PLANO UNDERCOVER OFFICER TOOK TEEN TO BUY HEROIN

Police chief declines to comment on complaints

PLANO - The parents of a Plano teenager expressed anger Sunday that an
undercover police officer took their son to buy heroin, then allowed him to
use it.

Victor and Angela Kollman said at a news conference Sunday that a female
undercover officer drove their son Jonathan, then 16, to buy heroin six
times last fall.

The buys helped rekindle a heroin addiction he had been fighting for two
years, they said in broadcast reports.

Plano Police Chief Bruce Glasscock declined to comment on the Kollmans'
complaints, citing the possibility of a lawsuit.

"We're going to have to talk to our attorneys first," he said.

Jonathan Kollman, now 17, was arrested as part of "Operation Rockfest," an
undercover investigation that has led to 84 cases against 33 adults and
four juveniles. Fourteen of the suspects are students at Plano Senior High
School, Plano East Senior High School or Plano Special Programs School.

"How can a kid get off drugs if someone is offering?" Mrs. Kollman said
Sunday. "We're trying to work with him to get him off of drugs, and we felt
like the people that should have been helping us were not helping."

Victor Kollman declined to say Sunday night whether the family planned to
file a lawsuit. He referred questions about a possible suit to his
attorney, Phillip Wainscott, who couldn't be reached.

The Kollmans said they already had taken their son out of Plano schools,
placed him in rehab and gone through family therapy to help him fight his
two-year addiction.

"The point he was getting better was the time the police contributed to him
getting worse," Mr. Kollman said.

On Oct. 15, the undercover officer picked Jonathan up from home and took
him to a Plano gas station to meet a 21-year-old drug dealer, broadcast
reports said.

The officer then gave Jonathan $98 and watched him buy 10 capsules of
heroin, in a form called chiva, according to notes the officer made during
the investigation.

"I stopped, and Jonathan went into the building to use the one cap of
chiva," the officer wrote. "Jonathan returned to my vehicle and said that
this heroin was better than the last heroin we bought."

Mr. Kollman said getting his son involved in drug purchases wasn't necessary.

"They could have caught the drug dealers in a different way," he said.

Given heroin's potential for a fatal overdose, the Kollmans said they were
surprised an officer would allow their son to endanger his life.

"I just can't understand how they would put him in danger of that," Victor
Kollman said.

At least a dozen teens with ties to Plano have died from heroin overdoses
in the last 18 months, drawing national attention to the affluent city of
188,000.

The Associated Press and staff writer Mike Jackson contributed to this report.