Informant Lies Results In One Death During No-Knock Raid

Jason Wescott, a 29 year old motorcycle mechanic living in a rented bungalow was shot and killed during a no-knock swat raid. A drug addict, prescription opiate Dilaudid, had given false information to police for the arrest of "drug traffickers" for the amount of $295. The Addict, Ronnie Coogle, later confessed to lying but it was too late. Jason Wescott was killed and police only found $2.00 worth of marijuana in the house.

What's even worse. Jason Wescott on the recommendation of the local PD, armed himself to protect his home from a potential robbers.

Westcott, those close to him said, was left with a word of advice from the investigating officers: If anyone breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill. Source

When officer's saw Jason Wescott with the gun, he was shot point blank with a shotgun blast.

Times exclusive: Confidential informer blows whistle in fatal Tampa SWAT raid

A 50-year-old felon and drug addict, Coogle was the principal Tampa Police Department informer against at least five suspects this year. He conducted nine undercover operations. In their probable-cause affidavits, his handlers called him reliable. Even Tampa's police chief praised his "track record."

Coogle said they were all wrong. He said he repeatedly lied about suspects, stole drugs he bought on the public's dime and conspired to falsify drug deals.

One of those he lied about, he said, was Jason Westcott, a young man with no criminal convictions whom a SWAT team killed during a drug raid that found just $2 worth of marijuana. Critics from across the country condemned the Police Department's handling of the case as an example of the drug war's lethal excesses.

"They're making statements that are lies, that are absolute untruths, that are based on shady facts," Coogle said of Tampa police. "Everything they're saying is based on the informant. And I was the informant."

Even his own brother couldn't stand him.

"He's just the scum of the f------ earth. I hate to say that. I hate to cuss. But it's the truth," said his brother, Mike Coogle. "He is nobody to give information about nothing to nobody, because everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie."

A lot of BS here. Officer's take advice from a serial criminal who went to prison for robbery, beating a man with a baseball bat and threatening to cut his wife's throat among other things. Executed a BS no-knock on the advice of this low-life and a man lost his life.

I've included an interested report from the ACLU about SWAT tactics which I highly recommend reading.

ACLU: War Comes Home

All across the country, heavily armed SWAT teams are raiding people’s homes in the middle of the night, often just to search for drugs. It should enrage us that people have needlessly died during these raids, that pets have been shot, and that homes have been ravaged.

Our neighborhoods are not warzones, and police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies. Any yet, every year, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment flows from the federal government to state and local police departments. Departments use these wartime weapons in everyday policing, especially to fight the wasteful and failed drug war, which has unfairly targeted people of color.

As our new report makes clear, it’s time for American police to remember that they are supposed to protect and serve our communities, not wage war on the people who live in them.

That's messed up.....you would think a bit more research would have been done on the victim unless there is more to this story than the source you put up. Don't police usually have to have a very valid reason to obtain a warrant?

a reply to: theNLBS

typo in your title, in case you are interested.

The hight of absurdity is when police take the words of criminals and scum as evidence.

Sounds like the druggie got a woody for this guy and wanted to see him suffer. I hope this ass-clown gets homicide charges leveled for falsifying information that resulted in an otherwise innocent persons death.

The part i have the hardest time figuring out is how cops can just shoot someone inside their home just because they have a gun. Because they had a warrant?

Bahh, the word of a criminal should never be enough to execute a search and seizure on a residential property.

Stupid is as stupid does.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Standard game the police play. Let the little fish go to catch the bigger fish.

A judge gave a warrant on information given from a crackhead?

Hey officer! I saw Dick Cheney sell crack to Donald Rumsfeld. Paul Wolfowitz was the driver and took the cash. I "swear" now go get a warrant and kick in the doors all ready.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: theNLBS

typo in your title, in case you are interested.

Ha, thanks. It's been corrected.

a reply to: MALBOSIA

I wonder if there is more to this story than has been told so far. Something just is not adding up.

This hits close to home-
I've had thousands of dollars worth of tools and equipment stolen from my property since moving to this city.
Every single incident was reported to the authorities, but I never got so much as a call back from them.

I took it upon myself to become armed, and have checked and confirmed that if someone were to break into my home in the night, I would very likely be within my rights to shoot them down. (But that's not a hundred percent, of course)


If a SWAT team showed up IN MY HOUSE in the middle of the night, I would not at all be surprised if they caught me with a shotgun in hand- and then I'd be dead just for trying to defend me&mine.

And I don't even have $2 worth of pot in my home- which is in a city where I can supposedly carry two ounces on my person within the law...

a reply to: shaneslaughta

The second link I supplied "Times Exclusive" goes into pretty good detail about the informants side of the story.

