Sarah Stillman for the New Yorker on confidential informants and the ends they meet -- "Gaither was tortured, beaten with a bat, shot with a pistol and a shotgun, run over by a car, and dragged by a chain through the woods." [more inside]
posted by grobstein on Aug 28, 2012 - 84 comments

It's Not Just NYC: Across America, Only Black and Brown People Get Arrested for Pot - "New York City (previously), the pot-bust capital of the Western world, is notorious for the racial skewing (previously) of its marijuana arrests. Over the last 15 years, more than 85 percent of the half-million-plus people charged with misdemeanor possession there have been black or Latino. But the racial ratios of reefer roundups are equally extreme—if not worse—in scores of other U.S. cities." Same (trailer) as it (PDF) ever was? (video)
posted by mrgrimm on Jul 24, 2012 - 60 comments

"Alex White, Professional Snitch: What do you do when the cops you work for are dirtier than you are?" Metafilter previously on Kathryn Johnston.
posted by andoatnp on Jun 29, 2012 - 13 comments

"The report indicates that police patrol downtown Minneapolis looking for impaired people, then drive them to a testing facility in Richfield for examination of their capabilities while intoxicated. But in some cases where no previously impaired people could be found, police seduced prospective participants with drugs. The study has been ongoing since early last month." [more inside]
posted by punishinglemur on May 3, 2012 - 23 comments

The media portrayed it as a fight between good cops and evil drug dealers. According to that point of view...
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Oct 21, 2011 - 14 comments

"I realized that I was one of those extremely rare individuals who was a former POW of the drug war, and who got out and had the opportunity to share his story with the world." "It kind of makes an activist out of you when 3 helicopters land in your backyard and guys jump out with guns and destroy your place before your very eyes." Exile Nation is a documentary [complete film] [trailer] and an ongoing memoir, a work of “spiritual journalism”, and eventually "a documentary archive of interviews and testimonies […] revealing the far-ranging consequences of the War on Drugs to the American Criminal Justice System." [more inside]
posted by nTeleKy on May 13, 2011 - 11 comments

The master of Spin Boldak: Undercover with Afghanistan's drug-trafficking border police.
posted by chunking express on Feb 20, 2010 - 1 comment

The Wire - David Simon's original pitch and series bible. "At the end of thirteen episodes, the viewer - who has been lured all this way by a well-constructed police show - is not the simple gratification of hearing handcuffs click. Instead the conclusion is something Euripides or O'Neill might recognize: an America at every level at war with itself." [Previously.] (via)
posted by Electric Dragon on Apr 17, 2009 - 42 comments

A SWAT team in Maryland raids a city's mayor's house and kills his dogs. Oh, and the warrant was wrong.
posted by Optimus Chyme on Aug 7, 2008 - 117 comments

On December 18, 2004, Ascension Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend were stopped at a traffic light near La Pine Oregon, and when the light turned green, the car in front of them stalled. Alverez-Tejeda stopped in time but a pickup truck behind him rear-ended him. When he got out to look at his bumper, the police showed up and arrested the truck driver for drinking and driving. The cops then convinced Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend to go to a nearby parking lot, ordered them out of their car and into in the back of the cop car for 'processing.' While they were in the cruiser, a person jumped in their car and took off. The cops ordered the pair out and set off in full pursuit up the road.

But it was all a set up worthy of David Mamet. DEA agents were tracking a drug gang and. . .decided to stage something, perhaps even a carjacking, in order to seize the drugs without tipping off the conspirators. They never consulted a judge, but every person in the story, other than Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend, was a cop of some sort.
posted by EarBucket on Jun 9, 2007 - 71 comments

Drugs at music festivals are nothing new. Sometimes this results in comically bad journalism and sometimes the results are not so funny. At the Wakarusa Music Festival this past year police used new, creepy tools pursue drug dealers on the Festival grounds in an attempt to seperate the drugs from the music.
posted by aburd on Sep 16, 2006 - 28 comments

The Drug War Goes to the Dogs. SWAT teams (usually the young ones) seem to commit a lot of puppycide. (Via The Agitator, who is also a MeFite.)
posted by homunculus on Jul 13, 2006 - 31 comments

Tawdry, tawdry stuff "Another prison guard smuggling dope, another cop caught tweaking, an airport security professional trying to get rich, a horny Florida deputy, and a Michigan police chief who sounds like a real decadent party animal." Lots of not-so-fun reading in Corrupt Cops Stories, a weekly feature in the Drug War Chronicle. The archive goes back a few years.
posted by mediareport on Aug 8, 2005 - 11 comments

"A pint? That'll be three quid and a criminal investigation." From Fark. What's the line in the sand? Is there one?
posted by effugas on Feb 2, 2004 - 20 comments

Cops Abuse New Anti-Terror Law. The raid was perhaps the state's first known instance of law enforcement officers using new anti-terrorism police powers in a case unrelated to terrorism... Ahh, yes. The War On Drugs meets The War Against Terror.
posted by fnord_prefect on Aug 5, 2002 - 13 comments

Man Who Taped Police Beating Arrested in L.A. Conveniently dug-up charges, a bizarre radio talkshow detour, what the heck is going on?
posted by donkeyschlong on Jul 11, 2002 - 65 comments

Wow, talk about your bad luck. Or perhaps proof that heavy pot use(or hot-tubbing) can addle your thinking processes.
posted by jonmc on Feb 6, 2002 - 11 comments

weekend drug use ok? Interesting article... I hesistate to sign my neam this time though - i wouldn't want to put anyones nose out of joint.
posted by Spoon on Nov 20, 2001 - 14 comments

Excuse me Officer, do you have a light? The topic of Lambeth (a London Borough) taking a softer stance on cannabis use was discussed on MeFi a few weeks ago, but now someone has actually tested it out. The respondants seemed pretty typical of the people in the area (Brixton), but it seems that the Police just completely ignored the reporter as she became increasingly bold in her attempts to get a rise out of them.
posted by davehat on Jul 2, 2001 - 10 comments

Deputy Dawg Cracking cases with his service glock, crackhead Bucks County Barney Fife is the new face of law enforcement
posted by Perigee on May 26, 2001 - 5 comments