Young Woman Busted for Pot Gets Killed Acting as Police Informant

[ItsGrowTime]

You are 100% correct on that, Irv does call it Rachels Law.

But what exactly are you advocating? If there are no new laws or changes to the existing laws then its the same as it ever was and LEO will continue business as usual. I agree they should be fired or even charged depending on the situation, but the way it's set up now, they have free reign to do what they want with impunity.

Im not really advocating anything other than the PD's tightening up on their officers but Im also realistic enough to know it won't happen and another law on the books (esp. since most laws are turned against the public, eventually) won't do a bit of good. The whole situation sucks but there's several factors at play and few of which would be avoided if there was a "Rachel's Law". The girl turned snitch, the cops sent her into a dangerous situation, the people killed her. There's a lot more wrong with this situation than just the cops and there's already laws on the books to deal with the cops that did this. She did knowingly go into a dangerous situation and sometimes Darwin's Law jumps up and bites you in the ass.

 

[ExEcutioner]

Im not really advocating anything other than the PD's tightening up on their officers but Im also realistic enough to know it won't happen and another law on the books (esp. since most laws are turned against the public, eventually) won't do a bit of good. The whole situation sucks but there's several factors at play and few of which would be avoided if there was a "Rachel's Law". The girl turned snitch, the cops sent her into a dangerous situation, the people killed her. There's a lot more wrong with this situation than just the cops and there's already laws on the books to deal with the cops that did this. She did knowingly go into a dangerous situation and sometimes Darwin's Law jumps up and bites you in the ass.

Darwin or do ya mean Murphy?

 

[ItsGrowTime]

Darwin or do ya mean Murphy?

I meant Darwin but I guess Murphy would apply also since clearly the worst thing happened to her. But I meant Darwin because people that don't make wise choices in life end up regretting it. Survival of the fittest, thinning the herd, etc.

Deciding to turn snitch for a five figure hard drug and illegal gun deal (over a pot charge) isn't a wise choice and she proved why.

 

[SomeGuy]

I meant Darwin but I guess Murphy would apply also since clearly the worst thing happened to her. But I meant Darwin because people that don't make wise choices in life end up regretting it. Survival of the fittest, thinning the herd, etc.

Deciding to turn snitch for a five figure hard drug and illegal gun deal (over a pot charge) isn't a wise choice and she proved why.

I would LOVE to hear the conversation that took place as they were coercing her to do this. I've been in the hot seat before and I know what kind of pressure these yahoo's try to apply. I've had friends tell me that they've threatened wives, children and even parents, knowing full well that they had nothing to do with it, in order to get them to cooperate.

 

[bottletoke]

snitches get stiches
and end up in ditches

 

[stealthballer]

crap like this is enough of a reason to legalize pot, who the fuck was she hurting in the first place?

 

[TGT]

The cops don't give a shit about public safety. If it makes them look good that is all that they care about.

A perfect example of this that I have experienced before was this guy I know was pretty heavy into things. Anyways, what happened was the police asked the neibours across the street from where this guy lived to write down plate numbers and get as much info for them as possible. Well, they did just that, but obviously the guy saw them taking notes and decided to put a stop to it. They were home invaded and the two old folk were tied up and beaten. The wifes legs were both broken and the man sufferend severe facial lacerarions. Those people ended up moving and never seen again, after a long stay at the hospital and I am sure many sleepless nights - probably for the rest of their lives. Did the cops protect them after telling them to do something that dangerous - not likely. It didn't even make the newspaper as it was kept hush hush.

The thing is, the guy was known to be dangerous, and for them to ask the community to do something like this is rediculous - expecially when he was tied to organized crime and not just an everyday dealer. He saw them as rats and did what he thought was needed to make an impression.

Just one more example of how the police don't give a shit about anyone but themselves and their reputation, all in an effort to get funding.

TGT

 

[Kinderfeld]

Rat this Rat that.... half the 'street' poeple would give up info without even being threatened....she probably was ratting on rats. Who do you hate in that case? I doubt you would not rat on a rat.

Just another way of looking at it.

 

[pSi007]

police dont give two fucks about people. They are usually cold and selfish, NAZI`s.


I know a story that involves the alameda sheriffs department selling drugs to harmless high school students only to bust them 6 months down the road and forces them into NARCing out bigtime drug dealers. I guess these Sheriffs told these kids that they will be thrown in prison for the next 10 years over buying a little bag of speed. Later the sheriffs instructed the kids to become narcs and try to narc out big time drug dealers who were part of the mexican mafia.

