Entrapment FTL

[nbiggershaft]

Kansas City - News - Idle Hands

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Two years ago, Charlton Bradford sat at the bus stop at 45th Street and Troost with his friend Clyde.

Bradford liked to hang out at the bus stop because prostitutes who frequented the area sometimes gave him a dollar or two. At 47, Bradford had been in trouble — he'd served time for robbery and possession of a controlled substance — but those days were behind him. He worked odd jobs and he didn't have to get up early. It was 1:30 a.m. at the bus stop, and the air was pleasant.
A car rolled past, its windows down. From inside, a woman's voice yelled, "Let me out, pussy!"
"Hold up, baby," said the man who was driving.
The car slowed to a stop. The woman jumped out and started walking toward 46th Street. Then the man got out and followed her, yelling, "Baby, wait!" The couple disappeared around the corner, leaving the car running in the middle of the street.
Bradford says he and Clyde watched the car idle for more than 20 minutes. "We think it's a domestic-violence thing, right? We waited awhile and we were like, 'You think they still down there, fighting? You think he killed the chick?'"
Bradford got up and peered into the car, looking for whatever had made the couple act so crazy. "I'm thinking it's a crime scene," he says. "I was looking for booze."
It didn't occur to him to steal the idling car, Bradford says. "I been out of jail for two years. I work where I can, odds and ends — it ain't forced me to go steal."
On the other hand, Bradford knew that plenty of kids in the neighborhood had a different outlook — and he saw a few of them walking toward him. The car was idling in front of an empty lot. Bradford says he got in to move it. "I was gonna pull it into the lot, so there'd be no police action down there," he says.
Instead, the engine shut off and officers swarmed the car. They charged Bradford with first-degree tampering and locked him up in the Jackson County Detention Center to wait for his trial.
Bradford had fallen for what police refer to as a "kill-switch sting": An officer drives the car to a location and leaves it running; more officers watch from an out-of-sight location, equipped with a remote control that shuts off the engine, trapping a would-be car thief at the scene.
Sometimes an officer in civilian clothes will stumble out of the bait car, pretending to be drunk, and leave it running. Sometimes the decoy driver will leave it running at a gas station, pretending to be a customer going inside for a moment. Sometimes police stage a fight. "Whatever it takes to make it look like a situation that's not out of the norm," one police department source tells the Pitch.
Though the Kansas City Police Department says such scenarios look normal, Leon Munday at the Jackson County Public Defender's office disagrees.
Munday says he doesn't want to walk into a jewelry store and see diamonds on the counter or enter a bank and see cash sitting around, baiting him to steal. "When is it the police department's job to create crimes and criminals where they wouldn't otherwise exist?" he says. "It's just nutty."
Munday also has a problem with the areas in which the stings have been conducted.
"If you're going to do it at 45th and Troost, do it at 64th and Ward Parkway, too. Do it at the Barstow School and Rockhurst High School and tempt the haves as well as the have-nots," Munday says.
Sgt. Steve Seward of the Central Patrol Division's property crimes unit provided the Pitch with a list of 21 general areas where his officers have used the bait cars. Seven of the blocks Seward named were east of Troost, and seven were in a midtown corridor stretching from 34th Street and Jefferson south to the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus. Seward also mentioned "numerous locations downtown," "several convenience stores" and "Broadway and Westport" in the department's sting radius.
KCPD spokesman Rich Lockhart estimates that cops have staged six stings this year and ran as many as 15 in 2006. He says there's no formal review process, but the department occasionally reports its results to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which provides the cars.
Police detectives counter Munday's argument, saying that they run the stings in areas with high rates of car theft because the have-nots are most harmed by such crimes. "Most cars that are stolen are older cars," Lockhart says. "And a lot of people who own older cars are already spread as thin as they can be. When the means of getting to work is gone, where do you come up with a couple thousand dollars to make up for it? Food, diapers, rent, utilities — that's what suffers."
The operations might not be worth the trouble. "Our success rate is very low, actually," says Sgt. Bill Mahoney of the Central Patrol Division.
Munday defended Bradford on his day in court, when a jury found him guilty of tampering.
On April 23, he faced Jackson County Circuit Judge William Mauer for sentencing.
State prosecutors Kenneth Garrett and Robert Sanders asked Mauer to impose the fullest possible sentence — 10 years — because Bradford had been a "prior and persistent felon."
Munday protested, "The punishment should fit the crime. This was a setup. There was no loss." He asked Mauer to "send a message" that the bait-car stings were unfair by letting Bradford off with time served — the 57 days he'd already spent in county jail.
Because a jury had already convicted Bradford of the crime, Mauer said, he refused to make a judgment on whether the sting was fair.
He noted that Bradford had completed probation after serving five years at various state prisons and had kept his record clean since then.
Mauer sentenced Bradford to four years in prison but suspended the sentence by imposing five years' probation. Bradford was free to go. If he violates his probation, he will have to serve the four years.
Detectives who had come to watch the sentencing were not pleased. "Homicide, kidnapping, almost every burglary is aided with the use of a stolen car," one said. "Hopefully we won't see a trend in judges letting burglars off."
But Mauer had made it clear that his decision had nothing to do with Munday's arguments against the fairness of kill-switch operations. "Remember, Munday," Mauer said, "I was not swayed by the sting-operation part of this thing." Witnesses to dramatic scenes involving abandoned, idling cars should consider themselves warned. Lockhart says police don't plan to stop using the bait cars any time soon.

