Texas Cops Bust Of The Year Turns Out To Be Kitty Litter!

Here we go again. I just wrote about a similar situation a few weeks ago. The last story concerned a man in Orlando, Florida who was jailed because cops mistook Krispy Kreme glazed donut flakes for meth. In case you missed it you can read all about it —> Here.

Another innocent person falls victim to the cops “Knowledge and Experience” and is falsely arrested and suffers all the bullshit that comes with it. Meet 24-year-old Ross Lebeau.

Ross Lebeau

Obviously, Mr. Lebeal certainly looks like a major drug lord. So he should get the book thrown at him, at least as far as The Harris County Sheriff’s Office was concerned.

Ross Lebeau’s story started on December 5, 2016, when he was pulled over for allegedly making a right turn without signaling. Yeah Right! We’ve all heard about this nonsense before. He drives a 2006 Acura which is apparently well known by law enforcement everywhere to be the car of choice of major drug kingpins. I mean why would a drug lord drive a new high-end Mercedes or BMW when they could be driving a 10-year-old Acura?

According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office press release dated December 8, 2016. “Deputy S. Aguilar immediately detected the odor of marijuana in the car and inquired to Ross if there were any illegal drugs in his vehicle.

Mr. LeBeau stated there was a small amount of marijuana in the center console and a baggie of marijuana was recovered by Deputy Aguilar and he was detained at that point. 

During an inventory of the vehicle Mr. LeBeau was driving, a bag was found with small clear, blue and gold colored “nuggets”. A field test was conducted, and these “nuggets” tested positive for methamphetamine.

The total weight was 252 grams, a little less than half a pound in weight.
Mr. Ross LeBeau denied any knowledge of the methamphetamine that was found in his vehicle.

This is another example how a routine traffic stop turned into a significant narcotics arrest in our community and may have kept our children and loved ones free from being introduced to drugs.

Deputy Aguilar and other deputies are challenged on a daily basis to enforce the law using not only their knowledge and expertise, but their powers of observation to take criminals off the street”.

Here is what Deputy Agular found inside a sock inside Mr. Lebeau’s 2006 Acura.

Litty Litter

The deputy was credited for using his “knowledge and expertise” to take a criminal off the streets. This is almost the identical statement given by the Orlando Police regarding the false Krispy Kreme donut glaze meth bust.

Let’s explore this “knowledge and experience” thing that evidently seems to have some serious flaws.

The first question that comes to mind is “knowledge and experience” in what? Evidently, this doesn’t include visual identification of crystal meth. As the Orlando, Florida Police, and now the Harris County Texas Sheriff’s Office, anything could be misidentified as meth. Krispy Kreme donut glaze to kitty litter, do these freaking cops even know what crystal meth looks like anyway? Do they even learn about this sort of stuff in cop school? I think we can eliminate knowledge right off the bat.

Let me help. Here is a photo of

Crystal Meth

Here is a photo of crystal cat litter.

Crystal cat litter

As you can see, they look nothing alike. Not to mention the fact that cat litter placed inside an old sock is a common life hack to keep your windows in your car from fogging up inside in the winter. Not to mention the fact that drug dealers don’t often carry a half pound of meth inside a sock in the open in their cars. Just saying….

Experience, well I am fairly certain that many cops have extensive experience in pulling cars over for nonsense infractions like; not using a turn signal, broken tail lights or driving 3 miles per hour over the speed limit. Evidently, experience doesn’t extend to illicit drug identification, or in some cases common sense.

In both the Orlando story, and this newest one, the Police relied on cheap roadside drug identification test kits that are known to render false positives for illicit drugs 33% of the time. Think about that for a moment. That means that 1/3 of the fucking time, they are wrong, and some innocent sucker is arrested, booked for a crime they didn’t commit, and jailed for nothing. This is the real crime.

This is exactly what happened to Ross Lebeau. Sure, he had a very small amount of marijuana in his car. Whoopie! Newsflash: millions of people smoke pot. That doesn’t make him a drug kingpin trafficking in large quantities of crystal meth. It makes him a typical 24-year-old American. A typical American who just happens to drive a 2006 Acura.

Ross Lebeau spent three days behind bars before posting $50,000 bond. Three days in jail and $50,000 bond when his only real crime was a small amount of pot in his car’s ashtray. Seriously!

When he attempted to explain to The Harris County Sheriff’s Office how this was actually kitty litter that his father gave him to help keep his windows from fogging up, the cops “almost scoffed and laughed” when he explained the situation to them.

The case remained open until the Institute of Forensic Science conducted its own tests on the suspected drugs and determined that crystal kitty litter was “not a controlled substance.”

The “Bust of the year” was busted.

Charges against Lebeau were dropped on Jan. 4.

Here is a video of Ross Lebeau telling his story to a local news channel.

Ross Lebeau says all he want’s is an apology from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department as well as an agreement to stop using those cheap roadside drug test kits. Mr. Lebeau is an idiot. If this happened to me, I would get a good lawyer, and in the end, I would be able to afford a high-end Mercedes or BMW as well as money left over.

But then again, I don’t carry a half pound of kitty litter inside a sock in my car either, maybe I should start now.

 

As Always,

I Am…..

Tom Dye, The Safety Guy

 

This article is a news commentary and an original work of satire from Tom Dye, The Safety Guy.