Here is a story, to the best of my memory (somewhat shorten) I would like to share about a bad cop whose name is Paul Lawrence. Putney, Vermont1970, various young people began complaining that they were busted for drugs that had been planted and others complained that a police officer named Paul Lawrence had beat them up and arrested them. Many were convicted after police officer Paul Lawrence testified at trial and some went to jail. We ( the community) knew he was a bad cop. A group of us from New York Newsreel moved to Vermont and stayed in the house of a Newsreel member. We lived collectivly , did political work around a concept called Free Vermont , and were part of a community farm that had gatherings every saturday and sunday to work , share food and music, etc. It was called the Free Farm. We made a film about the Putney Free Farm. I remember this well only because I have a copy of the film and use it in my classes. One part of the film shows young and old folks, hippies, bikers, rednecks, farm kids, etc weeding the garden, cutting up vegies , cooking over a fire, big pots of soup, playing drums, silk screening Fists with the words Free Vermont onto shirts and jackets, passing out newsprint political booklets saying Hand book of Fire arms and revolutionary ......, a shot of a vietnamese girl dancing with a bomb on her shoulders, a photo of Bobby Seale. ect. In this film there is a shot of a poster on a stick in the ground it says "WANTED" with a picture of police officer Paul Lawrence. The writing under the photo says "Beware of bad cop Paul Lawrence. He is known to plant drugs and beat people up. etc. Sometime later in the mid 70's, some of us had moved to Burlington, Vermont. Young people hung out in City Hall Park during the summer . Some were being arrested for drugs and claimed that they were innocent. Some went to jail. The arresting police officer was Paul Lawrence. He had some how moved and became a police officer in Burlington. Sometime later, I met a chemist that worked for the State of Vermont. He told me the story of what happened to Paul Lawrence . This chemist worked in the Vermont State Labortory anaylising drugs that were confiscated during arrests. He tested the drugs, wrote up a report, passed it on to the police department, if the substance was an illegal drug, the report would be used in the trial. If it was not illegal charges would be dropped. He notice something strange. All the the cocaine arrests by Paul Lawrence over a long period of time had exactly the same chemical break down, cut with the same amount of substance, and matched eachother. The chemist said, " I never saw this before and I knew something was wrong." He reported it. That summer, in City Hall Park, police officer Lawrence busted two guys. These men a week earlier had picked me and a friend up hitchhiking from Boston. ( In those days it was ok to hitch) Paul Lawrence had arrested and planted Coke on the two guys . The chemist, checked it out and it was the same coke from all of his other busts. The only problem this time was that the two men from Boston who had given us a ride were undercover narcotic agents . Paul Lawrence was arrested , found guilty and served time in jail. Everyone he had ever arrested had their records erased and/or released from prison, and pardoned. Later a book and film were made about Paul Lawrence the bad cop. Gawd, this list gets me to relive my life and write stories that is one reason I love it. my best, roz Michael Rossman wrote >As for marijuana/psychedelic persecution, I am sure that it was the most >widespread and frequently-exercised theme of the entire persecutory scheme. >Whether it were more frequently accomplished through radicals' actual >possession of banned substances, or through their planting by police and >associates, is unclear to me. I heard plenty of tales of both sorts, and >often >had good reason to believe the latter kind, beyond my natural inclination >(from sufficient evidence) to believe that many governmental agents had >the >opportunity, motive, immorality, and subcultural custom to plant such false >evidences. (I trust that some readers' kneejerk reflex to scold me for >"kneejerk" distrust of peace officers
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