BUST THAT WENT BAD PROMPTS OUTCRY

Tallahassee's Mayor And an ACLU Leader Want the Death of an Informant
Probed.

TALLAHASSEE - The mayor of Tallahassee and the Florida head of the
American Civil Liberties Union called for independent investigations
Monday after accusations that a 23-year-old woman should not have been
used as a police informant on a dangerous drug bust.

Rachel Hoffman's body was found Friday in rural Taylor County, two
days after she went missing. Hoffman, who was facing several felony
charges, was working with narcotics officers and posing as a buyer.

Police said Hoffman didn't follow protocol when she left with the two
men who are now suspects in her disappearance and death. Hoffman's
family and attorney say the recent Florida State University graduate
should never have been placed in such a dangerous position.

Dennis Fitzgerald, a retired Drug Enforcement Agency officer, said
police badly botched the case and should have sent an undercover
officer to accompany Hoffman.

"If they could do it wrong, they did it in this case," said Fitzgerald,
author of Informants and Undercover Investigations: A Practical Guide to
Law, Policy, and Procedure.

He also said police should have been able to keep track of Hoffman
even if the planned meeting moved.

Tallahassee police Chief Dennis Jones said he's confident officers
followed department procedures, and that normally those protocols
protect informants.

It was Hoffman who didn't do what she was supposed to, police
say.

Police said they found Ecstasy pills and "high-grade" marijuana when
they raided her apartment last week. Police haven't said what she was
promised in return, but that Hoffman agreed to become an informant and
help them reel in a bigger fish.

"All indications were she would be a very good choice as a
confidential informant, she would follow directions and there would be
no issues," Tallahassee police spokesman David McCranie said Monday.

But police say at the last minute, she changed the location of the
meeting with the two men, Andrea J. Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, in a
Tallahassee-area park to buy drugs and a gun from them as part of a
sting.

McCranie said Hoffman led police to the two men, not the other way
around.

The police officer handling the case pleaded with her to call off the
meeting, McCranie said.

"For whatever reason, she did not call it off," McCranie said. "And
that ultimately led to her murder."

Green and Bradshaw are in custody, charged with kidnapping Hoffman.
McCranie said Monday that murder charges were pending. It wasn't clear
Monday whether either had hired an attorney.

Meanwhile, Hoffman's family is preparing for her funeral Tuesday in
the Tampa Bay suburb of Palm Harbor.

They're furious that police allowed Hoffman to get into such a
dangerous situation.

Hoffman's stepfather, Mike Weiss, told The Tampa Tribune on Monday
that police should stop falling back on what Hoffman did because she
shouldn't have been put in the position in the first place.

"They took a 23-year-old relatively naive person and put her in a
life-threatening situation," Weiss told the newspaper.

Michael Grimes, a federal drug-enforcement agent for nearly 30 years
and author of A Guide for Developing and Controlling Informants, said
undercover drug operations are never completely safe.

But generally, he said, if something goes wrong, it's because an
informant messes up, or police don't clearly explain beforehand
exactly what they're supposed to do.

Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida, said Hoffman's
death "raises all sorts of serious questions about the use of
undercover informants. This just screams for an investigation."