Thursday, May 13, 2004
np: nada surf - the proximity effect
first off: a big, hearty hullo to the newest addition to my political science links, greensboro native and all around entertaining read, ed cone. i linked to an article he posted a week or so ago, and i've been greatly enjoying his blog ever since.
there was this episode of boston public last year (okay, i'm a sucker for david e. kelly shows, especially when i identified so closely with the teacher protagonists) where a kid was busted in an undercover drug sting. he was a normal student, not a drug user, a good kid; an undercover police officer flirted with him, offered him some favors (which actually ends up costing her the bust, if i recall; entrapment, don't you know) in return for getting her an eight-ball. (christ!) he does and he's arrested. patently unfair and a perfect example of how the drug war (in schools especially) can target the wrong people.
then nearly the exact same thing happens in the alamance county bust from earlier this semester. alamance county (one county over - burlington/elon college) had a really involved undercover drug sting where cops planted themselves in high school for nearly a semester, racking up close to fifty arrests, mostly for marijuana. the sting was most notable for busting north carolina's premiere high school basketball player, jameson curry, who lost his free ride to the university of north carolina at chapel hill as a result. (poor guy - he had to settle for oklahoma state.) however, he, along with most of the other persons arrested, copped plea bargains and ended up with probation.
but not so our unlucky lad jeffrey webster:
She was a new girl at school, and when they met at McDonald's during lunch period last fall, hitting it off just like that, maybe Jeffrey knew something was wrong with the picture.
After all, Cindy was outgoing, pretty -- in his words, "gorgeous." Jeffrey, on the other hand, wasn't. He was quiet, not so confident, pudgy, broad-shouldered. His parents were strict, not letting him drive his Mustang to school. He was in honors classes, worked two jobs, went to church three times a week, ran the school blood drive, had no criminal record, and no history of trouble at school.
So when this attractive girl he didn't know asked flat-out, within five minutes of meeting him, if he could get her some "weed," he recalls a gut feeling that something wasn't right. Kids he knew to be "pot heads" had always seemed, in contrast, so hush-hush about it...
But unlike Curry and the other 50 defendants who pleaded guilty to felony drug charges in exchange for probation, Webster went to trial, with 10 Cummings teachers and coaches testifying on his behalf. Though admitting that he three times bought small amounts of marijuana at the undercover officer's bidding, he testified that he did not use drugs and was only trying to gain her friendship...
Jeffrey Webster grew close enough [to the undercover officer] to attend a dance recital the undercover officer performed in, and asked her to the prom -- "if she didn't have a date." But after the winter break, "Cindy" was nowhere to be seen.
The next time he saw her was in court. Identifying herself on the stand as Officer Lindy Maness, 23, she was no longer wearing low-rise jeans and spaghetti-strap tops, but a Burlington Police uniform.
So instead of the prom -- and the June 1 graduation -- Jeffrey Webster one month ago found himself on his way to Western Youth Institution, a prison in Morganton, where he will serve five months on three felony drug charges.
i'm really at a loss to explain the logic behind this conviction. i knew the drug war was seriously flawed, but this is beyond reason.
on one last bit of north carolina related news: just so you know, erskine bowles does support a tobacco quota buyout. good for him. president bush does not. bad for him. is it any wonder that north carolina looks like it might actually be trending blue?
