Cops say funding cuts will hurt drug war
Let’s hope so:
From Arizona to Oregon and east to Kentucky, county sheriffs are bracing for stiff cuts in a federal funding program that has helped them battle drug cartels.
Congress in January cut funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant by two-thirds, from $520 million to $170 million for fiscal 2008. Local agencies say that’s a threat to the officers who do much of the law enforcement spadework.
Good. Maybe we’ll see less of this:
Best-known is a case in Tulia, Texas, where a 1999 Byrne-funded investigation led to the cocaine arrests of 46 people, most of them black, on evidence so flimsy that 38 were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry in 2003. The undercover agent responsible for the arrests was convicted of perjury and the defendants got a $5 million settlement from the state.