I Happy-Danced All The Way Out Of The Courthouse

Have You Ever Looked Fear In The Face And Said I Just Don’t Care?

Today, without a search warrant, a cellular phone, laptop, camera, GPS, inverter, power cords, and hell knows what else, were seized from my vehicle by City of Charlottesville police officers.

Someone let me know when harassment, intimidation, and coercion laws can be equally applied to Law Enforcement members. Just don’t bother letting me know by phone since they’ve removed that method of contact from me.

It Takes A Task Force To Raze A Dealer

Albemarle Co. Man Arrested in JADE Cocaine Bust
April 14, 2010
Members of the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement (JADE) Task Force arrested one man following a special operation in the 2600 block of Barracks Road in Albemarle County Monday.

Narcotic detectives seized approximately 16 grams of cocaine and seven grams of marijuana.

Dwayne Anthony Goodwin, 29, was arrested for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine.

Goodwin was also arrested on two Albemarle County Circuit Court cAPIAS for distribution of of cocaine from previous JADE operations. He is being held without bond pending a hearing.

Police say the investigation is ongoing and additional charges and arrests are pending.

(Source)

Single Sentence Randomness

If I were a snitch I would not want to be seen in broad daylight in prison stripes and handcuffs being escorted by JADE through their parking lot and into their office building.

♥

Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement seriously put a hurtin’ on the local drug world when they busted marijuana mogul Jeremy Manning-Smith.

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Courtesy of an I HeArTE JADE reader I have a handy new gadget that makes procurement of this document better than ever.

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I’m starting to think this site should have a “Derrière Day” featuring Virginia State Troopers.

♥

Kiss-kiss-kisses to Task Force Officers Don Campbell, John Baber, Jon Seitz, Jon McKay, Tavis Coffin, Joe Hatter, Granville Fields, Brian O’Donnell, Paul Best, Joe Fleming, Jimmy Bunch, and John Stoltz, and VSP Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Jason Trent; after 14 months, 300 entries, and 1 cheezball arrest, profile views hit the 10,000 mark.

Wordless Wednesday

C-Ville: Keeping Cops Safe From Blog Posts Since 2009

“They’re not prosecuting them.”

Though the person who spoke that sentence to me yesterday, has never lied to me, I can’t believe the outrageous information is true. A quick investigation to get a second opinion of sorts leads me to accept his four words are correct. They’re not prosecuting them. I’m stunned. Floored.

On September 2, 2009, I was charged with obstruction of justice in the city of Charlottesville. They used an operation conducted by Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement near Belmont Park that I witnessed two months earlier on July 9, 2009, as grounds for the charge.

On October 15, 2009, I pleaded guilty to the charge but, man, did I loathe doing so. It’s really not the pleading guilty part that burns me up inasmuch as having to plead guilty to that particular charge.

My presence at the location the Task Force was carrying on business in no way prevented them from performing their duties -- they set ‘em up; they took ‘em down.

When it looked like Charlottesville’s commonwealth attorney, Dave Chapman, and I would be facing off in court over the matter, I was ready as all get-out to fight the freakin’ allegation. Unfortunately the battle was not to be.

In a media interview after the case was over, Mr. Chapman declared I had been “there [at Belmont] driving around,” that “the appearance of the same vehicle could spook the target,” and my proximity to what they were doing was “threatening to blow the officers’ cover.” He’s admitting nothing actually did “spook the target” and that no one’s “cover” was blown. JADE successfully got two arrests out of that procedure. Driving around isn’t illegal. I’m sorry, but where exactly was the obstruction?

Listen folks, having the potential to commit the crime is not the same as actually committing the crime.

But, yeah, that’s how they roll.

Joe Hatter has sniveled to more than one person that since I could sneak up on him with a camera, I could ambush him with a gun. While it’s technically true, it’s unlikely. It’s the equivalent of me insisting that since Hatter can light a match, he could burn down my house. Again, technically true. But irrational.

I repeat: having the potential to commit the crime is not the same as actually committing the crime.

Anyway, back on track, while I got prosecuted, guess who did not.

Jeffrey M. Terry.

Who’s he, you ask? He’s one of the men JADE hooked up in the Belmont Park operation. The same Belmont Park operation I supposedly got in the way of. The same Belmont Park operation that landed me the charge of obstruction of justice. For which I was prosecuted. Mmhmm.

Despite Mr. Terry, an already a convicted felon, being caught with 45 grams of crack and a 9mil, the city of Charlottesville opted to Nolle Prosequi all four -- that’s 1-2-3-4 -- of the felony charges that the latest TFO, Tavis Coffin, slapped on him. Seeeeeeeeee:

Gosh that Mr. Terry is one lucky fellow, eh?

I also heard the other man snagged that night, the out-on-bail Marchella J. Alexander, is going to have his single charge of cocaine distribution dropped too.

