GRAND HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) – Grand Valley State University student Derek Copp, shot and injured by a deputy in a marijuana raid, was sentenced Monday to probation, fines and community service.
Ottawa County Circuit Judge Edward Post handed down the sentence five months after the shooting that led to campus protests: 18 months probation, 40 hours of community service and $300 in fines. He also gave Copp permission to leave the state.
Ottawa County Deputy Ryan Huizenga was sentenced to six months probation, $400 in fine and 80 hours of community service after pleading guilty to reckless discharge of a weapon, a misdemeanor.
Huizenga has returned to duty after a stint on paid administrative leave.
Copp, 20, was shot in the chest and seriously injured March 11 when the West Michigan Enforcement Team raided the off-campus apartment he shared with another student.
Copp sold an undercover officer 3.3 grams of marijuana — about one-eighth of an ounce — for $60 shortly before drug officers raided his apartment at 10255 42nd Avenue in Allendale Township.
Huizenga was entering the rear sliding glass door of Copp’s lower-level apartment when he fired the shot. Prosecutors say he mistakenly had his finger on the trigger, instead of the trigger lock, which led to the shooting. Copp was at the door, pulling open the curtain, when the shot was fired.
The lede in this story mentions that this was a “pot bust gone awry”. I disagree. When you are sending armed officers, guns drawn, to arrest people in their homes at night by approaching their back door, there is nothing “awry” about someone getting shot. Why didn’t the original undercover officer arrest Derek for the initial marijuana sale?
Because the cops want to get the bigger bust. Going after that bust gets them bigger headlines, cash and property to seize for profit, and the adrenaline rush of “taking down the bad guys”. They’ve been trained to believe that behind every pot smoker’s door lies a well-armed drug baron ready to go out in a hail of gunfire.
So a cop with an itchy trigger finger shoots an unarmed man in his home and for his efforts he gets a paid vacation and a slap on the wrist. For surviving the gunshot, Derek gets to pay money for legal fees and gets the same slap on the wrist. That’s drug war justice for you.
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Hmmm… .2 grams short. Kind of shady. Now everyone who ever bought weed from them knows they were getting ripped off.
And for the record, no marijuana that comes through West Michigan is ever worth $60 an eight. You should never pay more than $50, and in most cases, even that is pushing it.
Unfortunately, due to the black market forces that are still in effect providing a higher price point that dispensaries have to match to keep growers,
and to the continued risk faced by growers and collectives who are not able to rely on being able to conduct their activities without government interference,
All are forces that conspire to keep prices at “legal” medicinal retailers high.
The one thing that will solve it is total legalization for adult use.
Then you can expect it to cost something more like the cost of fresh flowers, as similar economic forces will be in effect at that point.
Decriminalization won’t do it, Medicinal Legalization won’t do it… the only thing that will, is to free it completely from the black market.
I know every one of us will be so happy on the day that we can drive down the highway and know that the greenhouses that our medicine is being grown in, organically, are required because of the pollen from the ubiquitous, flowing hemp fields that line the horizon as far as the eye can see, growing nutritious seed and strong shoot, providing our fuel, fiber, food, and shelter in abundance.
The air filters on the intakes and “clean rooms” at the entrances are important, keeping the pollen from getting into bio-plastic greenhouses to the virgin females inside and misdirecting any of the precious energy flowing into the resin glands of their healing petals toward seed production.
Ah, beautiful dreams…
From a spiritual/medicinal/recreational cannabis user…
Not registered with any authority, just or unjust
just exercising my natural, inalienable, irrevocable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
wow, selling an eighth of pot to an undercover “LEO” gets me 18 months probation, 40 hours of community service and $300 in fines…
OK…
But SHOOTING someone by accident ONLY gets me six months probation, $400 in fines, and 80 hours of community service?
Does anyone else here see the major disparity between the crimes and the minor disparity between punishments somewhat f’d up?
Thanks! By the way, whenever someone tells me I’m “preaching to the choir” I tell them “yeah, because the choir doesn’t know all the words to the hymn yet.” I can’t preach to anyone else because those who oppose us don’t come into this church. However, my choir leaves the church and goes out into their schools, churches, workplaces, civic groups, and families and friends, and with any luck, they start singing a little…
I haven’t bought any in years, but thought that $10/gram was steep. $20/g is nuts. I guess that’s why I have mixed feelings about the validity of ‘compassionate care’ dispensaries.
Obviously, these folks are in it for the money and, to a degree, no wonder law enforcement doesn’t think of it as ‘medicine.’ At that price, it would seem likely to draw undesirables into the market.
Anyway, I put $25 in the jar for your live show, so kudos & good luck from one of the choir.
That’s the going rate for high-grade cannabis, both on the streets and in the dispensaries.
That’ll teach him to smoke pot!
$60 for an 1/8!! Okay, now I understand why they shot the guy.
Unbelievable.
BS !!!!!!!!