‘Snitch’ Filmmaker: Reagan-Era Drug Laws Keep Prisons Overflowing

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Appearing Thursday night on Current TV’s “The Young Turks,” filmmaker Ric Roman Waugh, behind the new film “Snitch,” explained that his movie is based on true events brought about in part by Reagan-era drug laws.

The film features Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the father of a young man facing jail time over a drug charge, unless he can give up one of his co-conspirators. Johnson instead proposes that in exchange for his son’s freedom, he go undercover in gangland to root out a distributor, and prosecutors agree.

“They signed off on this, that actually happened,” Waugh said. “I’ve seen the documents where the U.S. Attorney signed off on it.”

He added that as his work on the script progressed, he was “shocked” to see how incredibly common it is for small-time drug offenders to get thrown away for years because they had nobody else to turn over to authorities, while dealers who hold sway and resources often walk away with a plea deal, under rules set up by President Ronald Reagan’s initiatives to get tough on drug crime.

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1. Here is a case that went badly wrong....

Tallahassee settles suit over informant Rachel Hoffman's death

By JAMES L. ROSICA | The Associated Press
Published: January 06, 2012

TALLAHASSEE -- Tallahassee city commissioners approved a $2.6 million settlement Friday in the wrongful-death suit of a police informant who was fatally shot during a 2008 drug sting.

The parents of Rachel Hoffman, 23, sued after her death, claiming police were negligent in setting up the Florida State graduate as an undercover informant after she was caught with marijuana and pills without a prescription.

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http://www2.tbo.com/news/2012/jan/06/tallahassee-settles-suit-over-informant-rachel-hof-ar-344663/

Losing Rachel: Parents, friends agonize over Hoffman's death

By DONNA KOEHN | [e-mail]
Published: November 29, 2009

Rachel Morningstar Hoffman left Safety Harbor for Florida State University with the confidence that comes from knowing your parents have your back.

...

But for the biggest drug bust anyone can remember in Tallahassee, cops chose a naïve, overly confident young woman, one for whom selling pot was a social thing, a way to please friends and draw them closer.

"She cried for help as she was shot and killed, and nobody was there to hear her," wrote the grand jury in its indictment of Green and Bradshaw.

"There is no doubt Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw are the ones that brutally murdered Rachel Hoffman. But through poor planning and supervision, and a series of mistakes ... the Tallahassee Police Department handed Ms. Hoffman to Bradshaw and Green to rob and kill her as they saw fit."

...

http://www2.tbo.com/news/metro/2009/nov/29/losing-rachel-parents-friends-agonize-over-hoffman-ar-71052/