Anthony Fisher Talks Confidential Informants on The Bob Zadek Show

Andrew Sadek case, previously covered by Reason TV, is the focal point of radio show conversation.

This past Sunday, I spoke with Bob Zadek on his San Francisco-based radio show about the police practice of using non-violent first-time offenders as confidential informants (C.I.) in criminal drug investigations.

Much of the conversation centered on the case of Andrew Sadek, a 20-year-old North Dakota college student who in 2014 was found floating in a river, with a gunshot wound to the head, wearing a backpack full of rocks. Sadek was a mild-mannered farmboy, who unbeknownst to his family and friends, had been working as a confidential informant. (I covered Sadek's case in an award-winning Reason TV documentary/article in 2015.)

Sadek—initially arrested for selling small amounts of marijuana to a confidential informant on his college campus—was threatened by police with 40 years in prison if he did not turn informant. Sadek's parents were never informed of his arrest or his work as a C.I., and after his body was found, police reportedly tried to convince them that their son had committed suicide. His parents have filed suit against the police for fraud and negligence.

There is much more to the story, which Zadek and I address in detail during the nearly hour-long conversation, which you can listen to below via Soundcloud or click here for Itunes and Stitcher links.

Also, you can watch my original piece on Andrew Sadek's tragic case below:

Comments

[ant1sthenes]

Police shoot 13-year old with BB gun

Allegedly he used it, with two other people, to commit armed robbery, so it's not exactly a Tamir Rice situation if the police are being truthful.

[commodious the pulchritudinous]

Thank God it wasn't a real gun, that kid would be dead.

[bassjoe]

No, police shoot you dead only if you have a brightly-colored water gun.

[Playa Manhattan.]

"King is the second-youngest person fatally shot by a police officer this year, according to a Washington Post database tracking such deaths.

The youngest person shot and killed by police this year was Ciara Meyer, a 12-year-old in Pennsylvania accidentally struck by a bullet during an eviction."

That's some mighty passive voice there.

[SugarFree]

Damn predatory bullets out killing kids!

But, hey... one less person to evict, amirite?

[bassjoe]

Hey, it's cool that they use untrained CIs in objectively dangerous situations: the cops will go home safely.

[Brochettaward]

Trending on Facebook now - Kristen Bell mocks the gender pay gap in hilarious short film. "Why outsource all of your production to far away countries... when we have the cheapest and the best work force right here."

Amazingly, these people have taken evidence that the pay gap doesn't exist to try and spoof the supposed inequality. It never occurs to them that if women really were 24% cheaper than male employees, employers WOULD give them preference.

[Princess Trigger]

The Korporations aren't greedy enough

[Cynical Asshole]

Stupid SJW horseshit aside, Kristen Bell is at least hot. I'd be willing to volunteer to fuck the stupid out of her. It would take a lot of fucking, but I'm willing to take that hit.

TIWTANFL

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

This may be the more effective approach.

[Citizen X]

"Kkkorporations are even more sexist than they are greedy!"

You're welcome.

[You Sound Like a Prog (MJG)]

"Why outsource all of your production to far away countries... when we have the cheapest and the best work force right here."

Yes... why?

Do they bother to answer that?

[Hamster of Doom]

It never occurs to them that if women really were 24% cheaper than male employees, employers WOULD give them preference.

Assuming a world where everyone is rational, that totally works.

[A] hypothetical individual who acts rationally and with complete knowledge, but entirely out of self-interest and the quest to maximize personal utility. An economic man is an imaginary figure who is able to satisfy economic models that push for consumer equilibrium. All of an economic man's choices are based on the fulfillment of his or her "utility function", meaning the ability to maximize any situation that involves choice.

Today's universities highest aim is to churn out debt-ridden, narcissistic, trembling incompetents. Graduates are frequently both functionally illiterate and innumerate. Having that credential be a minimum requirement for much of the labor force is not rational. Hiring workers without that credential, especially when they would be cheaper, would be rational.

Sometimes people have values other than base economic utility. Such is life.

[Brett L]

Or maybe physical, dangerous jobs pay more and fewer women apply.

[Hamster of Doom]

I'm not sure where you're going with this. There appears to be the assumption that I believe there's a significant wage gap and that it's due to assholes who want to keep women in chains.

I hope that's not the gist, because it would be wrong. I do not believe that either a wage gap is significant when given proper controls, nor do I believe any wage gap that does exist does so largely due to misogyny.

Which is all a far cry from saying people are never assholes to women just because. Sure they are. And it can't be "rationalized" into non-existence via some ephemeral logic which isn't. There are no misogynistic assholes any more because misogynistic assholery would pay less? That isn't how assholes think.

[Spartacus]

Having that credential be a minimum requirement for much of the labor force is not rational. Hiring workers without that credential, especially when they would be cheaper, would be rational.

I agree with the first part. A lot of the problem is that you can't just give someone a raise anymore, you have to make up a new job classification with (on paper) different duties and qualifications. Requiring a degree is just a lazy way to draw a line between two otherwise similar job descriptions. If you hire two workers without the credential and one is a better worker than the other, giving that one a raise and not the other will draw discrimination claims of various sorts, which in the long run is not cheaper.

Credentialism is good for HR because it replaces judgment, which can be more subject to question/grievance.

[xenia onatopp]

Inexcusable. A young man my son grew up with here in the Berkshires was found shot to death on the roof of an apartment building in the Bronx about two years ago. He'd been picked up in a local heroin bust, and the cops, knowing he was a junkie desperate to get out and get a fix, turned him loose as an informant. He may have been stupid, but it's the police whose actions were inexcusable-- they knew they were putting him in the cross hairs of criminals considerably more sophisticated and dangerous than he would ever be.