Does ‘DEA’ now stand for ‘Don’t Even Ask’?

I’m not only disgusted, but frankly horrified from a law enforcement perspective, by the behavior of the Drug Enforcement Administration in a recent Texas incident.  The Houston Chronicle reports:

The phone rang before sunrise. It woke Craig Patty, owner of a tiny North Texas trucking company, to vexing news about Truck 793 – a big red semi supposedly getting repairs in Houston.

“Your driver was shot in your truck,” said the caller, a business colleague. “Your truck was loaded with marijuana. He was shot eight times while sitting in the cab. Do you know anything about your driver hauling marijuana?”

“What did you say?” Patty recalled asking. “Could you please repeat that?”

The truck, it turned out, had been everywhere but in the repair shop.

Commandeered by one of his drivers, who was secretly working with federal agents, the truck had been hauling marijuana from the border as part of an undercover operation. And without Patty’s knowledge, the Drug Enforcement Administration was paying his driver, Lawrence Chapa, to use the truck to bust traffickers.

At least 17 hours before that early morning phone call, Chapa was shot dead in front of more than a dozen law enforcement officers – all of them taken by surprise by hijackers trying to steal the red Kenworth T600 truck and its load of pot.

. . .

But eight months later, Patty still can’t get recompense from the U.S. government’s decision to use his truck and employee without his permission.

His company, which hauls sand as part of hydraulic fracturing operations for oil and gas companies, was pushed to the brink of failure after the attack because the truck was knocked out of commission, he said.

Patty had only one other truck in operation.

In documents shared with the Houston Chronicle, he is demanding that the DEA pay $133,532 in repairs and lost wages over the bullet-sprayed truck, and $1.3 million more for the damage to himself and his family, who fear retaliation by a drug cartel over the bungled narcotics sting.

“When you start a new business, there are obvious pitfalls you go through, a learning curve,” said Patty, who before buying his two trucks worked in the pharmaceutical industry. “But who would ever be ready to deal with this?

“How am I — a small businessman, father of three, American Joe from Texas — supposed to make a claim against a federal agency that has conveniently shrouded itself behind a red, white and blue cloak of confidentiality and secrecy?”

Copies of letters and emails from Patty’s insurance company state that it won’t pay for repairs because the truck was part of a law-enforcement operation. Patty drew from his 401K retirement fund to repair the truck, which was out of operation for 100 days.

“I was not part of this,” he said. “I had absolutely no knowledge of any of it until after it happened.”

There’s more at the link, including photographs.

I’m stunned that any law enforcement officer or agency could think this was in any way either legal or appropriate.  Quite apart from federal, state or local laws and regulations, they blatantly ignored the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which “proscribes unreasonable seizure of any person, person’s home (including its curtilage) or personal property without a warrant. A seizure of property occurs when there is ‘some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property’.”

I just can’t imagine how they thought they could get away with this – and I’m completely at a loss to understand how they think that stonewalling in court is going to help them.  I think heads should roll en masse for this.  Any agent who was part of this operation, any supervisor who exercised control over it at any time, and any manager who approved it, isn’t fit to hold a badge, and has shown that they hold their oath of office in contempt.  Fire the whole damn lot of them – and then put them on trial for their criminal conduct!

(And yes, I write from the perspective of a retired Federal officer.  The difference between those DEA officers and myself is, I meant my oath when I took it – and still do, because the oath of office doesn’t retire.  Clearly, they didn’t mean theirs at all!)

Peter