, better known as Jim Brown, a leader of the Shower Posse during the 1980s cocaine wars. U.S. prosecutors say Christopher Coke took over the organization after his father died in a 1991 prison fire while awaiting extradition to the United States.

Under the younger Coke’s direction, Shower Posse members have sold marijuana and crack cocaine in the New York area and elsewhere and funneled profits back to him, U.S. authorities allege. He faces life in prison if convicted on charges filed against him in New York.

How U.S. Drug Policies Destroy Our Inner Cities And The Third World

American Guns Fuel Jamaican Violence

Why Is The Jamaican Prime Minister Protecting A Reputed Criminal?

People's Connection — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:37:25 +0000

All over Jamaica people are talking about the President and the Prime Minister. One of them was elected by the people of Jamaica, the other is the De Facto leader of one of Kingston’s most notorious neighborhoods.

Christopher “Dudus” Coke is not an elected official, yet he is known as the President. He presides over Tivoli Gardens, an enclave in Jamaica known as a garrison. To some he is a community leader, to others he is gangster. Unfortunately for Dudus, the US government believes he is a gangster and has extradited him to the US on guns and drug trafficking charges.

Despite the close relationship between the US and Jamaica, Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding has refused to extradite Coke to the US. Golding claims that the US illegally wire tapped Coke.

Still it is doubtful that that is the reason that Golding is refusing to extradite Coke. Golding represents the Jamaican Labour Party, which Coke and his Garrison of Tivoli Gardens strongly support.

The connection between politics and gangsters in Jamaica is hardly a new one. Dudus’s father, Lester Coke, also known as Jim Brown was not only JLP leader and Prime Minister, Edward Seaga’s bodyguard and representative in Tivoli Gardens, but also the leader of the notorious Jamaican Shower Posse.

The opposition, People’s National Party, has also been connected too several notorious gangsters and have their own Garrison communities in which they receive extensive support.

In Jamaica “Dons,” named after mafia leaders, control garrison communities. They previously served as liaisons between the political parties and the communities they lived in. Originally the Dons would give out jobs and housing to political supporters in their district. As the 80s came, Dons realized they could make more money facilitating cocaine to the US from Colombia and the Shower and Spangler posses became international drug trafficking organizations, complete with all the violence and money that cocaine brings.

A great deal of Golding’s support comes from the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood, where Dudus is both worshipped and feared. Dudus regularly puts on parties and sporting events for his community. Dudus also receives construction contracts for the government, which brings jobs into the community. Dudus in not unlike John Gotti, a hero in his own community and people but a threat to the police and other communities.

Dudus also receives a good deal of government contracts through his company Incomparable Enterprise Limited.

Jamaica is hardly the only country where politics and criminality meet. Panamanian President, Manuel Noriega, was heavily involved in the cocaine trade and the brother of Afghan President, Karzai is a heroin dealer and warlord.

While in Jamaica, I heard rumors that several top level officials, including Prime Minister, Bruce Golding were going to be indicted. Also there were reports several members of the JLP had paid a lot of money to a lobbyist in order to handle the Dudus matter in the US.

The Dudus matter has put a longstanding Jamaican secret out in the open. The connections between Dons and politicians and the power that the Dons have in Jamaica is well known in Jamaica but rarely spoken about in the international media.

Criminals and corrupt politicians have gone hand in hand since the beginning of civilization. Often times, the USA has taken advantage of this situation. During the 80’s the CIA used drug dealers to help fund the Contras who were waging a civil war in Nicaragua. Cecil Connor, a member of the Shower Posse along with Dudus’s father Lester “Jim Brown” Coke, claimed that he was trained by the CIA to fight for the JLP against their political rivals the PNP. In Gary Webb’s book, “The Dark Alliance,” he claims that the CIA was also shipping guns to JLP thugs, predecessors to Dudus’s Presidential Clique.

While the US has indicted Dudus for gun trafficking, the Jamaican Prime minister has blamed the USA for the many guns that enter Jamaica and are used in gang warfare.

The US has every right to extradite Dudus. While some may say he is good, righteous person who takes care of his community, he is widely known as a criminal and the US has sufficient evidence to extradite him. Still Dudus can be extradited to the US for gun trafficking, shouldn’t Jamaica be able to extradite CIA agents who brought guns into Jamaica in the 70s and 80s?

Still if Dudus is extradited and convicted, another Don will take his place, most likely after a violent conflict. If The US was really serious about stopping gun and drug trafficking in Jamaica, it should consider changing its gun laws and its policies on drugs.

In Jamaica and other poor countries, drugs are often one of the biggest sources of income. This often makes criminals more powerful than politicians, which leads to gangsters like Dudus holding enormous power in their own countries. In order to stop Dons and gangsters from getting into power the world community must find ways to make sure that Third World economies are not dependent on drugs and that US made guns are not illegally shipped into the hands of criminals.

American Guns Fuel Jamaican Violence