Plano,
Texas
Undercover
Police
Bought
Heroin
Six
Times
for
16
Year-Old
Recovering
Addict
3/27/98
- Marc Brandl for DRCNet "Operation Rockfest", an undercover investigation by the Plano, Texas police to battle a growing heroin epidemic, netted 84 cases against 33 adults and four juveniles. The operation was considered a success, but some citizens have become outraged at how the police attained their results. One of the juveniles busted by "Rockfest" was Jonathan Kollman, now 17, who is a recovering heroin addict. Before Jonathan was arrested, undercover officers drove him six separate times to a heroin dealer, gave him cash for the drug, and then allowed him to consume the controlled substance. Before Jonathan succumbed to the undercover officer's offer, he had tested negative for drugs 12 times and was enrolled in drug treatment and family counseling. Plano, an affluent community of just under 200,000 people, has been the source of more than a dozen teen heroin overdoses in the last 18 months. The Plano Chief of Police, reacting to the story told the Dallas Morning News "We... are confident this investigation was handled in a professional manner." The Kollman family disagrees and has hired a lawyer who is requesting a grand jury investigation of possible criminal conduct by the undercover officer. The family is also considering a lawsuit. Jonathan's father, Victor Kollman, aware of the fatal overdose potential, told the Dallas Morning News, "I just can't understand how they would put him in danger of that." Notes from the undercover officer show she knew of Jonathan's heroin use. "I stopped, and Jonathan went into the building to use the one cap of chiva. Jonathan returned to my vehicle and said that this heroin was better than the last heroin we bought." Jonathan has now reentered a drug rehabilitation program. "This is a perfect illustration of the craziness of the war on drugs," Al Robinson, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, and a retired professor of pharmacology, told The Week Online. "Police officers should be protecting kids, not hooking them on drugs." (The Drug Policy Forum of Texas is online at http://www.mapinc.org/DPFT/
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