>Sender: >To: >X-Original-Message-ID: <019201bf05d4$d5603180$9acf69cf@pacbell.net> >From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: Can you believe this? >Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 08:03:45 -0700 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >As I read this article, two thoughts came to mind: > >1. All this policework for one ounce of pot. > >2. Stay away from AOL. > >Enjoy, > >Peter > >====== > >Wednesday September 22 05:33 PM EDT > > >Ex-Cop Jailed in Internet Drug Bust >MANY, La. (APBnews.com) -- It started with a friendly Internet message from >a former policewoman looking to party. > >Three weeks later, the ex-cop, Rhonda R. Bankens, 30, was arrested with an >ounce of marijuana by a horde of narcotics officers who surrounded her car >in the Wal-Mart parking lot in this tiny west-central Louisiana town. > >Bankens, a former part-time police officer in Westlake, was charged with >narcotics distribution. Her roommate, Richelle R. Spears, 31, was arrested >and charged with the same crime. Both women reside in the southwest >Louisiana town of De Quincy. > >Bankens declined to comment on the incident. Spears spoke briefly after her >arrest, saying neither she nor Bankens had any inkling they were being set >up. > >The arrest of the two women capped a three-week undercover investigation >that took place almost entirely on the Internet. The bust demonstrates how >thoroughly the Internet pervades America -- for good or bad -- connecting >drug buyers and sellers in communities as small as Many, a Piney Woods >community of old balconied brick buildings and shaded shotgun shacks. > >An innocuous beginning > >The investigation started when Detective Luke Erickson, a narcotics >investigator with the Louisiana State Sheriff's Association, received an >electronic chat message from Bankens on May 3, Erickson said. > >Erickson, who frequents chat rooms on America Online and poses as a >narcotics user in search of a good time, said he began an online rapport >with Bankens that soon turned to marijuana, he said. > >Erickson said Bankens told him that she was a frequent pot smoker, a single >mother and -- what piqued investigators' attention most -- a commissioned >police officer. > >"She stated that she was a police officer, but it was cool what she did, >because she was only a part-time officer," said Erickson. "She said she was >smoking weed every day, if she could get it. She told me she could get me a >bunch of marijuana." > >After Bankens' arrest, officers learned she left her police job a few months >earlier. > >A cabin by the lake > >After a few weeks of casual conversation, Erickson phoned Bankens. They >agreed to meet on Memorial Day weekend and spend a few days smoking pot and >drinking in a cabin on the shore of the Toledo Bend reservoir, a large lake >on the Texas-Louisiana border, said Erickson. > >After ensuring Bankens would bring marijuana with her to sell, Erickson >formed an investigation unit made up of officers from the Sabine Parish >Sheriff's Department, the state sheriff's association and the Louisiana >State Police. > >Erickson then asked Bankens for photographs of herself and a description of >her car. By sending a subpoena to America Online, he learned her identity. >He used other Internet sites to research her background and credit history. >Three weeks into the probe, Erickson told Bankens to meet him in the empty >end of the Wal-Mart parking lot on Highway 6 in Many. Bankens agreed. > >Preparing for the raid > >On Friday, a few hours before the bust, Erickson and nine other >investigators gathered for a briefing in the empty parking lot of the Many >Airport, on the outskirts of town. > >There, as flitting birds darted after insects, Erickson handed the other >officers three pages of information about Bankens and Spears, with >photographs and descriptions, including height, weight and age. He added a >photo of a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier and issued the officers with Bankens' >license plate number. > >The suspects arrive > >At 6 p.m. Friday, Erickson and another undercover narcotics officer, Sabine >Parish Sheriff's Detective Steven Bradley Marr, sat parked in the Wal-Mart >lot as shoppers stowed purchases in their trunks and stopped to talk to >neighbors in the evening breeze. At 6:05 p.m., a green Cavalier rolled into >the parking lot and pulled alongside Erickson's sport utility vehicle. > >Erickson and Marr hopped out and strode up to the car, kneeling on the >pavement and talking to the pair of nervous women, both smoking cigarettes, >Erickson said. It was the first time Erickson and Bankens met face to face. > >"You got the [stuff]?" Erickson said he asked Bankens and Spears. "Can we >see it?" > >One of the women pulled what police assume was a marijuana cigarette from a >pack of Marlboro Lights, Erickson said. As soon as he saw the evidence, >Erickson took a baseball cap from his back pocket and pulled it down over >his head -- signaling the SWAT team parked in a nearby van that drugs were >present and an arrest could be made. > >The troops roll in > >In a split second, black-shirted sheriff's officers poured from the rear >door of a van parked nearby, guns drawn. The officers dashed to the car, >surrounded it and quickly forced Bankens and Spears to lie face down on the >pavement. > >Neither suspect spoke or resisted, police said. A search of the trunk of >Spears' car turned up an ounce of marijuana. The two were jailed at the >Sabine Parish Detention Center until posting bond the following Sunday. >Neither has been arraigned on the charges. > >Erickson said the operation had to be pursued with special care because >Bankens, as a commissioned law enforcement officer, might have been carrying >a gun. Investigators said Bankens, if convicted of a felony, would lose her >police commission. > >By Jim Krane, APBNews.com special projects editor (jim.krane@apbnews.com). > > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------