Mural of Kathryn Johnston painted on a boarded-up window of her home

Alex White had already received a call from J. R. Smith, one of the officers from the unit. Smith sounded tense. “Hey, you got to help us out with something,” White told me Smith said….White said sure. He tried to be helpful to the police, do what they asked — willingness was one reason he was their most trusted informant for four years running. If White could help cover for them, Smith said, there would be good money in it for him.

“You made a buy today for us,” Smith explained. “Two $25 baggies of crack.”

“I did?” White asked. It took him a moment to register. “O.K. Who did I buy it from?”

“Dude named Sam.” Smith described the imaginary seller, told how Sam had taken his money then walked White to the back of the house and handed him the drugs as Smith and a fellow officer, Arthur Tesler, watched from a car across the street.

“O.K.,” White said. “Where?”

Smith said: “933 Neal Street. I’ll call you later.”

Now in the living room, the TV reporter was saying how a 92-year-old woman had died in the incident, and people were suggesting that the police had shot her. Two and two came together in White’s mind. They did it, he suddenly knew. They messed up. They killed that old lady. Now his heart pounded as the implications became clear. And they want me to cover for them.

If life makes you as cynical as I am, you will be surprised by none of this.



  1. bobbo, the ONLY true Libertarian on this blog, all others being dogmatic posers says:

    You roll in the mud with pigs day after day and it would take a very strong willed person, or a competently run bureaucracy, to keep the stench far enough away so as not to offend us all.

    “The Snitch”/informant/under cover agent is on par with a gateway drug for this process. Just read that a SWAT team officer called his favorite snitch who was a gang member about a raid about to take place so he could evade arrest….. so did the rest of the gang. One of the few cases in which the cop was fired for such activity.

    Then hooman tendency to conform to group pressure of the criminal society can only be countered by the professionalism of the force that gives him a uniform. Sadly, the former is always present and can be quite strong, while the latter is often only concerned with appearances, not rocking the boat, and never taking responsibility for making mistakes.

    Same as it ever was.

  2. Sheila says:

    Some call it the “thin blue line” but I prefer

    The Blue Gang!

    Just like the Crips and Bloods

    Survivingsurvivalism.com

    • bobbo, the ONLY true Libertarian on this blog, all others being dogmatic posers says:

      Two different issues.

      Its good to keep shit separate from shinola.

  3. Anonymous says:

    …And if all this drug activity were made legal then the cops wouldn’t have hardly anything to do except maybe hand out a few traffic tickets and investigate real crimes.

    I say legalize it all! I want to know who the fools are. Tax the hell out of their dope so any health care can be funded too. Then again, maybe they’ll overdose, die and save us the problems. But not until we figure out how to punish real crimes like drunk driving accidents.

    And as far as that goes, I say drive drunk all you want. But as soon as you roll up on sidewalk and squash so much as a bug or weave into someone/something then there should be mandatory prison time. Kill someone or permanently injure them and you never get out! It’s a little thing called responsibility and accountability. The CHOICE is YOURS!!!

    (And stop handing me this alcohol/drug abuse is a sickness crap – your right! People like that belong in a hospital or institution somewhere.)

    • getintouch says:

      anon, you are the first person I have ever heard say that, except me! Imagine that, drunk driving=1st degree murder, after all, EVERYONE KNOWS that getting behind the wheel drunk can lead to killing someone, so that is premed in my book!

  4. sargasso_c says:

    Police, lawyers and prison guards all associate on a daily level with hardened criminals. Before long they all look alike.

  5. ECA says:

    Perjury
    ISNT really against the law.

    IF it was, then those that swore to a about a situation, WRONGLY, would face the SAME justice as the person on trial..

    Lets say, that you swore that a person KILLED another person. And the person went to jail. Only later you find it they were Wrongly arrested/jailed… The Perjurer would THEN be put into jail AT LEAST equal to the time SPENT as the person sent to jail by his words.

    WE could do the same for Copyright lawyers, bring STUPID court cases that have NO case. Force them to PAY for bad prosecution.

  6. deowll says:

    Because of what it does to the users what I would do to anyone dealing or selling meth, PCP, and several other drugs to first time users who are minors would be very permanent with no repeat offenders ever.

    If you are an adult and want to ruin yourself fine but you wouldn’t like how I’d deal with that either. Work farms where you work for your fix and when you die you get an unmarked grave. Sorry but I can be very pragmatic and impersonal about some things and with junkies and users isolated and not spreading the disease it would tend to die out.

    • NobodySpecial says:

      Except for alcohol and tobacco, sure they kill millions but we need to subsidize those. And prozac/valium/Ativan we need those to keep those bored housewives happy

      But other than that, and coffee of course, all drugs are terrible and users must be hunted down and killed

  7. I wanted to be a cop once but then I decided to graduate from high school.

  8. Phydeau says:

    Another sad tale from the War On Some Drugs.


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