What’s your opinion on “The War On Drugs”?
No different than a war on pedophiles or war on murderers or any other serious crime. Did you lose the war because there’s still pedophiles? No, it’s a war that will never end. And I’m okay with that.
Do we defund all the police because crime still exists?
How is this different from the failed alcohol prohibition?
I would say it’s different because the majority of people are still against most of the drugs that are still illegal and continue to use their vote to say so.
Do you think we could catch more murderers and pedophiles if we stopped arresting and jailing people with addictions and clogging up the courts?
So for the most part when you see people getting time for drugs it’s because they’re pleading down other charges. So no. I can’t tell you how many wife beaters or shooters we’ve put away on drug charges.
What do you mean pleading down?
The DA will offer the accused the option of pleading guilty to the drug crimes and they will drop the violent crime charges of domestic abuse. In jail people that have committed crimes against women or children don’t get treated very well while people with drug charges get treated normally. If you know your guilty you might as well not go into jail with a target on your back.
Why is addiction something that deserves to be criminalized?
DEA doesn’t go after addicts or anybody that takes personal use drugs. That’s low level cop shit.
Do you every feel like your job is pointless or what you do is useless? There’s obvious US government backing of cartels as well as Mexican government?
I can’t tell you how many violent gang members or fentanyl laced stuff we’ve gotten off the streets and I’m very proud of that.
You have to realize that the US government refers to a million different departments. The DEA themselves doesn’t support the cartel.
How does the legal shakedown between states with legal weed and weed still being federally illegal work?
DEA for the most part won’t take marijuana cases unless it’s very large amounts. We mostly hand it off to locals, assuming it’s illegal. If it’s in a legal state and a small amount we don’t care. It’s a waste of our time.
What do you feel is going to happen to any DEA presence in Oregon?
Considering the DEA will absolutely still take on hard drug cases I imagine that nothing will change for them. It will depend on the courts and the AUSA’s on whether they’ll charge them or not.
Any agencies that you worked with that was less professional and would not work with again?
Hahaha oh man you’re asking me to dime agencies out. I think the general stereotypes fit the agencies. FBI is generally pretty bad with street level stuff and are a little more stiff and white collar. I’ve never had any problems with them. We’ve had issues with HSI trying to steal our cases because we overlap so heavily. I personally haven’t had any real issues with any individual agents or other agencies.
What was your path to the DEA like? Meaning.. where did you go to school? what did you take? how long? did you become a police officer and then work your way up? Always wondered what it took to get to that level.
I went to school for IT. I didn’t really enjoy it. I joined the National Guard and deployed and really enjoyed that. I went into military contracting then shotgunned my resume to a bunch of federal agencies, and accepted the DEA.
There were people in my class who were furniture salesman and stuff like that though. No prior police or federal law enforcement experience. From the day I applied to the DEA to the day I was at the academy was about 2 years.
Degrees are required though correct?
Can be waived for law enforcement experience from what I have seen
What is the best thing about your job?
The best thing about the job is when you get a really big score of money in my opinion. Getting drugs off the street is great but when you can get a good haul of cash, that really hurts them, and helps local police departments.
I enjoy the job and find it fun. The thrill motivates me, also bragging rights to your coworkers.
What was your biggest score?
700 kilos
They retaliate or anyone ever retaliated?
Hahah yeah some people died for that one
From your side or theirs?
Theirs. DEA agents dying in the line of duty like never happens
What is the worst thing you’ve seen?
The worst thing I’ve probably ever seen on the job was the first shooting I got into when they tried to revive the body. They put on what looks like a CPR machine but he had bullets all through him and his stomach was all distended from his internals. Everytime the machine would pump into him you’d see his guts distend a little more. That was pretty gross.
Who is the most mentally deranged person you’ve met or heard about in your active years?
If you mean like psychopath sociopath types, we honestly don’t see many of those. We see a lot of really really dumb people. A few years back I went to a detention hearing for an individual we arrested where we had video surveillance of him picking up a load of cocaine leading up to him getting pulled over. He gave written consent to search the vehicle and we found the cocaine. Pretty easy case honestly. And when I heard him plea not guilty I almost laughed out loud in court. I guess that shocked me quite a bit. There’s a lot of dumb people like that. We deal with dummies a lot haha