Rachel Hoffman could have been anyone's daughter. A middle class, college student with an outgoing personality, Rachel was also a casual drug user and sold small quantities of marijuana to her friends. A felonious act, indeed, but in the scheme of the drug war, a very small fish, to say the least. So when Tallahassee police arrested her on drug charges in 2008 (for the second time in a year), investigators rightly set their sites on "working up the ladder" by offering Hoffman an opportunity to "work off her charges" by becoming an informant. Those of us who have worked narcotics do this everyday. Informants; the lifeblood of successful narcotics investigations, but rarely, if ever, without significant challenges. What the investigators handling Hoffman set out to do was properly ambitious and forward thinking. Ultimately, the investigators targeted two individuals with significant criminal histories who posed a much greater threat to society than Hoffman ever could. These two cold blooded killers are exactly the kind of people that need to be targeted and removed from the street. But it was how the investigators went about utilizing Hoffman to target these two individuals that ultimately cost Hoffman her life, and derailed the lives of her family, friends and the officers invovled. What follows is a summary of crucial mistakes made in this case.
1. Failure to know your enemy
Prior to sending Hoffman to meet her assailants, Daneilo Bradshaw and Adrea Green, the investigators failed to do a thorough enough background check and properly identify the suspects. Had they done this they would have known that each of them had extensive criminal histories including violence. Additionally, once the operation went wrong and they lost sight and contact with Hoffman, they would have been able to launch a much more intensive search, place detailed lookouts and conceivably taken far less than three days to find Hoffman's body. However, the bottom line is always safety, and if they had known about the extensive criminal background of these two, would they still have sent Hoffman to meet them alone? Or at all? Or, was there an alternative plan they could have utilized to achieve the same goal, but at much less risk to Hoffman?
2. Failure to Control
Rule #1 when conducting undercover and/or informant operations: CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL! There is a certain amount of inherent risk in every operation we do and the only way for us to minimize the risk is by being in control of as many variables as possible. The biggest variable to consider is the location of the operation. In Hoffman's case, the suspects changed the location twice after agreeing to the location chosen by investigators. The ultimate location they chose was down a secluded dirt road that was impossible for a surveillance team to adequately cover. Had the investigators insisted on keeping the original location, a busy public park, it is highly unlikely the suspects would have been brazen enough to brutally murder Hoffman with the risk of being seen by witnesses visiting the park. It is important to remember that ultimately, we have what they want; MONEY. They will come to us, often despite the warnings of their own sixth sense, as greed almost always supersedes good judgment.
3. Exceeding an Informants Capabilities
Despite our best intentions of targeting the worst offenders, we often ask too much of informants in pursuit of making a great case. In the case of Rachel Hoffman, she was arrested with approximately 1/4 pound of marijuana and less than 10 pills of ecstasy. Investigators encouraged her to set up a deal with Bradshaw and Green in which she would be buying several ounces of cocaine, several thousand pills of ecstasy and a handgun in exchange for $13,000. Several problems with this scenario should immediately come to light. First, Hoffman did not know either of these people and had never dealt with them before. This is a significant amount to be purchasing during a first meeting. Second, Hoffman had no familiarity with firearms and in fact, had never handled one before. In addition, there is no indication she had ever dealt in cocaine nor had she ever purchased anywhere near the amount of ecstasy she was being asked to buy. Ultimately, Hoffman, a lone woman, was given $13,000 cash and asked to meet with two career criminal men, who would be known to possess at least one firearm at the meeting. This was a recipe for robbery!
These are just a few of many issues in this case that will be analyzed in depth in our Developing and Managing Informants course. If you are interested in attending this course please visit our website at http://www.signal13training.com/ or contact us at info@signal13training.com.
