Police sting operations
 

Just wondering how everyone feels about these undercover operations the RCMP are using. By acting like the average joe to get the info they are looking for, where sometime they are trying to get someone to confess to something they did not do just because of a benefit bribe.

Mr BIG scenarios are built in conjunction with Crown Prosecutors and former defence lawyers and police undercover units.

They are highly successful and are usually the only means available to get the bad guy.

They are expensive and not used much due to that.

But what price do you put on justice???? If my kid was dead because of some creep, if I didnt get to the guy first, I'd hope the police would do everything in their power to get the bad guy.

I'm all for them. Whatever it takes, get the bad guy.

Good topic for discussion. Im sure we will get all sides on this one.

whatever works:evilgrin:

so what type of "average joe" are pretending to be? Yeah its pretty good idea.

Yep....if it works I'm all over it.....

whatever will get the job done, as long as there's not torture or forcing people to confess to things they didn't do!!
i mean we all need the creeeps off the streets, and for the average person who's got nothing to worry about, that shouldn't be a problem!
As long as they have the right authorization (from a judge or so), then let them do whatever's right to help us and make us and our families safer by removing danger off the streets.

You bet. Catch the bad guys. Period.

Yes 100%

what about the guy admitting to something he didn't do and been prosecuted for it. That's entrapment to me but I want to get the bad guy as much as you.

I am all for it.

But I am not sure what you mean by "get them to confess to something they did not do just b/c of a benefit bribe"

If you don't get involved in criminal activity, you should have nothing to worry about.

If you brag about criminal activity (doesn't matter if he's truthful or not) in order to get further into a criminal organization, to commit acts that cause harm to society, I say lock the door and throw away the key.

Grab em ...free flight to Gitmo !

I agree but I can see some legal problems coming out of this. As usual.

Ok just a case senario guy off street( not avg joe) admits to doing something. Just because of police ops.
HE gets something offer to him from under cover agents. Bad guy goes free ,good guy does time. Where is the just in this.

Stings have been going on for hundreds of years. Nothing new about it.

I am all for it.

In the end they pled guilty to a Judge.

I think Police stings have there place , I think they should bring back torture and death penalty too but who the hell am I .....

There is always the chance that a person will take credit for a crime that he didn't commit if he is trying to impress a supposed criminal that is actually an undercover police officer.As well,snitches will lie for the police in order to help them close a case,in order to gain favor with the police,and get themselves out of trouble.The Donald Marshall case comes to mind.I personally am in favor of punishing the guilty,not just in getting convictions and closing cases.

I agree Elk, when your in a situation like that you may want to confess just to fit in. I've heard sometimes the crooks are afraid for their lives and will admit to whatever they have to because the undercover guys have admitted worse. Personally I like the death penalty idea, as long as you are PROVEN guilty, it may make some people think twice about what they admit to.

Whenever there is a serial killer the police get lots of people admitting to it just for publicity, lots of idiots out there.

Totally agree. If a guy is a criminal and gets caught in the sting, justice is served. If a guy admits to criminal activity that he did not actually commit (regardless of his reasons) and he gets caught in the sting, he is an idiot and justice is served.

If a guy is stupid enough to say he did something that he actually didn't then ya, send his ***** to jail.

But if the case is closed,the real criminal goes unpunished.

Having the idiot in jail is not quite a fair trade for having the criminal on the street (although with some idiots it might be close to a fair trade), but chances are probably pretty good that the criminal will commit another crime and hopefully he will already be on law enforcement's radar when he does.

No perfect answer to this, but for some reason I have no more sympathy for the idiot/liar than I do for the criminal.

BS

Being an idiot is not a crime,and as such he shouldn't be punished as a criminal unless he actually commits a crime.

Then again the police and prosecutor in the Donald Marshall case did commit crimes when they framed Marshall,and they were never punished even after the truth was discovered.

There was a show on just the other day, where they showed the Mr. Big scenario they used to catch a guy that ended up innocent. Story is, he came home in a drunken stupor one day, telling his then girlfriend he killed someone. 6 years later, the police get interested as there was a murder about then in that town. They try to get the woman to get the guy to confess to it on the phone, but he doesn't, and tells her she's crazy, and what the hell are you talking about, etc.

By that time, he was also an alcoholic. The police started small, introducing themselves to him as criminals, and getting him to do things for money, like bring bags from A to B. Finally, they set up in a hotel room and told him that they know the justice system is crooked, and that the murder case is stacked against him by crooked dealings, but they could help him out. But first they need him to confess to it, otherwise they won't help him. He adamently says he won't confess to something he didn't do, he didn't do it, there's no way he's gonna say he did it just to get out of something, since he didn't do it, etc, etc. The cops tell him to go downstairs and grab a beer or two and think it over, so he does. Eventually, he says "well ok, if that's what it takes for you guys to help me is for me to say that I did it, well then, I did it, ok?".

They threw him in jail, and a few years later, guess what. He's not guilty, as proven through DNA and other conflicts in the circumstantial story (oh yeah, that they just kind of overlooked, you know, those glaring inconsistencies that get in the way of a good story).

The technique is good if it does manage to get guys, but that kind of behavior is just BS, IMHO of course.

Geo, the story you mentioned was about Andy Rose and was on the Fifth Estate on CBC.
It is about a Mr. Big sting that went terribly wrong.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2008-2009/so...y_with_murder/
Lawyers accross the country were in an uproar about this one.
I watched it and it was very interesting. The cops were going to put someone in jail no matter what the evidence was.

I believe this is why this strategy is no longer used in the U.S. There is the chance that even if the person didn't actually commit the crime in question, they may say they did to earn "brownie points" with the supposed Mr. Big. The fellow this was used on in the Mayerthorpe case was clearly overwhelmed and excited about all the attention he was recieving (including from his new hot "girlfriend"). Not sure you can take what a person says in that situation as a truly voluntary and believable confession.

Mr Big
 

From reading and watching videos on the subject one of the problems I have is how the justice system failed the people of the community. It is real easy to say that the two convicted people could have warned the RCMP but the justice system over the years had never protected anyone who had testified against Roszco . He had many times beaten and intimidated anyone who was against him or tried to get him charged. He had over 50 charges laid against him with few sticking. I feel that the Judges that had continually let him out on bail and dropped charges against him should be held accountable . Possible the shooting would never have happened if real jail time and no bail had been granted to an obvious violent criminal.

This happens. This is why every few years someone is freed on DNA evidence and we have to pay them through the nose for their lost years. Just because the police say someone did the crime doesn't mean that is always true, or that cops are immune from ignoring or hiding evidence to get what they want. Does it happen often? Who knows? Probably not, but it does happen.

It's interesting. We fight hard for our rights and personal liberties when it comes to gun control, but we seem to be very willing to quickly throw them away when it comes to other areas of the justice system and give the "state" all the rights and power they want. I don't hate defence attorneys or loath "technicalities". I'm glad they are around. I might need one someday. and "technicalities" are what keep the cops from walking into your house any darn time they feel like it.

The most dangerous statement around is "If you've done nothing wrong, you should have nothing to fear."