Marijuana Policy Project

The killing of Rachel Hoffman is coming on heavy to Tallahassee residents and college students alike. It raises legitimate questions about the nature of narcotics investigations and how they are conducted by the Tallahassee Police Department.

Did the TPD truly think that these hardened criminals couldn't tell the difference between a deal and a set-up? This question stands tall as the facts of the case are assessed in the short days following the discovery of Rachel Hoffman's body in Taylor County last Friday.

The circumstances of the case seem clear: A small-time marijuana dealer, after being apprehended with 23 grams of marijuana in April, was pressured by TPD investigators into the lion's den with convicted felons over an extraordinary amount of felonious drugs. TPD investigators asked her to purchase 1,500 hits of Ecstasy, 2 ounces of cocaine and a handgun.

TPD is now charged, in the court of public opinion, with shoving the burden of making a case against known felons on a young, first-time offender apparently without giving a hoot about what could happen, should things go wrong. It shows gross negligence that TPD investigators seem to have never considered the worst-case scenario of what might happen if Hoffman was not believed, let alone able to close the deal.

TPD's immediate reaction to public outcry was, "Well, she didn't follow directions." This makes the department look demonstrably pathetic and out of touch, and it shows how much apathy and negligence surrounded the investigators who put themselves in charge of Hoffman's life when they asked her to meet with Andrea Green and Daniello Bradshaw.

Hoffman was not a trained, undercover federal agent being asked to pull off a sting, but rather a 23-year-old FSU graduate who was extorted by the department with having her life turned upside down, should she not cooperate and agree to the investigation.

What is the message in this story? Is this a statement from the department, warning college students that they are as disposable as toilet paper, should they make a few bad choices (one of which, obviously, is becoming an informant)?

Or, if TPD simply did not know the nature of the conditions into which Hoffman was put, then why should Tallahassee-area residents have any faith that the department, as a whole, is capable of making much of a difference at all when it comes to protecting the community from criminals like Hoffman's killers? Clearly the criminal element has the upper hand until it is far too late, given the outcome of this operation.

"There is no hunting like the hunting of armed men, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter," wrote Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway's quote is extremely relevant and ominous when you consider that law enforcement's indifference at the loss of life hangs like a cloud over the justice system in Tallahassee at the moment.

What trust is there to be had for a police department that disrespects its collegiate populace (both students and parents alike) in such a disgraceful way?

Early this week, TPD still refused to publicly acknowledge statements of concern and questions made by Hoffman's parents as to why their daughter was put into such a deadly situation.

Recently, a TPD homicide detective said about a suspect in the killing of a gas station attendant, "Whether he meant to murder the victim or not, had he not intended to rob the victim, the victim would still be alive." Can the same now be said for TPD's overzealous, narrow-minded, drug-enforcement detail?

Such is the sad case of one Rachel Hoffman that a truth remains abundantly clear: The TPD officers involved in this botched operation have blood on their hands because of either recklessness or apathy. They single-handedly undermined the integrity of the department at large, not just among concerned Tallahassee residents but among parents all over the state and country who once wished to send their offspring here, but now aren't so sure.