… AND A CRIME LAB WITH A SERIOUS PROBLEM
So here is a list of 1,379 narcotics cases in which evidence – the vast majority of it being rocks of crack cocaine – were slated for destruction by the City of Columbia, S.C. crime lab.
And yes, the drugs were ultimately destroyed (via incineration).
What do we make of this list? First of all, there’s enough rocks included to keep Tyrone Biggums high for maybe a day. Maybe.
Beyond that, though, the list will figure prominently in the scandal that rocked the Columbia Police Department (CPD)’s crime lab last Friday – a scandal that broke exclusively here on FITS.
With a solicitor publicly questioning the crime lab’s handling of specific cases – and city leaders claiming to have been told nothing about the situation for months – some serious bad news is about to come down.
Oh, and it’s now impossible to reexamine these cases to determine if the evidence was – or wasn’t – properly handled.
Translation? A lot of people currently sitting in jail are about to be set free …
And a lot of lawyers are about to make some serious cash.
“Each case is worth up to $300,000,” one source familiar with the situation tells FITS. “More if someone can prove a cover-up.”
53 comments
Wow! did you pull your own teeth to get that shot?
I SHALL SMOKETH!!!!!
I wish those drug companies would get off their asses and make us some safe crack!
You never heard of “safe crackers”? Of course, you can easily get bogged down with terminology. When trying to find a “safe cracker” you need to define whether you are speaking of a cautious Caucasian, someone who makes safe crack, perhaps someone who makes talcum powder, or just someone who cracks safes.
Why isn’t anyone looking out for the recreational drug user? Don’t they realize there’s a real *need* there? Why go year after year with the same old discredited sources, using something with who-knows-what in it… no quality control, no list of ingredients, no standard dose….
Now if the drug companies were doing it, they’d make a fortune. They could make the drugs better each year, and never run out of time on their latest drug… the poor people could take the old generics, and the rich guys would be experimenting with the bleeding edge stuff.
Then we could make tobacco and alcohol illegal with a clear conscience, providing a clearly healthier alternative. Surely there would be a nicotine drug produced that would give you every side effect of the real thing except cancer and emphysema.. and alcohol.. you could put the drug in water, and it would smell and taste just like alcohol, and get you drunk – but YOU COULD STILL DRIVE!
Short sighted religious bigots, I say… standing in the way of progress!
You want recreational drugs? Try cash. It is the gateway drug to a financial stability…and other reality escaping pursuits.
It’s not about that. It’s something like putting letting AIDS loose on the world, and refusing to find a cure because only gays are dying..
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”-Mencken
“having a better time than you are.”
The penis was not meant to be inserted into the asshole. Tearing and bleeding occurred and AIDS spread like a wildfire in the San Francisco brothels among gay men.
Many died and that is sad. Many died after knowing the facts of such perversion of God’s “law” by continuing such deadly behavior.
1.2 million unborn children are murdered each year and they don’t have a “choice”. At least gay men do in regards to their behavior and lifestyle.
The government or drug companies didn’t kill these men or women.
Are you saying you believe that if a disease seems to be drawn from immoral behavior a cure should not be found?
Are you saying you believe that if a disease seems to be drawn from immoral behavior a cure should not be found?
YES!
Because we mere mortals shouldn’t mess up the plans of an omnipotent Deity.
*Smiles*
Hey! Now he won’t answer!
No.Jesse Helms and W. tried. Democrats didn’t give a shit.It was a political loser for them.
So you wish Helms had succeeded in forbidding a cure?
Not even for you.
Actually Bono has stated that Helms and W.Bush did more on this issue than ANY dem.
Not a good political issue for dems as blacks are against homosexuality and gay marriage by 80-20.
it is of course bad form to speak ill of the dead however little mercy the deceased may have shown to the hundreds of thousands of people who died as he denied funding for HIV/AIDS research.
Helms made himself a flashpoint – and made himself useful by appalling the saints and galvanizing first the civil rights movement, then AIDS activists of the ’80s, ’90s and beyond.
