DRUG WAR BRIEFS: The Thiefs-In-Chief

By Kevin Nelson, AlterNet. Posted February 24, 2004.

February 14- The Daytona Beach News Journal reports: Volusia County sheriff's investigators seized bricks of marijuana during several drug busts. Then they seized the marijuana again. It's the first time Florida law enforcement officials have investigated a case where seized drugs were put back on the street, they say. Sheriff's officials learned during the criminal investigation into the theft of half a million dollars' worth of drugs from their evidence compound that they seized the same narcotics more than once.

How many times it may have happened isn't known. But the situation was already turning up before the evidence compound bust in an April investigation into an Oak Hill home growing operation. Investigators "hadn't quite connected the dots yet," spokesman Gary Davidson said.
Nearly 900 grams of cocaine and 370 pounds of marijuana were stolen from the sheriff's evidence compound by an employee, Sheriff Ben Johnson said. Former evidence manager Timothy W. Wallace, 47, New Smyrna Beach, was arrested Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and conspiracy to traffic in marijuana. He is being held in the Volusia County Branch Jail on $300,000 bail.

February 19- New York's Ogdensburg Daily Journal reports: An internal FBI report kept under wraps for three years details dozens of cases of agents fired for egregious misconduct and crimes, including drug trafficking, attempted murder, theft, misuse of informants and consorting with prostitutes.

The Report, released Wednesday by Sen. Charles Grassly, R-Iowa, found that about 1 in 1,000 agents was dismissed for serious misconduct or criminal offenses by the FBI during the period examined, from 1986 to 1999. The average was between eight and nine per year.

February 20- Georgia's Ledger Enquirer reports: Muscogee County Sheriff Ralph Johnson on Thursday fired David Glisson, the deputy who fatally shot an unarmed Columbus man more than two months ago. The announcement came at a brief news conference during which Johnson did not provide reasons for the termination. The shooting is under investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Glisson shot 39-year-old Kenneth Walker during a stop along Interstate 185 shortly before 9:00 p.m. on Dec. 10. Before being stopped, Walker and three friends, Warren Beaulah, Anthony Smith and Daryl Ransom, had been riding in a gray GMC Yukon seen leaving an Armour Road apartment under surveillance by Metro Narcotics Task Force Agents, according to official accounts.

All four men were ordered out of the vehicle, and during the ensuing moments, Walker was shot. An autopsy report shows that he received two gunshot wounds to the head, Muscogee County Coroner James Dunnavant said. Walker was pronounced dead a few hours later at The Medical Center.

No drugs or weapons were recovered from any of the occupants of the Yukon.

February 22- Colorado's Daily Camera reports: An assistant principal who was trying to get a student expelled admitted planting marijuana in the boy's locker, police said. Police say Pat Conroy told them this month that he placed the marijuana in the locker at South Haven High School last year because he suspected the boy was a drug dealer and wanted him expelled.

The plan failed because a police drug dog didn't find the contraband during a school search last year. Conroy, who has been placed on administrative leave, said he "lost his perspective" and had done something "stupid, arrogant and unethical," according to a police report. He told police that he only planted evidence once, according to the report.

Police searched Conroy's office Feb. 9 and found a drawer filled with packets of suspected marijuana and assorted pills, the police report said. Conroy told police he had been collecting the drugs confiscated from students to use at student expulsion hearings as evidence. Prosecutors are reviewing the case to see whether Conroy could be charged with possession of marijuana.

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