Ed Haas

Santee Shakedown Story Stinks

December 19, 2004 -- For those readers who missed the article titled Charleston police travel 70 miles to patrol Santee that appeared in the Sunday, December 19, 2004 edition of the Post & Courier, the story went something like this. As the result of an agreement signed in 2002 by Chief Greenberg of the Charleston Police Department and Chief Williams of the Santee Police Department, Charleston police have been driving 70 miles out of their normal jurisdiction to Santee, South Carolina so that they can team with Santee police to shakedown people traveling on I-95 that the police suspect of drug possession and / or drug trafficking. What followed in the article, the quotes from Greenberg, Williams, and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, proved to be illogical, condescending, offensive, perhaps criminal, and oppressive.

Greenberg - The goal is to catch suspected drug traffickers long before they reach the Charleston area.

This might be a goal, but it is not the role of the Charleston Police Department. Furthermore, there is not, never has been, and never will be a long-lasting shortage of marijuana or cocaine in Charleston or any other city in the United States. Despite all the police violence inflicted upon drug users and suppliers, drugs remain a prominent part of our society. The cost to taxpayers to wage this war on people who use drugs has been and remains astronomical, with no meaningful results whatsoever to justify its continuance.

Greenberg - People are going from Miami to New York to buy heroin and bringing it back by car. South American cocaine goes south to north.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, in 2000 Americans spend $36 billion on cocaine, $10 billion on heroin, $5.4 billion on methamphetamine, $11 billion on marijuana, and $2.4 billion on other substances. If Greenberg really thinks that the stunt he's pulling in Santee, SC is going to have some meaningful impact the 64.8 billion dollar drug trade, then he has lost touch with reality and should step down as chief of police. To suggest such a sophomoric conception of the multi-billion dollar drug trade as people from Miami going to New York to buy heroin and South American cocaine going south to north is just plain ludicrous. The truth is that any $64.8 billion dollar industry cannot be stopped. Demand insists on the supply. Supply will continue to flow through the paths of least resistance. When law enforcement builds a dam to stop the flow of drugs, supply simply flows around it. And the supply flow is of such an enormous magnitude, the profit margins created by prohibition so humongous, that trying to build enough dams to stop it is absurd. It could be compared to trying to stop the mighty Colorado River if the Hoover Dam let loose - it would be impossible! Americans would be safer and richer if we decriminalized the supply side, then taxed and regulated the demand.

Greenberg - There's more to it than just intercepting drugs meant for the street. We get money out of it, man.

We get money out of it, man. What is that? Greenberg boosts that the Santee police department agreed to split the loot confiscated by their coalition. So far, the Charleston police department has netted about $85,500 in cash, or approximately .000013 percent of the annual drug trade. Whoopee! Furthermore, something is terribly un-American about the police being able to seize any asset and keep it for themselves. When the police confiscate stolen property such as a car, they do so with the intent of returning it to its rightful owner. That's good policing. But when the precedent was established that allowed for police departments to keep for themselves the cash and other assets uncovered from people in possession of drugs, the environment for civil rights violations and corruption was established. It would take a lot to convince me that cops are not skimming off the top of the seized drug loot. Whether Greenberg and Mayor Riley are involved is unknown, but you'd think that they would both be allergic to any activity that allows for such a suspicion to fester.

Given the opportunity, I'd like all participants of the police-disguised Santee Gang to be tethered to a lie detector machine while the test administrator asked each gang member if they ever held for themselves, cash or even drugs for later distribution, which they seized during a drug-related investigation or arrest. Cops like lie detector tests so they should not have any problem with subjecting themselves to a test to remove any suspicions regarding their credibility. People are fallible which means cops are fallible. They experience temptation and greed just like the rest of us. But wearing a badge and carrying a gun doesn't give them a license to steal. Yet that is what they're doing in Santee and elsewhere. Don't get me wrong. I understand the logic used to justify the police action. I just don't agree with it. The logic is that the drug dealer makes their money illegally so therefore, they are not entitled to it. That may or may not be true, but just because money was made illegally doesn't mean that the arresting officers and their assigned police departments are entitled to it either, despite what any judge may have ruled about it in the past.

Williams - When (drivers) see the marked car, the average drug dealer freezes up on the road.

Wow! I'll try to be nice here. Drivers with drugs freeze up on the road? What's that look like and how does this appearance establish probable cause? So if I'm driving through Santee, SC with a pound of marijuana in my truck, I'm going to freeze up if I see a marked police car. As the deep freeze sets in the blood flow to my brain will diminish to such a degree that my cognitive regulators will begin to misfire causing me to cross the centerline, fail to yield, turn to widely, forget to use my turn signal, etc. thus creating improbable cause for the police car that's been tailgating my vehicle for the last mile to pull me over? Come on now Chief Williams. I know you can do better than that! The truth is that if you're driving while black or driving with New York, Pennsylvania, or Florida tags, if you fit the profile of a drug runner, the police will fabricate a reason to pull you over and shake you down. For Williams to offer such a ridiculous statement is evidence that the courts have decided to allow law enforcement to run amuck in America; often acting as badly as the criminals they claim to be chasing, to such a degree that law enforcement feels little or no restraint placed on their desire to ignore the Constitution of the United States of America in the name of public safety.

Riley - It's an opportunity to interdict drugs, some of which would be coming down here.

Let me get this straight. The mayor of Charleston knows unequivocally that drugs traveling up and down I-95 are earmarked for distribution in Charleston? How does he know which drugs are just passing through and which are coming here? I know, I know - some of the drugs could be destined for Charleston, but there are thousands of points of entry into the Holy City, so why waste manpower in Santee? The mayor's logic has failed to convince me that this police action is warranted, unless there's more to the story than he is willing to reveal.

Greenberg - If police concentrate only on the drugs that pop up inside their boundaries, "you're going to lose the drug war."

I can only hope that deep down inside, Chief Greenberg recognizes that the drug war was lost before it ever started and that it is actually more detrimental to society then the drugs themselves. Hopefully the Santee Gang is a mere publicity stunt aimed at soothing the uninformed rather than an actual belief held by the government that they can actually force with guns, the people into submission.

South Carolina lawmakers need show some real fortitude and leadership, step up to the plate, and stop the financial and literal bleeding caused by this drug war before another person ends up dead - regardless of what side of the war they happen to fall!

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