Young woman murdered after cops use her in undercover cocaine and gun deal
Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 6:28 am | By: Radical Russ
Suspects lead police to Hoffman’s body in Taylor County | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat
Rachel Morningstar Hoffman, 23, a 2007 Florida State University graduate, was found dead in rural Taylor County early Friday after two men suspected in her kidnapping and robbery led investigators to her body. Murder charges are pending, according to the Tallahassee Police Department.
Hoffman was last seen Wednesday night near Forestmeadows Park while attempting to assist TPD vice investigators by buying drugs and a gun from two men.
When Hoffman agreed to help police, she was facing multiple felony charges and was in a diversion program after being caught with more than 20 grams of marijuana, Chief Dennis Jones said in a news conference Friday.
Hoffman was facing charges of possession of ecstasy with intent to sell, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, maintaining a drug house and possession of drug paraphernalia, Jones said.
She agreed to buy 1,500 pills of ecstasy, 2 ounces of cocaine or crack cocaine and a gun from two men, Andrea J. Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, Jones said.
TPD spokesman David McCranie would not say whether Hoffman was wearing a wire, but another of Hoffman’s friends, Shaina Hale, recalls Hoffman saying that police wanted her to do so. Police did not say why Hoffman was doing the bust, but McCranie said she was not coerced and helped willingly.
Hale and other friends said they think police scared Hoffman into thinking she was going to spend years in prison for the felony charges if she didn’t become an informant.
Here at NORML we have a saying that marijuana is not fatal, but its prohibition can be. Paramilitary SWAT raids terrorize and sometimes kill cannabis users, and sometimes non-users when officers accidentally get the wrong address on a warrant. Or, as in this case, a cannabis user is “flipped” into becoming an informant in order to avoid lengthy prison time.
In this case, we have a young woman who was caught twice with less than one ounce of cannabis and some ecstasy pills. Police then press her to give the names of these two dealers and to go make a deal, trying to parlay the “little fish” pot dealer into a “bigger fish” coke dealer. Now, do you think these guys might figure something is up when a small-time marijuana and club-drug user suddenly wants to get a gun, some coke and dealer-amounts of pills? And to meet in a public park?
The most shameful thing is the Tallahassee police trying to pin the blame of her death on her shoulders because she left the park, not because they put a naive young woman into a high-stakes drug sting and then lost her when she left with the two coke dealers:
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Typical Police there when you don’t need them and not there when you do.
What happened to the police departments “serve and protect” and what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”. I served in Desert Storm and I’ve fought for our constitution and everything it stands for, where did our LIBERTY go? How can the group of people who are supposed to protect the public, put the public at risk like this, and get away with it??? Not only that, but the scumbag police chief has NO remorse, she was a criminal??? I fear our legal system and even our government in this country need a complete overhaul. The minority elites are ruling this country and the rest of us are just poor serfs working for our daily scraps. I think it’s high time we rose up and forced the government to obey the rule of the majority! Please forward this story and your comments to your politicians, senators, congressmen, even our idiot, monkey-boy president, send it to them 2 or 3 times a day, EVERYDAY, lets overload our politicians computers with this idiocy and fight back for ourselves!! Who’s with me?
When I read Rachel’s story? I began to cry.
To think that there are monsters out there? That claim in the name of the “drug war”. That they have the right to have people innocently murdered? That think that they can use people in very dangerous situations? And then say that it is the drugs fault? Is HORRIFIC and VERY SINFUL! May Every Individual that feels that way? BURN IN HELL!
May Rachel’s Soul Rest In Peace! May All Good, Kind Folks, that use the Sacred Herb, meet up with her in Heaven!
In Rachel’s Name and for Her Will, May the drug war on Cannabis END– FOREVER!
Jah Love,
the Holy Hemptress
All Posters,
Don’t be surprised at this outcome. You live in a society and a world that simply does not value human life, on any level and on any scale. This is a just a prime example of the cold, callous, and cruel nature that governments and police departments put on full display 24/7. The police chief should be removed and the lawsuit filed should break the back of the TPD. This is simply another disgrace in the annals of
“human existence”………………
this genuinely breaks my heart.
a tragic and unnecessary death of a young woman over a simple plant….
i hope that lawyer can rip TPD into a thousand peices…this is so sad to read
[...] 22:53:04 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director Share This Article Rachel Hoffman is dead. Rachel Hoffman, like many young adults, occasionally smoked marijuana. But Rachel Hoffman is not [...]
the war on drugs must stop she was innocent and the TPD needs to be punished severely for the death of this girl