Barry Cooper's Arrest Warrant

[GrnMtnGrwr]

http://trueslant.com/stephenwebster/2010/03/05/barry-coopers-arrest-warrant/

I have obtained a copy of Williamson County’s arrest warrant affidavit, concerning Barry Cooper’s allegedly false police report, placed in the process of trying to catch a police officer stealing money. Images of the first two pages are below this text; click them for larger versions. A PDF of all three pages is available here.

What Williamson County is saying in these documents is that Barry Cooper did not make the false report in his failed Florence, Texas sting operation — someone else did, but Cooper influenced it. According to the warrant, someone self-identified as “Ted Smith” made the report, but Barry’s voice was discernible in the background. Because of this, Barry was arrested and police invaded his home, taking his family’s computers, phones and other digital media — including their DVDs and his wife’s iPod.

Williamson County’s reasoning here is that if someone makes a false police report, police have the authority to arrest anyone whose voice they can identify in the background, AND search their home.

The report, however, would not appear to be false. At the bottom of page two police detail what was in the bag, noting a “glass pipe, outfitted to be used to smoke “crack” cocaine” and the $45, among other various objects.

However, there was not a crack pipe in that bag. A glass tube only becomes “outfitted to be used to smoke ‘crack’ cocaine” once “crack” cocaine is placed inside it and burned. There was nothing illegal in the bag, however suspicious it may have been. A report of a suspicious package would indeed seem to be accurate, whether the caller knew who put it there or not.

Cooper also claimed that the Florence police treated the bag as a bomb threat near a school zone. This all took place, according to the warrant, around November 10, 2009. The affidavit does not mention how the police treated the package, only that it was tested for fingerprints and Cooper’s were discovered.

The affidavit specifically says that the call was placed by a so-called “Ted Smith” and Cooper, from a number in the 817 area code. I called the number out of curiosity, as the affidavit says it is “fictitious.” It was not.

Instead, a man who identified himself as “Gary Brown,” a Florida resident, claimed he’d never heard of Cooper. When I told him how I got the number, he explained that he once lived in Texas but kept the number simply to forward calls to his cell phone.

Cooper also claimed that Williamson County had used the false report warrant as a way to gain access to his home, thinking he had a large quantity of marijuana. Instead, they found less than a gram, which Cooper and his wife Candi will likely plead guilty to in Travis County. Their penalty will likely be a small fine, akin to a traffic ticket. The warrant makes no mention of any ulterior motives for the search, but I would not be surprised to find out that Barry is right, given that Williamson County’s head of narcotics was the arresting officer.

The warrant also notes that Cooper had filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking police documents for the week of his failed sting. I’d imagine that kinda tipped them off, if they didn’t already know what was afoot. The warrant notes that the affiant (the officer giving the affidavit, in this case Sgt. Gary Haston) recognized Cooper’s voice in the background of the Florence police report audio from his appearances on YouTube and the Never Get Busted Web site. That would lead me to wonder if there may be something to Cooper’s claim of a “vendetta” between he and Sgt. Haston.

I’m still waiting for Cooper’s response to this arrest warrant (he was conferring with an attorney at the time I first published it), but from what I can tell he was not picked up for his sting on Cpt. Nassour in Liberty Hill. I would not be surprised if Nassour takes some kind of civil action against Cooper before this is all over, but he’d need to prove “actual malice” if he pursues a claim of defamation. As a public servant, that will be difficult and costly for him and success is not guaranteed.

After observing this strange series of events, my only conclusion is that Williamson County is going to incredible lengths to make a flamboyant, media savvy activist feel the pain — but fantastically harsh law enforcement is more or less what the county is known for.

Cooper swatted a bee hive and got the stinger. Let’s see how the rest plays out.

 

[Stoner4Life]

I'm hoping this one doesn't get locked...
I've yet to get an answer as to why the other one was...

and you've yet to learn that mods don't answer to members.......

something you don't undertand? go to the TOU (forum rules/guidleines) to see where you've erred and then drop it.

 

[teddybud]

Fuck the pigs

 

[stink.whistler]

I don't believe in karma, but seeing a former shady cop getting nailed under shady circumstances is making me reconsider whether it might be real after all.

 

[-~Wind Walker~-]

I'm hoping this one doesn't get locked... I've yet to get an answer as to why the other one was...

Don't you get it? The peanut butter sandwich and the beer in the "suspicious bag" was a moderator's here at ICMag!

The crack pipe was mine, I'll admit it.


