An article on Foxnews.com reports on the recent
discovery of Florida policeman strategies to catch drug dealers, traffickers,
and buyers. The strategy consisted of attracting drug buyers from all over the
nation to buy drugs in a popular location. Once the drugs were sold, the police
immediately arrested the buyer and took all of the money and cars. This proved
to be an effective strategy due to Sunrise, Florida, the city where the drug
buyers were lured to, possessing the largest amount of arrests for drug-trafficking
charges in the country as of 2009. The
Police in Sentinel also obtained large sums of money from the “drug stings” (a
sting is a operation involving deception). The money, as it is in almost
everything, is where the controversy arose as well as the purpose for the Sun Sentinel’s (Sentinel’s newspaper)
report on the stings. The assumption was that the police used the strategy
primarily to gain more money. In the words of Martin Roth, “In my view, it’s
all about the money.” As a retort to this, the police department states that
its primary objective is to “put bad guys in jail.” The police department was
forced to stop these drug stings due to their methods being exposed by the
articles and reports in the Sun
Sentinel’s.
Though the media
and news stations have a multitude of benefits, one of which is to help the
general public to stay informed, this article expresses one of its many flaws.
The Sun Sentinel sabotaged their
deceptive and successful strategy at catching criminals involved in drug trafficking,
by exposing the strategy to the city, state, and now the nation. Not only will
this hurt the police in Sentinel, but also police and DEA agents all around the
nation using similar strategies to catch drug traffickers. The media should
definitely be able to publish and report on whatever they like. However, they
cross the line when they report on something that harms the nations safety or well
being.
I agree. Its their job to serve justice, and I think the money is perk but not the point of the stings. Most people that make the decision to become a police officer aren't doing it for the money anyway.
ReplyDeletewhether they're making more money or not, at the end of the day, these officers are reducing the drug problem by getting drug dealers off the streets. I also think that was very poorly thought out for the newspapers to publish such critical information regarding these cases that were still ongoing. I've heard of several other instances in which evidence was released too soon, causing those cases to be impaired and go unsolved.
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