The new student at Millington Central High School was freaking out in study hall.
She’d just been talking to a boy about scoring some drugs one late September day when she turned to get her purse and couldn’t find her cell phone inside.
The slight, pretty girl with dark blonde hair and a darker secret went nuts.
She jumped up and dumped the purse out onto the table, demanding, “Who took my cell phone!?”
The phone’s loss itself was of no importance.
But if the thief bothered to call the stored numbers, he’d hear such greetings as: “This is Inspector Charlie Coleman of the Millington Police Department …”
Police shut her phone off in an hour, before anyone stumbled upon its secrets.
Operation Trojan Horse would continue for three more months until police swarmed campus on Dec. 16.
The day before, the new girl had quietly left school for good.
Officers arrested 13 students for selling drugs to a person they thought was one of them. All transactions were recorded.
This is the story of a 21-year-old female officer who infiltrated a high school with a fake 17-year-old identity. I always hate these “21 Jump Street” stories of teenagers building confidence and trust in a friend, only to find it is an undercover police officer sent there to lock them up. There always seems to be plenty of money to fund these undercover operations, but teachers are still forced to buy school supplies out of their own pockets.
If we spent half the time and money and priority on public school education as we spend on fighting the drug war, you’d have half the number of kids in school doing drugs, I guarantee. Now you’ve got a large portion of the student body, some who were already having trust and authority issues, who will hate school and police and authority so much more for having their emotions tinkered with.
She talks about how she would fit in with the teenagers:
“That’s the biggest thing. I had to act like a stoner pretty much. … Being a girl, you have to be a little slutty. Have to be flirtatious. Have to hang out with them. Have to make them like you. Have to earn their trust. Easiest way to get in there is to flirt.”
One time a girl told her, “You just look older than you should.”
“I wouldn’t wear makeup very much,” the officer said, adding that doing so made her look younger.
“I had kids come up to me and say, ‘Are you the police? It’s entrapment if you don’t tell us. Say your name.’
“They have no idea what entrapment is. I’m not making them sell me anything.”
She’s absolutely right, and since she brings it up, let me explain what you need to know if you think you’re dealing with an undercover narc:
Do Undercover Police Have to Identify Themselves?
Loosely defined, entrapment is a situation in which, if not for the actions of the police officer or police informant, the defendant would not have committed the crime. This defense is generally only successful in situations where law enforcement officers create a criminal plan, plant the idea of that plan into an otherwise innocent person’s mind, and then instigate the plan for the purpose of prosecuting the suspect.
The mere presentation of an opportunity or request by an officer that an individual commit a crime does not qualify as entrapment. An officer may engage a citizen in conversation and ask to buy an illegal substance — even if they have no reason to suspect the person of illegal activity. They may offer to sell an illegal substance and arrest the buyer after the sale.
It is well accepted that deception is often “necessary” to catch those who break the law. There is no question that police officers are allowed to directly mislead and/or deceive others about their identity, their law enforcement status, their history, and just about anything else, without breaking the law or compromising their case.
Police officers working undercover have exceptions from certain criminal laws. For instance, law enforcement officers directly engaged in the enforcement of controlled substance laws are exempt from laws surrounding the purchase, possession, sales or use of illegal substances. This means that there’s no way to identify an undercover officer based on their willingness or refusal to use an illegal drug.
In other words, that slutty, flirty 17-year-old at the party pulling bong hits and asking to buy a dime bag could very well be a cop. Now, if I were a 17-year-old boy looking to score (weed or slutty undercover cops), I think I would ask the new girl to bare her breasts for a photo before I’d share weed with her. ”Since our school was busted before by a narc back in 2006, and you’re this new chick suddenly interested in getting high,” I might suggest, “I’m kinda scared that you, too, are a narc. So for insurance, I’d like you to take off your top and bra for a picture. It won’t get published, it’ll stay right here on my hard drive for safe keeping, but if you turn out to be a narc, it will be interesting to watch you explain to your superiors and a judge why you were engaging in sexual activities with an underage boy.”
I don’t think flashing teen boys is covered under those exceptions to the criminal laws for undercover enforcement of drug laws. No boobs, no bong. That is, if I were a 17-year-old interested in smoking weed, which I would never endorse or suggest is a good idea. I didn’t smoke weed until I was 22 and I don’t think anyone under 18 should be smoking it, either. Your brain ain’t done growing and THC can mess up that growth. Besides, it’s cool to look forward to something for your 18th birthday besides buying lottery tickets, smoking cigarettes, and voting.
At the end of the article, Miss Undercover Narc feels the pain of her betrayals:
Her impression of students who smoke pot and use drugs is that they have just given up.
“They don’t care. They don’t even try. A majority of (them) think they are just going to work at McDonald’s their whole life.
“A lot of kids would be really smart but are wasting their life away, not just on drugs.”
Well, good thing you got them introduced to the criminal justice system and marked their name with a drug felony record. That ought to help their job prospects.
Could it be these kids have given up and turned to drugs because we, as a society, have shown that education and care for the poor and working class are damn near the bottom of our national priorities, as evidence by our federal and state budgets? Our federal education budget last year was $66 billion. The military budget was $589 billion. When a gun is nine times more important to this country than a graduate, you’re bound to get apathetic kids in school.
I was a friend of hers. She completely ruined some people’s lives that she got arrested all because they would get high sometimes. They hadn’t given up, and I’m sure that they did not plan on working at Mcdonalds for the rest of thier life, but now that’s what they will probably have to do. I appreciate this article alot because I 100% agree with you. Being a student at Millington, I know that now none of us trust the new kids we have gotten this school term. I don’t do drugs, but this narc actually became someone I trusted and then alot of my friends got screwed over! Thanks for posting this.
Millington is a city bordering Memphis to the north. The community it’s own share of violence and drug activity, but it’s nowhere near the epidemic proportions it’s reached here. By busting teens, the cops are arresting the lowest of the low-level offenders. From my own experience the small busts that police make here do nothing to affect availability. Next semester another influx of fresh students will arrive to step up an fill the shoes of the 13 students that were arrested. Only the next time the students won’t be so trusting of one another, or of campus police. This kind of operation inspires an “us vs. them” mentality between the police and students. I would imagine it does far more harm than good because everyone that spoke to that narc feels manipulated and lied to.
I was 17 when I first tried marijuana. The undercover narc told me it would take the edge off of the LSD I was playing with!