TL;DR he lied for the money.

This is not the first time something like this has happened and it will not be the last.

Apparently some informants can make a career out of snitching. The DEA does a poor job of accounting for informant expenses and my understanding is the local PDs without the budget to pay informants will let them sell drugs and even pay them with confiscated drugs for information, however most become informants to avoid jail time and some of those continue to inform, especially when they get immunity for selling drugs and a paycheck.

The police will not face charges and the man who was murdered will likely be painted as a 'bad guy' because he had a small amount of cannabis. Since a large portion of the population uses illegal drugs often, when a mistake like this happens the police can often sweep the incident under the rug if anything illegal is found.

Using informants in my opinion is wrong on so many levels, especially when the informant knows they can lie and plant evidence to produce results. There is a thread somewhere on ATS where an informant planted crack in a smoke shop so the police could raid it. Had the store not had good surveillance, he would have got away with it.

www.inquisitr.com...

At least the general population of the US is becoming more aware of how dirty, expensive, and unethical the war on drugs is.

originally posted by: jrod
This is not the first time something like this has happened and it will not be the last.

Apparently some informants can make a career out of snitching. The DEA does a poor job of accounting for informant expenses and my understanding is the local PDs without the budget to pay informants will let them sell drugs and even pay them with confiscated drugs for information, however most become informants to avoid jail time and some of those continue to inform, especially when they get immunity for selling drugs and a paycheck.

That's apparently what this low-life, Coogle, was trying to do. He got paid $295, his wife says $395, for this particular incident.

There is a thread somewhere on ATS where an informant planted crack in a smoke shop so the police could raid it. Had the store not had good surveillance, he would have got away with it.

www.inquisitr.com...

Found it ny police frame shop owner with crack

a reply to: theNLBS

The problem isn't a lying felon; it's the no-knock warrant.

Police shouldn't have any protocols that would result in a death by mistaken identity. You break into somebody's house, armed, somebody will probably get shot. It's beyond stupid.

It's right up their with racism and brutality on my list of beefs with our police institutions.

originally posted by: shaneslaughta
when police take the words of criminals and scum as evidence.

Think about that for a moment...it is absurd. They will take their words as evidence if it screws over someone else but if they use their words to defend themselves they are just liars.

Someone from the police gave him advice to shoot and kill if someone breaks in? ie. this may have been a set up, where they look like they did the right thing, even if it was the wrong address.

I believe they know everyone who is armed and are going around killing them in police raids all over the place in the US.

With current technology i do not think no-knocks should exist anymore.
Perhaps one or two cases it might give a momentary advantage to police by obtaining more evidence but over all that is outweighed by the overall saftey concern this kind of operation has for society as a whole. When you weigh the risk and reward it adds up to the general population will be safer without those type of visits.

a reply to: theNLBS

Unfortunately, their is always the potential for catastrophic results any time armed police are involved. Its not solely the cops fault either, You take someone with a Gun put them in stressful situations you aren't going to get 100% accuracy without incident. This goes for both sides:

Man Shoots at Intruders, Turns Out it was a No-Knock Raid. Now He Faces the Death Penalty
thefreethoughtproject.com...

To bad the Race baiters are taking away focus from the real problems with the police. Racism is not the biggest factor, its abuse of power ,improper training, stupid laws, and Aggressive enforcement for non violent offenders.

Then add to the fact the wages: What kind of mindset individual is willing to risk their life on a daily basis for a below to average paying job and are they likely the best individuals to arm with a gun and give permission to use deadly force? Than add to the fact that most people that they deal with on a daily bases either hate them or are the scum of the earth.

So lets overwork policemen, under pay them, hire unqualified individuals to meet the demand , then arm them with the power to make life of death decisions within seconds. Yeah what could go wrong?



More importantly how can we get the police to do a No-Knock raid in congress?

There is no valid excuse for no knock raids, to many bad tips leading to death or to many incompetent team leads that go to the wrong house and kill someone.

No excuse.

+1 to no reason or excuse for this.
They have effectively unlimited funding and clearly operate above the rights of average people. They could just as easily waited for him to come out of the house in the morning then surprised him with an arrest, Or even just knocked on the door and asked to come in...

Or, you know, left the guy alone. He wasn't hurting anyone, or even selling any drugs. He doesn't even have any drugs, for that matter. He's just some guy with a job who got executed by his own government.

No knock raids are lunacy.
Bringing in a SWAT team when there is no clear immediate danger to ANYONE is lunacy.

The system has become criminally insane, and we're all just sitting around watching it execute people at random.