I had a guy i know that told me, "they threw a firebomb into her car and burned her to death because she knew too much". I replied, "How the FUCK can a 17 year old girl know too much". this was in the altimont area of california near tracy, california.



The real fire will reign soon.

 

[Joker Boy]

I don't get why some of you think she deserved this for turning states evidence. Crack and gun dealers should go to jail, they don't deserve to not be ratted on.Though its true the cops shouldn't be sending innocent people to do there work, thats why there are undercover cops. I just think they rather have civilians die then there own.

The more scum we get off the streets the better it will be for us marijuana lovers. If hard drugs were taken away it would be easier to get our great medicine and friend legalized.

 

[ShootinBudz]

nobody forced her to become a rat. She could have taken the rap for pot.

 

[whiterabbit9]

Why is everyone sticking up for this "poor girl"...
Female or not a rat is a rat...
The rat got exterminated, its the name of the game...
Don't play it if you don't want to...

edit: Not saying I think she should be dead, or would do that myself, but come on you play with fire your gonna get burned

hmmm
true rat is a rat

rat got exterminated true

and yeah she was probably a little stupid

but take it as if it was your sister man
or take it as if you actually cared for another human being even if that being
isn't related to you

she got fucked man.

and more often then not they scare people into ratting.

 

[bighogg]

message deleted.

i hate snitches i hate bitches i hate unscrupulous pigs
that whole situation sux.

 

[SomeGuy]

nobody forced her to become a rat. She could have taken the rap for pot.

Were you there when the cops talked her into doing this? Do you know what threats the cops made to get her to do this?

I'm not trying to say that snitching is a good thing, but theres a huge difference in professional dealers and wannabe chippies, and she was a wannabe chippie and they knew it and used it.
I've been in the hot seat with heavy hitter drug task force assholes and fortunately, they didn't have anything else to threaten me with, other than what they already had. They sure as shit fished around trying to find something, but it wasn't there so they had no other leverage.

 

[ShootinBudz]

sure they intimidated her but it was ONLY HER WHO COULD CONSENT. It all comes down to free will, not matter how tough the situation is you can always be tougher. Many people die from torture without giving up any information. She was a weak person, plain and simple. Both options are shitty but jail versus pretending to buy guns and hard drugs as a narc? what a stupid bitch.

 

[pugnacious]

Seriously people are sticking up for her? Felony possession of pot. At most a few months in county and probation. And shes out there trying to set people up for decades. I dont like to disrespect the dead. But you cant get lower than a rat.

 

[SomeGuy]

Seriously people are sticking up for her? Felony possession of pot. At most a few months in county and probation. And shes out there trying to set people up for decades. I dont like to disrespect the dead. But you cant get lower than a rat.

I'm NOT defending her decision to cooperate, I'm saying that she never should have been put into the position in the first place.

They caught her with less than an OZ, and then send her out alone to purchase $13000 worth of drugs and a friggin gun. If that isn't some screwed up crap gone wrong from the start, then I don't know what is.

Most of you can't get past the informant part to see what a screwed up position she was wrongly put into and it cost her big time.

 

[lotowork777]

Man, what a shame. The police suck.

 

[SomeGuy]

More info on Rachel Hoffman case.

Tallahassee.com

Updated: TPD says arrival time on Gardner Road part of internal investigation into Hoffman death

Updated 11:05 a.m.

Tallahassee police aren’t releasing the time that officers arrived on Gardner Road the night that confidential informant Rachel Hoffman went missing.

They say that information is part of an internal Tallahassee Police Department investigation.

Hoffman was supposed to meet two men May 7 at Forestmeadows Park to buy drugs and a gun from them as part of an undercover operation. But she told the officer she was working with that the men, Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, wanted her to follow them instead to nearby Gardner Road. The officer warned her not to go, but the phone call ended.

When police arrived at Gardner Road, they found Hoffman’s flip-flop, a spent .25-caliber cartridge and two live .25-caliber rounds. Hoffman was found dead May 8 in Taylor County, and an attorney for the Hoffman family, Lance Block, says Hoffman was likely shot on Gardner Road.

Investigators lost contact with Hoffman about 6:45 p.m, according to court records. Her cell phone went unanswered and a listening device in her purse stopped working.

But Tallahassee Police Department officials won’t say when they arrived on Gardner Road, a dirt road about two miles from the park. Block has questioned why TPD won’t release the time.

“That will be part of the investigation that we are conducting internally,” said TPD spokesman David McCranie.

McCranie also said much of the evidence in the case can’t be released because the investigation is still open and active.

