Rachel Hoffman Fallout: One Officer Fired, Others Reprimanded

09/25/2008 - 9:18pm

At long last, we’re seeing some accountability for the officers who got Rachel Hoffman killed after coercing her into working as an informant in the mindbending botched drug sting disaster of the century:

Police Chief Dennis Jones requested that investigator Ryan Pender's employment be terminated.

Jones also wanted this disciplinary action taken: Deputy Chief John Proctor, reprimand; Capt. Chris Connell, two-week suspension without pay; Lt. Taltha White, two week suspension without pay; Sgt. David Odom, two week suspension without pay; Sgt. Rod Looney, two week suspension without pay.

Jones is reassigning White, Odom and Connell within the department.

"We have taken the necessary time to conduct a thorough and honest review and asked others to examine our operations," Jones says in the statement from the city. He said he has contacted Hoffman's family and provided a report.

"While we cannot change the events of May 7, we can make the type of changes within the department to help ensure our future actions are consistent with policy," Jones said.

[City Manager] Thompson also issued a reprimand to Jones to require a stronger level of supervision from top to bottom in the department. [Tampa Bay Online]

Anything resembling police accountability in the war on drugs is so rare that we should really take a moment to just reflect on this. Miraculously, we’ve reached a point where all you have to do to get the cops in trouble is be a pretty white girl with a loving family and hundreds of friends, get sucked into a steaming cauldron of first-rate drug enforcement incompetence, and perish dramatically on 20/20’s tear-jerker TV special of the season.

That’s what it takes, because despite the all-encompassing aversion of police officials towards acknowledging even mild misconduct, it’s still easier than conceding that the entire drug informant system is fundamentally corrupt and perverted to its core. This isn’t about Officer Pender, it isn’t about Tallahassee, and it isn’t going to get any better just because a couple incompetent cops got called out. The Burn Em’ & Bail Drug Informant Circus of Horror is a national tour sponsored by the war on drugs and it won’t go away until every last one of us makes it abundantly clear that we want no part of this. Not with our money, not in our community, and not in our name.