The Washington Times reports: Until last week, Mr. [Pat] Conroy was an assistant principal and the dean of students at Michigan’s South Haven High School. On the same day that he permanently left his office, he was called into another one — the courtroom of the district courthouse — where he pled not guilty to a charge of marijuana possession. Mr. Conroy claimed that he had a perfectly reasonable reason for having the substance on his person. He had tried to use it to get a student expelled. Specifically, Mr. Conroy said that he had planted the marijuana in the locker of a student he strongly suspected of being a drug dealer, hoping that a police dog would sniff out the drugs during a search of the school. However, the stuffy-nosed hound failed to find the materials.
Meanwhile, police had a nose for Mr. Conroy. When officers raided his office earlier this month, they found ten plastic bags of marijuana and several assorted pills. If convicted, Mr. Conroy will be faced with a $2,000 fine and a year of detention.
The War on Drugs is not the greatest federal abomination, but barring the full flowering of the Patriot Act, it is certainly one of the federal government’s favorite means of systematically depriving American citizens of their birthright. If a school officer is capable of behaving in this manner, can there be any doubt that there are police officers who do the same?