Funding? Democrats like Ted Kennedy needed millions to abort 50,000,000 unborn children after Roe v. Wade and murdered a women.
Forget the Hyde Amendment. Planned Parenthood “cooks the books”.
We don’t have a cure for the common cold, the flu or the Ebola virus despite trillions being spent for such cure.
We practice certain “health” procedures to lesson our chances of catching the above.
My guess is if you keep your penis out of your boyfriend’s asshole’s or wear a condom and don’t use dirty needles you will be okay. Practice safe sex.
cure for the common cold, flu
—-
way to witness for Christ, witless. People die of AIDS without a cure. All of them. Women and children… people who don’t even *know* a gay person.
But you’d let people die without a cure because you find torn anal tissue between consenting adults a nifty political cause?
Kinda hard to hold a conversation on a blog when we debate and then you consistently go back and edit the posts I responded too? You added 3 additional paragraph’s to what I responded to.
It changes the context of such debate and is frankly “weird” and cowardly.
Bbbbzzzzzzzzzz. :-)
Why don’t you admit you’re an idiot, and be done with it? Then we can be friends.
“The penis was not meant to be inserted into the asshole.”
That is correct. It was meant to be inserted into your mouth.
“The penis was not meant to be inserted into the asshole.”
Easy now. I don’t know if God intended for a tiny video camera to slid several feet up my asshole, but it may save my life.
In 2013, two new drugs were approved by the FDA: Olysio (simeprevir) and Sovaldi (sofosbuvir). Both make important improvements in treatment. Olysio is used together with interferon and ribavirin. Adding Olysio to the combination clears the hepatitis C virus in up to 80% of people who take it.
Only one problem. The current treatment is more profitable than the new cure. So it is very difficult to get.
well, it’s better to kill people through profitable neglect than out of crowd-pleasing hate…. isn’t it?
Profit is the silver lining. Just like an ALS cure is the silver lining of abortion.
silver lining?
One interesting point that seems to be eluding coverage is that the lady who is at the center of this controversy was apparently hired (2011) during the period when prominent Lott Family member Randy Scott and his (also Lott Family member) faithful sidekick, Ruben Santiago were running (or was that ruining) things at Columbia PD. One can’t help but wonder if she was one of Randy’s female liaisons at CPD. Will Leon now have to give her a job at RCSD? Stay tuned kiddies,
The City of Columbia government is a sewer. Drain it and start over
At this rate we need to consider just containing it so the contamination doesn’t spread.
Do they have “crack rock” in Greenville?
36 governor races in November and Real Clear Politics ranks the likelihood of Haley being defeated at 16.66% on election day. In comparison Kasich in Ohio is at 31% (latest poll has him up double digits) and Cuomo at 34% (Cuomo is up 25 points). We all know Kasich and Cuomo will win in a landslide.
Haley will as well which makes one ask why “traitor” tommy is spending millions for 2% of the electorate with defeat certain? Nationally , the political pundits are laughing at Ervin.
i am very happy here in Columbia, thank you. As long as you have corrupt Democrats like my servants, Bob Coble and Steve Benjamin, I can rule without question and have all of my driving indiscretions covered.
Of course, there is the chance that one day you’ll kill or maim someone, and that’s really much harder to cover up. Of course, Steve-O did it, but that was a lucky break (no bad pun intended).
Maybe Thomas Ravenel has the stuff….
Anyone with his history running for public office has to be messed up on something.
Two things. Chief of Police Holbrook is a honest cop. And there goes that penny option tax profit they were counting on to pay for that Bull Street ball park. I suggest building a wall along the Congaree River to keep the Richland County taxpayers in Richland County. After the bill comes in from releasing 200 drug case defendants, they will want to immigrate to Lexington County’s reasonable tax rates.
Our rates will stay reasonable only if we defeat the penny sales tax increase and the people who push it, such as Debbie Summers, Johnny Jeffcoat, and the other cruds who love to spend others’ money more than anything. Getting rid of Bill Banning was a start. Now we need to finish the job over the next two general elections.