I confess I don’t think like most people. But I can’t imagine that if given the choice between me being prosecuted or those two men being prosecuted, most people would point their fingers in my direction. Yet I’m the one with the conviction. The pair of dealers? Well, they’re freely roaming the streets. With coke. And firearms. Courtesy of the Task Force’s tax-payer-funded phenomenal “catch and release” program, I guess.

(Addendum)

NOTEriety T2O22 YeR

Brian O’Donnell aka Longhead constantly used to tell me I should write things down so I’d remember them. Occasionally others have told me the same. It’s always seemed like good advice whenever I’ve heard it, but for most of my life it’s a suggestion I’ve largely ignored. Until I started the JADE Project, that is.

There was just too much going on with the Task Force for me to not take notes and I soon learned the wild strategy of record-keeping in ink came in quite handy. When my scribbles turned out to be a key factor in the way I identified which Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement officer was John Baber and which was Jon McKay? Awesomesauce!

However, while I very much thought about things like simplicity and protecting the content itself, what I didn’t consider was how my, uh, unique stenography would look overall if anyone else laid eyes on it. Until I got my seized notebooks back from the Virginia State Police, that is.

Ostensibly incongruous words, initials in CAPS, letter/number combinations, loops lines and arrows -- all serve to remind me of something:



But to other viewers, especially ones who’ve already made up their minds I’m a lunatic, ya know pages with little-to-no intelligible meaning really don’t do anything to dispel their notion my clock’s missing its cuckoo. That’s all the more side-splitting when I’m aware that annotations jotted by JADE guys are assuredly not a good deal better:

Dude, Where’s My Car?

July 2009

After a short low-speed car chase and foot pursuit in the Belmont area, two local residents were arrested by the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement task force as part of an undercover sting.

Authorities arrested Jeffery M. Terry and Marchella J. Alexander at about 9 p.m. Thursday, according to a news release.

Lt. Don Campbell of JADE said about seven undercover officers were performing surveillance when they tried to pull over a car. The driver, however, did not pull over and continued into a dead-end street where the passenger got out and fled on foot, Campbell said.

“When [the car] stopped the passenger hopped out with a gun and cocaine and ran,” Campbell said.

After a short pursuit, Terry was arrested and detectives seized approximately 45 grams of crack and a loaded 9 mm pistol, according to the release.

Terry, of Charlottesville, was charged with distribution of cocaine, possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a firearm while possessing cocaine and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.

Alexander, of Albemarle, was charged with distribution of cocaine.

Both were being held without bond and further charges were pending.

More.

VSP ESP

Something strange is going on with the Virginia State Police. Yeah, no, not like in-general; expressly with I HeArTE JADE.

Y’all know that I get a kick out of messin’ with Special Agent Jason Trent.

Well, through a source, I was led to believe that, though I remain under investigation, Mr. Trent is not the case man anymore.

So, at first, I was all: If this is true, Hooray! He can go back to pretending he’s a 14-year-old girl, and I can stop pretending to be fixated on him.

But, next, I was all: If this is true, why the change? Maybe they feel I’m fixated on him. Huh.

I had to corroborate the information -- because, sometimes, even the best grapevine can produce bad fruit, and because I’m completely incapable of not verifying things.

Only, before I got the chance to really get started on that, I got additional, other, information. This time it came with names.

It appears, uhm -- sorry to be mysterious -- it has something to do with a few of the… I’ll call them “Big Guns” of the VSP Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

I think it’s from me picking on their BCI pal. Which makes me declare, in caps: BUT, BUT, BUT I’M BEING GOOD!

I aim to sort it out to a logical conclusion.

This just gets larger, and goes on longer, and involves more and more and more and more people. Doesn’t bother me a bit.

And, to think, one man has the power to make all this go away.

Feel -- Not In The Strict Sense

• Virginia State Police CBI Special Agent Trent and I conversed in person for precisely one hour. Near the beginning, Mr. Trent, in faux fairness, said he needed something to use against me wanted to get my “side” of the story. Even if you pretend I was the only one speaking the entire time, that’s a scrimpy sixty minutes I had in which, if I so desired (I didn’t), to change the guy’s nonsensical preformed opinion that I’m a homicidal basketcase concealing a Krakatoa and convince him I am instead a curiosity-consumed anomaly carting around a camera. Near the end, Investigator Trent nonchalantly enlightened me he’s literally spent weeks being influenced by his buddies about me meeting with the other “side.”

• Dasani was supposed to be the one to give me the No Trespassing order. That’s why he contacted me with his lunch invitation. Can you not just visualize me being ditched in some restaurant with the barment notice in one hand and the bill for my coffee and his doughnuts in the other?