(j/k)

-~WW~-

 

[Fuzz420]

interesting read.

 

[-~Wind Walker~-]

Forget Barry Cooper!

I want to know when Candi Cooper is gonna do a Playboy spread. !--->Hotness<---!

Or, as I like to think of her..
.
.
.


-~Candi Walker~-


-~WW~-

 

[bromhexine]

watch it or you'll receive a permanent vacation

 

[-~Wind Walker~-]

watch it or you'll receive a permanent vacation

Who is the "you"??

-~WW~-

 

[Nicoli]

Yeah. I wanna see some Candi Cooper spreads.. fuk barry.

 

[-~Wind Walker~-]

Yeah. I wanna see some Candi Cooper spreads.. fuk barry.

Yeah, there should be a strain named after her "Candi Walker", oops I mean "Candi Cooooper". Yuum-mmy.

-~WW~-

 

[alaskan]

Careful, one of the moderators has a boner for hating this guy, you might upset him by bringing it back up...

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

JJScorpio didn't lock the thread, and neither did KharmaGirl... who did lock it, and why, I don't know.

and you've yet to learn that mods don't answer to members.......

something you don't undertand? go to the TOU (forum rules/guidleines) to see where you've erred and then drop it.

How did you get it in your head that I think the mods answer to the members? I am well aware of the ToU, and if you were, you'd know that there were no ToU violations in the locked thread.

 

[JJScorpio]

Is this thread about Barry Coopers arrest warrant? It seems to me it's turned more towards why was the other thread locked or about Barry Coopers wife.

Do you wonder why they get locked?

Do you want this one to stay open, or do you want the other one reopened? Your choice. We're not having 2 regarding the doof.

 

[alaskan]

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09...-soliciting-minor-brought-down-by-kopbusters/

Exclusive: ‘KopBusters’ brings down officer accused of soliciting minors



A former police officer who worked for over a dozen departments in Texas is behind bars Tuesday, held on numerous felony charges including engaging in organized criminal activity, promotion of prostitution, solicitation of minors and two counts of attempting to possess child pornography. Activist and filmmaker Barry Cooper, who is producing a reality show called “KopBusters,” aided officers with the Combine Police Department in drawing the man out into the open, ultimately helping wrap a three-year investigation in the process.
Until late last month, Michael Meissner, 39, was chief of police in Little River-Academy, Texas, a town so small that it only had one officer. He resigned his post after residents of the small town packed city hall with complaints about his behavior, according to local reports.
Meissner called the town “a good stepping stone for me,” reported Temple Daily News, which noted that the former officer held 18 different law enforcement jobs over the last 14 years. The “gypsy cop,” said Dallas television station WFAA, “seemed to operate under his own rules, spending much of his time working off-duty security jobs 60 miles away in Dallas.”
Prior WFAA reports “found that Meissner had used a phony college diploma for certification and failed to let his employers know that he had been arrested twice,” the channel added.
Combine police were initially probing Meissner over suggestions that he had misused official information to retaliate against another man. However, when they looked at Meissner’s text messages and e-mail, they claim to have discovered something much worse.


“When the affidavits are released, the public is going to be shocked,” said Cooper, speaking to reporters outside Meissner’s home. “The conversation and the lewd conduct he’s been involved in with high school boys. As an ex-police officer, it makes me sick that we’ve got a guy running around here in a badge, that the public is supposed to trust, and he’s using that uniform to breach the trust of the younger citizens in the community. It’s horrible.” Two of Meissner’s neighbors additionally told RAW STORY they had repeatedly seen various teenage boys entering and leaving the residence.
“Man, I’m just glad police are doing their job, they’re heroes,” said next door neighbor Brenda Lambert. “Anyone that messes with children needs to be taken care of.”
...

 

[LiLWaynE]

I dont care what anyone says, I think Barry Cooper is THE MAN...

anyone who has the balls to do what this guy does in order to successfully challenge the ethics of the police gets a pat on the back from me...



JJ, why do you dislike mr cooper?

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

I dont care what anyone says, I think Barry Cooper is THE MAN...

anyone who has the balls to do what this guy does in order to successfully challenge the ethics of the police gets a pat on the back from me...



JJ, why do you dislike mr cooper?

I'm with you Lilwayne... he's doing more for us than a lot of us are, like it or not.

I'm not speaking for JJ, but a lot of people here have the feeling "Once a pig, always a pig." and "All cops are evil, no exceptions."

I still fail to see the reasoning behind it, but that's how it is...

 

[baan]

I call set up. Less than a gram my ass.