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Cliffs: Cops pretend to abandon car in the road and arrest people when they get in the running car.


I don't know the laws on entrapment, but this seems utter bullshit. To assume anyone who gets in a running car abandoned in the middle of the road a car thief is inconsistent with the presumption of innocence. Imagine if they did this with wallets laying on the ground, you pick it up and you are a thief.

My guess is that it could only possible stick on people who can't afford any decent defense, which imo makes it all the more deplorable and predatory.

[Publius]

Wow ... Just wow ...

There is no way he should've been convicted unless there is more to the story than what is here. They can't prove intent. It's sad that character assassination is an acceptable form of prosecution these days.

[Linzyhop]

like what if i had gotten in the car to move it, a law abiding citizen with no prior record? would they do the same thing there? its one thing if a bunch of teenagers jump into it laughing and tear off in it joyriding, but if one person gets in and they don't kill the engine right away, and they see them pull it off the road and turn the engine off... i mean come on.

that is baiting and it should be illegal.

[AVengeance]

I can't believe there are people who still call people like me a conspiracy theorist when shit like this is going on.

This is our government at work. HARD at work, to raise the prison population to make us feel like we're in danger. We're in danger, and we need THEM to protect US from the "bad guys" like this poor sucker that MIGHT have been going to steal the car or MIGHT have been going to move the car to a more secure location so it didn't cause an accident or get stolen.

[Stylerod]

I've seen this on TV before but the police don't leave the car running. They leave it parked with the doors unlocked. When someone comes in and jimmy's the ignition to try to get it to start THEN the police come.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

I've seen this on TV before but the police don't leave the car running. They leave it parked with the doors unlocked. When someone comes in and jimmy's the ignition to try to get it to start THEN the police come.

I think that's more acceptable. If you leave a car in an area known for car thefts WITHOUT the damn thing running (that way you have them actually jacking the car), then you got something. But abandoning a running car and waiting for someone to hop in is retarded. Hell, I think given that situation, I'd have tried to move the car, or taken the keys out of the ignition in hopes the guy would come back before it got jacked or something. That's pretty fucked up.

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

I've seen this on TV before but the police don't leave the car running. They leave it parked with the doors unlocked. When someone comes in and jimmy's the ignition to try to get it to start THEN the police come.

well shit, that I can see, but if it's left running, you have to admit, it's another thing all together.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

well shit, that I can see, but if it's left running, you have to admit, it's another thing all together.

Yeah, like the story said. It's almost like arresting someone for picking up a wallet that is left on the sidewalk.

[northhunter]

What bothers me the most about this is where it's happening. If it was done in all kinds of neighborhoods that's one thing but to target the poor areas is wrong. This sounds like a perfect situation for the ACLU to step into. I can't believe I just gave a back handed compliment to the ACLU!

[Phantom]

The guy was charged with "tampering." I've never read the statute, but I would bet he did everything needed to be guilty of the crime tampering.

IMO the problem here isn't so much the police setup, it is that innocent or even charitable intervention is punishable as a criminal offense.