• Supposedly there’s an image of an informant’s automobile (mixed in with others) somewhere on iHeArTEjade. I don’t deny it’s a possibility I’ve inadvertently put up a picture that included a cooperator’s car, however, due the extreme degree these law enforcement men have been dishonest with me already, I don’t believe it. Especially since when I stated to Agent Trent I’d remove it, he snorted and refused to tell me which photograph. So, to me, either they must not care that much about their snitches -- big surprise -- or they’re lying. If it really is here, I’d still very much like it not to be. In the meantime, remember there are 19.2 cavillion businesses other than JADE that parking lot is for. Assume the operator of the vehicle in question is eating dinner, watching a play, picking up a pack of cigarettes, getting a haircut, learning the results of an AIDS/HIV test…

• Outside the VA State Police office, Jason Trent posited a disconcerting question. It seemed like such a pertinent query you’d think he would’ve broached the subject when he was still recording our discussion instead of waiting until after he’d stopped. He was well aware I wasn’t preserving the discourse. To me, it was evident he only asked it, and with his audio device off, because he’s looking to find out if he has to cover it up. I hope he has the sense to know that if you don’t dig something up, you don’t have to rebury it.

• All in all I feel like the interaction…whoops, that reminds me. I used the word “feel” a few times over the course of our get-together and not a single instance didn’t the agent latch onto it as if I was on the edge of confessing to murder and he was going to aggravate me into blurting admission.

I would say something to the effect of: I put up what I feel like. Meaning, the entries I make on I HeArTE JADE stem from what’s on my mind that I think are relevant to write about.

But Mr. Trent was all: What you FEEL like? You FEEL mad at Longhead and that’s why you FEEL you have to put up a picture of his kids’ school. Isn’t that right? Right? RIGHT?

And then I’m thinking: Huh? What is he even talkin’ about? I bet he and Porn Star share the same psychiatrist.

It was easy to ignore his intentional provocation, given that never were his accusations based on facts. I felt he was doing it out of steep desperation and I feel sorry for him because he felt he had to stoop to using an outright transparent police tactic on me.

• Agent Trent declared frankly he did not want this case. According to him, he asked his superiors, on more than one occasion, why he was assigned it. The impression I got, judging by his comments and tone, is that he finds the whole thing boring and beneath him. I tend to agree. What I’m doing is going to be interesting to me alone and not an iota of it warrants a criminal investigation. By any lawman.

Ya’d Think They Caught Me On a Bridge With a POS Tec-9 and a Twitch

I got another two-page letter, this one from the “JADE Task Force Command Group,” handed to me directly by VSP Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Jason Trent. The content, albeit sterner, is evocative of communications past, complete with a warning about prosecution. It does have a minor new twist, the aroma of which has a distinct smell of burnt trousers. Both the document and the man informed me it will be the last caution I get.

So I’ve been deeply reflecting on it and I realize that since an arrest will cause me to immediately be thrown out of law school, not to mention ruin my fallback prospective career choice of becoming a police officer...

As if.

I am doing nothing illegal. Moreover, after all the horse manure they’ve previously shoveled into my yard it’s not unreasonable for me to believe this latest stuff of theirs is anything other than one more scoopful. Granted these points don’t automatically mean I’m untouchable. Word around the water cooler is JADE is a good bit ticked off I’ve embarrassed them.

That being said, should a significant amount of time go by without an update to I HeArTE JADE I can probably be found on this site. I’ll be the one charged with… okay, I don’t really know what they’ll charge me with -- they’ve never said. But I can guarantee it won’t be Trespassing.

Screen Play

Act I.

Law Enforcement lie to me, they confess they lie to me -- sometimes going so far as to brag about it -- then they expect me to take all else they say seriously. But how am I supposed to distinguish their lies from their truths, assuming -- and this is really a charitable stretch at this point -- that they’re even capable of being honest? Just the fact that I fell for any fibs they’ve told me at any given time is evidence that I’m clearly not able to tell the difference. Worse, I so desperately desire to believe in them I repeatedly overlook their reputation as deceitful I feel they’ve established.

It’s like swallowing a cupful of liquid because you want to trust the man giving it to you did not just pour it out of the huge open bottle with the skull and crossbones on it sitting on the counter next to him.

I recorded two telephone conversations I had with Virginia State Police Special Agent Jason Trent, but not the actual meeting that was arranged through the contact. I have no explanation really for why I didn’t, although there was some distant, hazy, thought wafting around in my mind that anyone in the shield-carrying community who says ma’am nine thousand times over a span of nine seconds is police-trained to the point of robotissism, not going to stray from pat phrases or predictable tactics, therefore pointless to record. Standard and rote. Snooze. Besides, he taped it.