“The last thing we want to do is to inadvertently release information that would jeopardize the investigation that FDLE and Mr. Meggs at the State Attorney’s Office are conducting in an effort to indict Green and Bradshaw on murder charges,” he said.
Advertisement
morning update

The attorney for Rachel Hoffman's family said Monday that Tallahassee police "proximately" caused her death through errors that started with their "foolish" plan to have her buy drugs and a gun and ended with their failure to locate her, although she was just minutes away.

Attorney Lance J. Block called the plan "pathetically marred" because police failed to immediately follow Hoffman after she left the area where she was supposed to make the buy, although she told her case officer where she was going: Gardner Road, just two minutes or so from where police and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents had been monitoring her.

That's where she is believed to have been shot dead May 7 with the very gun she was supposed to buy, Block wrote in a letter Monday to the city of Tallahassee.

"Based on what we know now, it seems painfully obvious that the Police Department was negligent," Block said. "There are a lot of irregularities involved in the specifics of this case."

Block put city officials on notice that a wrongful death claim could be filed against the city. Florida law mandates that such a notice be served six months before a local or state government is sued.

Block said he is waiting to see what the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which has taken over the investigation, uncovers before deciding whether to sue.

The city is bracing for a lawsuit.

"You would anticipate that when the six months run out that they'll file a suit," said City Attorney Jim English, who received the letter shortly after 11 a.m. Monday. "That's the whole purpose of the notice."

Police declined to respond to Block's letter, saying Hoffman's death is an active investigation.

Deneilo Bradshaw, 23, of Tallahassee, and Andrea Green, 25, of Perry, have been charged with armed robbery in the case and are being held at the Leon County Jail. A grand jury has yet to decide whether to file first-degree murder charges.

"I'd like to be able to provide a lot of the answers to these questions, especially for the family," said David McCranie, a spokesman for the Police Department. "They want answers and they deserve answers and as soon as this case is resolved, we'll be able to provide those answers."

In the letter, which the Tallahassee Democrat obtained from English, Block writes that TPD endangered Hoffman's life by making errors in secretly recruiting her as an undercover agent, setting up the drug buy and carrying out the operation.

It also casts doubt on the Police Department's claim that Hoffman disobeyed orders when she drove to a location away from Forestmeadows Park on North Meridian Road, where the operation was to take place.

"It makes no sense that Rachel Hoffman would have knowingly disregarded TPD instructions," Block wrote. "Her quest for leniency was conditioned on her cooperation, not insubordination. Her safety, her very life, was totally in the hands of the TPD."

Although TPD is not commenting now, officers stated in a news conference after Hoffman's death that she violated protocols. Block questioned why no proof has been cited. Block also questioned why police won't say how long it took them to make the two-mile trip to Gardner Road after she stopped answering her cell phone and the listening device in her purse stopped working.

Block's letter states that "some witnesses have told us that none of the TPD officers involved even knew where Gardner Road was located." When police got there, all they found was a spent .25 caliber cartridge, two .25 caliber bullets and one of Hoffman's black flip-flops.

"It is obvious that the city (of Tallahassee) should and will be held accountable for the disgraceful handling of this matter," the letter states, "both before and after Rachel's death."

According to the letter, "some witnesses" said that police originally asked Hoffman to request two AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifles from Green and Bradshaw.

When they told her they could not produce such "exotic weaponry," the letter states, police asked her to try to buy a .25 caliber handgun — the very type of gun that was reported stolen May 5 from the car of a customer at the auto detailer where Green and Bradshaw worked, according to the letter.

"Rachel had no experience with guns," Block said. "She was a 23-year-old college student who smokes marijuana. She wasn't a gun dealer."

Hoffman's autopsy has revealed that she died of "multiple gunshot wounds," but police have not said what type of gun was used to kill her. Her body was found in Taylor County on May 8.

In the letter, Block also challenges the Police Department's assertion that Hoffman, a recent Florida State graduate, knew Green and Bradshaw. Rather, he wrote, she and police were made aware of the two brothers-in-law through a "fellow student" that Hoffman turned in to police after she was made an informant.

Hoffman began working with police after a search of her home April 17 uncovered marijuana and pills.

McCranie said Police Chief Dennis Jones looked forward to the end of the case against Green and Bradshaw so he could respond to the family's concerns.

"One day, when the legal process is complete, all these things will be public record," he said. "Our job right now is to make sure to get justice for Rachel Hoffman."

 

[SomeGuy]

The cops had reason to believe the guys were armed and dangerous and the reason they asked her to try and get a gun from them was because one of them was suspected of stealing a gun already.

