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July 19, 2007 – EYE (US)

Funding Rules Encourage Cops To Arrest Small-Time Criminals

By Davey D

Return to Drug War News: Don't Miss Archive

I addressed issues surrounding police informants and the so-called Stop Snitching campaign in my last column (“Stop Snitching’ campaign runs deeper than most think,” Eye, July 5). Here’s more.  Feeding the flames of controversy was an April “60 Minutes” interview with rap superstar Cam’ron, in which he resurrected every negative stereotype, including the notion that people in the ‘hood aren’t worried about being protected from criminal activity. 

When we see rap videos with artists posturing as big-time “gangstas” who never cooperate with police, we might believe Cam’ron’s assertions. However, it’s essential not to confuse fact with fiction. 

The significance of the Stop Snitching movement is widely misunderstood, says Kenavon “K.C.” Carter, a lawyer from Austin who leads the organization HipHop Against Police Brutality.  Carter says the criteria by which federal funds are granted to police departments fuel the use of snitches.

Many departments, he says, depend heavily on federal resources, including Byrne Grant funding, whose benchmark for success is the number of arrests made. As a result, he says, police go after small-time dealers, rather than kingpins, because it’s strictly a numbers game. 

Recently the American Civil Liberties Union held a round-table in Atlanta titled “Undercover, Unreliable and Unaddressed: Reconsidering the Use of Informants in Drug Law Enforcement.” Taking part were rap stars, community activists, professors, attorneys and law enforcement officials. Former Baltimore police detective Ed Burns, creator of the HBO crime drama “The Wire,” underscored Carter’s point.

“Each arrest counts as one,” Burns said. “It doesn’t matter if you spent three years working on a case to bring down the leader of major drug ring or if you arrested a petty seller; each arrest counts as one.” Burns also said more officers have turned to informants to raise their arrest numbers.

He added that informants may be dangerous to the community, but their criminal activities are overlooked or charges against them are downgraded because they guarantee a steady stream of arrests.

During his own law enforcement career, Burns’ main informant was an assassin for the major drug gang in Baltimore. Carter argues that police partnerships with criminal informants often discourage community members from helping law enforcement. He says in Texas towns such as Madisonville, Hearne, Jasper and Tulia, 20 to 30 people at a time have been arrested because of coerced and false testimony by informants.

He also went on to add that through his work they have discovered that all too often it’s the police themselves who actually snitch on those reporting the crimes to their ‘protected’ and paid informants.

Ironically, while hip-hop artists have been blamed erroneously for advocating an end to snitching, no one has paid much attention to their allegations of police collusion in the drug trade.  T-Kash, an Oakland artist signed to Guerrilla Funk and the host of the “Friday Night Vibe” on KPFA-FM (94.1), points out several songs with references to police involvement in illicit activities, including the late Mac Dre’s “Punk Police”; Scarface’s “Look Into My Eyes” (where he points to activities of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent he believes to be corrupt); and “Desperado Outlaws” and “Deadly Games” (where C-Bo singles out officers “John Green” and “Martinez”).

T-Kash says for their case against Mac Dre, police used an informant who claimed to have ridden in a car with Dre on the way to rob a bank. Dre served four years on conspiracy charges but maintained his innocence until the day he died.  Carter points to the song “Hip Hop Police,” in which Chamillionaire and Slick Rick rap about officers trying to get them to snitch on fellow rappers. Carter claims everything they rapped about was depicted accurately.

He adds that, after releasing the popular track “Riden Dirty,” which addresses police harassment of young black men in nice cars, Chamillionaire became a victim of harassment himself. Carter says the hip-hop artist’s tour bus was pulled over by police who wanted to see if the rapper, who prides himself on not smoking, drinking or cursing, was “riding dirty.”

Davey D’s hip-hop column is published biweekly in Eye. Contact him at mrdaveyd@aol.com.

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