The video below is from a video deposition with Collinsville, Illinois, police officer Michael Reichert.
Reichert is the office who pulled over filmmaker Terrance Huff earlier this year and subjected him to a drug search after a questionable alert by Reichert's drug dog. That stop and search, Reichert's history, and the related issue of asset forfeiture were the subject of a long piece I wrote for the Huffington tablet magazine a couple months ago.
The video is stunning. Reichert actually admits that he sometimes wipes marijuana on cars parked in the lots of Collinsville hotels. He says he does this as part of a training exercise for the dog. He also asks employees for tips about suspicious guests from out of state. And he concedes that it's possible someone on whose car he has "wiped" marijuana might later get pulled over and subjected to a drug dog sniff.
Perhaps even by Officer Reichert. Sounds like a good reason to avoid visiting Collinsville.
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that is not corrupt to the gills in the land of the free.
He was given a job to do, arrest people. So if he had to illegally possess some marijuana in order to arrest more people, can you really blame him?
And I'll bet, based on the complexions of those that frequently that hotel, that he felt he had "probable cause" to arrest anyone who came out of that hotel.
Isn't that within the unspoken realm of "Standard Police Procedure. Something like keeping a spare gun to drop at the site of a death.