At 20 pages on an election booth touch screen, rest assured it will fail. Their proposed tax increase will be as popular as the nutritional information for a Big Mac and Mountain Dew.
I am solidly with you on recruiting a new Sheriff, Thomas!!!! We (citizens of Lexington County) dropped the ball last time because there was zero opposition to Jimmy, even though his rampant corruption was beginning to become public knowledge.
I hear rumors that there is one guy who has experience and is eyeing candidacy, who is not part of the Lexington Crime Ring nor the Lott Family. Expect both camps to be thoroughly represented in the primaries. One guy I was initially hearing good things about is apparently in bed with the Santiago (formerly at CPD) camp and has promised him a position of prominence if he is elected. We sure as hell don’t need that!
Don’t believe everything you hear CIC…….amazingly, there are people that will lie, cheat, or steal to get their way in good ole Lexington.
We should also make sure he’s not personal buddies with Joe Biden, that would be a good start.
ALL crack is ultimately incinerated.
What about butt crack? I thought that just wound up with severe heat rash.
:-D
I love gettin’ head from ghetto chickens.
If FITS and Ravenel have their way….the same people who rule Columbia, will expand their liberal empire of failure and corruption….
As opposed to the current empire of failure and corruption?
Last time I looked SC’s unemplyment rate was lower than Obama’s….and the GOP is not focused on Race-baiting and America-hate…
When Bush was president, gas was low, food was cheap and there were more jobs that we could fill…Democrats have been a COMPLETE and TOTAL Disaster…
…and, that rant has exactly what to do with the ineptitude at the City of Columbia Police?
And, hey, focusing on someone else’s alleged ‘Race-baiting’ IS race baiting. too.
DEMOCRAT failure at all levels…even municipal.
This is all true, but I think you’re in the wrong thread.
Someone is being creative about who first discovered this problem?
Did Holbrook first notify Johnson, who coincidentally was concurrently being advised by an asst. solicitor about the problem, or did Johnson initially inform Holbrook about the lab issues, in a June 16 letter, prompting Holbrook to “immediately” contact the RCSD, upon learning about the problem?
One of these scenarios is definitely possible. However, both scenarios couldn’t have possibly occurred. To believe this article and more specifically, The State’s article, you have to assume that Holbrook forgot that he initially informed Dan Johnson, who also forgot being informed. Therefore, when Dan Johnson had a revelation, due to a minion’s hunch, he took immediate action by notifying Holbrook, who subsequently acted immediately, as well.
WIS Article:
“A drug analyst with the Columbia Police Department has resigned after a memo from Fifth Circuit Solicitor Dan Johnson raised questions about the quality of work at the department’s drug lab.”
“Columbia Police Deputy Chief Melron Kelly said Frazier had been hired at the lab in late 2011. In 2012, Kelly said, the lab’s veteran chemist left, leaving only Frazier.”
“Kelly said it’s been the practice of the lab to have all cases it handles peer reviewed by other departments. At some point, Kelly said, those peer reviews stopped, causing a backlog in cases at the lab.”
“Kelly said this development alarmed Chief Holbrook and contributed to the audit being ordered.”
The State Article:
“After assuming the chief’s post, Holbrook said, he initiated a department-wide quality assessment that included the drug lab. The assessment pointed to questions about the lab, he said, and he contacted the solicitor’s office. Also, Johnson’s office was learning through one of his assistant prosecutors there might be problems with some of the city drug analyses.”
“On June 16, Johnson said, he sent Holbrook a letter asking him to look into the situation. Holbrook immediately contacted the Richland County Sheriff’s Department and got expert drug analyst Demetra Garvin to look into the situation.”
Since they shut down Shorty’s Personal Drug Lab/ Party Pad/ Apartment, there’s nowhere to properly test and handle the “evidence”.
Same problems at the Town of Lexington lab. Saw if first hand. Minimum training, sloppy handling of chemicals, overwhelmed with cases. Easy way out is just to “Pencil Whip it” looks like marijuana, probly marijuana…Next.