Tallahassee.com

One of the men charged with armed robbery in connection with the death of police informant Rachel Hoffman was listed as a suspect in the theft of a gun just days before she was killed.

Deneilo Bradshaw, 23, of Tallahassee, was listed as one of three suspects in the theft of a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol just two days before Hoffman disappeared, according to a police incident report obtained Tuesday by the Tallahassee Democrat .

The theft was reported by a customer of the Tallahassee auto detailing shop where Bradshaw and Andrea Green, 25, of Perry, worked. The theft was also outlined Monday in a letter the Hoffman family attorney sent to the city of Tallahassee.

Police have not said what type of gun was used to kill Hoffman, but a spent .25-caliber cartridge and two live .25-caliber rounds, along with one of her flip-flops, were found on Gardner Road, where she told police she was meeting the two men.

On May 7, police gave Hoffman $13,000 to buy a gun, cocaine and Ecstasy pills from Bradshaw and Green. On May 9, they led investigators to her body in Taylor County. She had been shot to death. Hoffman, 23, a 2007 Florida State University graduate, became an informant after police found drugs in her apartment in April.

The men are being held in the Leon County Jail on charges of armed robbery. A grand jury has yet to decide whether to file first-degree murder charges.

Travis Keels, owner of AQSI Beat the Heat Tinting, 208 W. Tennessee St., said Tuesday that Bradshaw and Green had worked there and were fired shortly before the undercover operation. Both worked for the shop for about two months as contractors washing cars. Keels said Green started making trouble and became insubordinate, so he was dismissed, and Bradshaw stopped coming to work.

"When Green got fired, we knew it wouldn't be too long before Bradshaw was gone because those two are buddies," he said.

Also on Tuesday, Tallahassee police stood by their earlier statements that Hoffman didn't follow protocol during the undercover operation that led to her death. An attorney for the Hoffman family, Lance Block, sent a letter Monday to city officials putting them on notice that a wrongful-death lawsuit could be filed.

Block has criticized the Tallahassee Police Department's recruiting of Hoffman and its handling of the undercover operation. The plan veered off course when Hoffman followed the two men to Gardner Road, about two miles from the designated meeting place at Forestmeadows Park.

"The established plan had the meeting occurring somewhere else, a place where we had established as an area of surveillance, and that's where the protocol comes into play," police spokesman David McCranie said.

McCranie would not comment Tuesday on how long it took officers to get to Gardner Road, which was a question Block raised in his letter. Block said police failed to immediately follow Hoffman, although she told them by cell phone where she was headed.

"In my opinion, the most important aspect to this case is why the Tallahassee Police Department didn't get to Gardner Road before all the violence," Block said.

TPD's arrival time at Gardner Road was not included in the arrest report for Bradshaw and Green, and McCranie said Tuesday that the arrival time is part of an internal investigation.

Also at issue in the investigation is the ending of the final contact Hoffman made with police. Investigators said in initial court documents that Hoffman ended her phone call with officers. On Tuesday, McCranie said police only knew that the call ended. A listening device in her purse also stopped working.

"There was conversation between the case agent and Rachel in which she indicated that she was going to meet (Bradshaw and Green), and the case agent told her not to go, and then the call ended," McCranie said. "I don't have the details of how or why. That is part of the investigation."

Chief Dennis Jones has asked the Florida Attorney General's Office to conduct its own investigation.

"When there's a loss of life, a tragedy, we will review our policies and procedures in an effort to make sure we don't have another tragedy," McCranie said. "We want to make sure the policies in place are sound policies, but we also want to make sure the policies that were in place were followed appropriately."

There is no timetable as to when the investigation will be complete, he said. Jones will review the findings and make policy revisions if necessary, McCranie said.

Meanwhile, Green's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Ines Suber, has filed a motion to keep law enforcement, the clerk of Circuit Court and any other state agency from releasing any statements, especially any incriminating ones, made by Green and Bradshaw.

A grand jury is expected to hear evidence in the Hoffman case sometime this month to determine whether to issue first-degree murder charges. A hearing on the motion is set for July 15, a day after the defendants' pretrial hearing.

"The case has received extensive publicity, and it is anticipated that should the statements be released to the press, the defendant's rights to receive a fair trial will be substantially jeopardized," Suber wrote in the court document.

Hoffman's cause of death was revealed through her death certificate, which stated "multiple gunshot wounds." McCranie said he told the media the day Hoffman's body was found that he didn't know her cause of death because the autopsy hadn't been performed.

"We wait for the facts," he said. "We collect the evidence, and it goes to the Medical Examiner's Office and they provide us with the cause of death."