Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Police beat Operation Delta Blues continues
Posted by Max Brantley on Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 1:47 PM
I've been picking up a scrap or two of continuing buzz about Operation Delta Blues, the massive federal operation that produced indictments naming 70 people on drug, gun, corruption and other charges, including five Helena-West Helena police officers. (Above, Valerie Parlave, the FBI special agent in charge in Little Rock, is appealing for tips through social media.)
As promised, the work continues, I've learned. The day wasn't over yesterday before investigators had fanned out to Delta courthouses to talk to deputy prosecuting attorneys and other court officials about dismissed cases, procedures for nolle prossed cases, handling of drug foreiture money and other actions where undue influence might be evident.
Speculation is high about a defense attorney supposedly targeted as a source of police payoffs and what two years of wire taps might yield by way of evidence not yet publicly released.
One lawyer notes that defendants who choose to go to trial likely will do so in the federal court in Helena-West Helena. The Marianna rape trial that ended in acquittal a hung jury for convicted killer Curtis Vance despite strong DNA evidence is a ready example from the same state judicial district that hometown juries aren't always receptive to prosecution cases.
Comments (10)
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>the FBI special agent in charge in Little Rock, is appealing for tips through social media.<
Hmmm. What's wrong with this picture? I would assume that evidence exists for this roundup and subsequent arrests.
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I doubt they're looking for evidence on those they've already indicted. I took it to mean they're looking for others. I'll bet there are more than just 70 corrupt people in and around H/WH.
Could be for tips on individuals they have warrants for and are unable to locate them.
Anyone watching Boardwalk Empire on HBO is seeing the fruits of Prohibition (prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages.)
The 18th Amendment lasted from 1920 to 1933 and produced the wildest, bloodiest, most lawless times the US has ever seen. It made the mafia into the MAFIA and enriched the fire out of thugs with 3rd grade educations and quick trigger fingers. Prohibition bred snitches, spies, con-men who killed innocent people with their poison bathtub gin. The great might of the American government couldn't make a dent in the supply of untaxed, unregulated, booze that nearly drown the country in those 13 years.
The US War on Drugs or Drug Prohibition which has been going on at least since Nixon first used the phrase in 1971 has created the same conditions in the Americas. Around 60% of those in US prisons are there for drug violations. Mexico has turned into a shooting range in order to supply the illegal drugs Americans are willing to pay for.
When you see 70 people arrested in the Delta, you should think...We caused that. When you see 35 people found dead in Mexico, you should think...We caused that. When you see the largest crop grown in Arkansas and distributed unregulated, untaxed, you should think....we caused that!
I was never much of a druggie and don't want any now, but it makes no sense to continue the failed War on Drugs, continue to make the bad guys rich, fill our prisons with people who want to get high, start starving people on Medicaid when the taxes from legal marijuana sales alone would just about clear up our deficit.
Prisons half full would help a lot too. Did we not learn from 1920-1933? Of course if pot was legal a whole bunch of lawyers would have to start shopping at Wal-Mart. I truly believe that is what keeps the failed War on Drugs alive. Humans will do as they please and if you tell them NO they'll do double what they please if not arm themselves to the teeth and go into business themselves.
Let this Occupy your brain for a while as I dream of a better America in the future.
Point of fact: Curtis Vance was NOT acquitted in the Marianna rape case. The jury hung - there is a significant difference!
Secondly, but on a related note: If people recognize this to be the case, why the hell is no one DOING anything about it? Ridiculous!
Good job on squeezing in a cheap shot about the Curtis Vance case into this totally unrelated case. You know it IS entirely possible that the jury hung because of a valid and legitimate problem with the prosecution's case. Your comment does nothing but serve to further denigrate our right to a jury trial by trivializing it in this way. If you want a country without a jury trial, move to China.
I think what is sad about all of this is that the people who are hired to protect and serve are the ones right in the middle of this. In todays world i guess none of us should be surprised though. There has always been corruption in one way or another in all of the police forces across the nation, and i think it is only going to get worse. It is hard in todays society to for an honest person to take care of their family and even in times of plenty there is always someone looking for the easy way out. Anything worth its weight is hard and that includes life.
I think that it all stems back on someone saying "poor me". They feel sorry for themselves and think that just because they are alive or that they worked for such and such years that life owes them. They never sat back to see what life had given them they just wanted more, more, more.
What happened in Helena/West Helena is an in your face reminder that corruption in government agencies coexist with the corruption that goes on in cities and towns all across this country. Shocked to find officers in the midst of it all? Just remember they were hired from the same society of individuals where crooks, and good people come from, but they are judged and measured with a different ruler. Cops are ordinary people with an extraordinary job.
While coming from our society some are good, and some are bad. They should evaluate their allegiance to their cause on a day by day. Should the day come when they cannot live up to their oath it is time for them to move on into another profession.
Lawyers, Judges, and Politicians fail and allow things to be, or not to be within the scope of their authority also, and thru their professions have come most of our countries top leading officials. Now how amazing is that.
It's good to know that a higher authority can check the lower and local authorities to reduce corruption, etc. I only hope that the prosecutors and the judges who will try these cases keep both hands on the table at all times. They to may be tempted to become corrupt for a price providing they are not already.
I think the agency (FBI) needs to hear from the other cities and towns. The odds are great that other places are just as corrupt and should not go unnoticed. Town by town, city by city, state by state, and all the way up into Washington intolerance to corrupt officials should no longer be tolerated.
@seamus: If by "valid and legitimate problem with the prosecution's case" you mean "Jurors creating potential theories for what they thought might have happened, theories that were completely contradictory to evidence that was proffered by BOTH sides of the case", then you're absolutely correct. The Vance case was brought up in this article to reiterate the point that what passes as "justice" in the Delta is often anything but.
well FBI I'm trying to corrcet something that happend in 1997 to my brother james walton .how washington railroad my brother,,,,with alot of charges please help us right were washington county went wrong......the law up there goes by the color of your skin.......
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