He lured me up there with the pretense that he was investigating the activities of Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement. Ho, boy, he laid it on thick too. According to him he’d be showing me photographs and asking me if I’d seen JADE Task Force agents at certain places or with particular people, that sort of thing. He said he knew about my WS-100 and claimed he had no problem with me using it if we met but mentioned I wouldn’t be allowed to take pictures of anything he exhibited because it was “confidential.” Also secret was the name of the person who had sent him in my direction, and whomever had provided him with my cell phone number.

I thought it sounded mega-suspect but… -- this is the part where you revisit my container of poison reference above -- I Want To Believe! -- so I rang a couple of other members of Law Enforcement to feel them out about the oddities I picked up on. The first man told me that he would’ve said the opposite: you may take pictures, you may not audio record. He denied giving out my number to anyone. The second man echoed my thoughts: no images, no audio -- no way! He added that, since he’s “onto how inventive and resourceful” I can be, he wouldn’t let me around any physical pieces of classified information unless I was bare-fleshed and under the hawk-eyes of at least three other observers. Aw, ain’t that just the sweetest? He denied giving my number to anyone.

Still, rather than let go of my hope entirely (and seeing as how I would’ve met with him no matter what, coupled with something else I’m aware of), I went to the Virginia State Police office in Charlottesville on Thursday with an exactly one per cent. amount of optimism that I’d not been conned by Agent Trent.

Forget it. Being untruthful is a prerequisite for officers.

Within the first few of Mr. Trent’s sentences, I heard that I am the subject of what he’s working on for JADE.

So once the man spelled it out that he’d lied to me, I couldn’t be in denial about it anymore. What I could be, and was, was skeptical of every single syllable that Mr. Trent’s voicebox vibrated at me from then on out.

I guess I would describe the experience as akin to going to the theater. A movie, taken at face value, might or mightn’t be entertaining, but when you think further about it, it’s nothing more than the end result of scriptwriters and editors, tricks and special effects, actors and stuntmen. A show. Not real.

Later I may write about the specifics of my (not unpleasant) discussion with Mr. Trent, as or after I sort out the facts from the falsehoods. For example, one of the things Mr. Trent told me is that he’s been working on this case for one month. As yet, the earliest I can find him cast is seven weeks ago, appearing on set around the end of the third week of March.

Preparations Prior To Entry

No doubt the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force utilizes site-specific images so its members can identify and better visualize the areas where they’re about to execute search warrants.

Programs which supply satellite and aerial photography -- think Google Earth -- are important when constructing operational plans for men about to conduct a raid. Printouts of such can be presented during briefings and further give a more realistic view of what officers will be facing and navigating.

Snapshots of streets, vehicles, and homes, among other things, are taken by operatives in the Task Force and provided to concerned parties. If JADE is particularly adept at exploiting other sources, they may even discover a handful of pictures of their objective house’s interior and sketches which detail the floor plan of a residence.

If JADE is really lucky, they’ll have at minimum one informant who can describe to them things ranging from position of furniture to location of drugs and weapons. No cop wants to get shot because he tripped over something unseen or oddly-placed.

A New Shield For An Old Detective

I’m told there are several reasons to tint the windows of one’s car -- keeps the interior cooler, blocks UV rays that can damage not only skin but dashboards and upholstery, too, reduces glare from sun, snow, and headlights, just to name a few. The favorite reason? Privacy. The darker the film, the better the concealment. Explains why criminals and narcotics officers, especially, like it shady.

(before and after)

The thing about having tinted windows for secrecy is, while the black on the glass temporarily hides insiders from outsiders, unless the vehicle’s inhabitants intend to eternally occupy the auto... sooner or later, they have to come out.

Precise Location of Access

This:

goes along with this.

Upon seeing the above, I decided to do some research on the whole POE thing. There's a lot more to it than I could've ever imagined! This I found to be especially thought-provoking:

The point of entry into a house, be it a door or a window, is referred to as the fatal funnel. The occupants of the house need only aim their weapons at this point of entry and wait for the target to appear. That target is the law enforcement officer, and at that moment, the officer has no cover and more than likely no idea where the armed occupant of the house is located. The officers are generally back-lit, so their eyes must adjust to the lighting, or lack thereof, in the house. The armed occupants are presented with a clear target and need no time to adjust to the lighting. The officers may have little or no idea of the layout or floor plan of the premises and will require time to acclimate to their new surroundings. The armed occupants, however, need not acclimate themselves, for this is their home turf.

Moreover, the armed occupants know what they intend to do, whereas the officers only can infer whether the armed occupants intend to fight, flee, or surrender. This creates a situation where the occupants fire first because the officers cannot fire until they have determined the occupants' intention to resist. Such encounters in very close quarters frequently make the initial exchange of gunfire conclusive. The armed occupants may not consider possible harm to innocent bystanders, but the officers must. -- Special Agent Michael Bulzomi