Beware Fake Cops

It's bad enough that the War on Drugs has let real cops trample all over the Fourth Amendment and such, but now civilians are getting in on the action:

They said the agent, a man some had come to know as “Sergeant Bill,” boasted that he did not need search warrants to enter their homes because he worked for the federal government.

But after a reporter for the local weekly newspaper made a few calls about that claim, Gerald’s antidrug campaign abruptly fell apart after less than five months. Sergeant Bill, it turned out, was no federal agent, but Bill A. Jakob, an unemployed former trucking company owner, a former security guard, a former wedding minister and a former small-town cop from 23 miles down the road.

Note a couple of things.

First, Jakob's shenanigans were not discovered until a local reporter got curious. Nobody in the local power structure - police, prosecutor, mayor - thought to think twice about this crime fightin' stranger who came to town.

Second, Jakob did some serious shit. We're not talking about just walking around town in a fake uniform hassling passersby and asking, "what's all this, then?" He led warrantless break ins of people's homes! With long-lasting repercussions:

'He was definitely in charge — it was all him,' said Mike Withington, 49, a concrete finisher, who said Mr. Jakob pounded on his door in May, waking him up and yanking him, in handcuffs, out onto his front yard.

Mr. Withington said he had not yet been charged with a crime; Gary Toelke, the Franklin County sheriff, confirmed that no local charges had been issued against him. But the mortification of that day, Mr. Withington said, has kept him largely indoors and led him to consider moving. Since the search, residents have tossed garbage and crumpled boxes of Sudafed (which has an ingredient that can be used to make methamphetamine) on his lawn, he said, and he no longer shops in town, instead driving miles to neighboring towns.

'Everybody is staring at me,' he said. 'People assume you’re guilty when things like this happen.'

The mayor was utterly clueless, buying Jakob's excuse that, as a federal agent, he didn't need search warrants. I think we need a Fourth Amendment seminar in central Missouri, stat!