It has almost been a year, since the body of 20-year-old North Dakota State College of Science student Andrew Sadek had been found in the Red River, with a bullet stuck on his head. His death has been raising questions on the employment of young low-level drug offenders as confidential informants.
It was found that Sadek has been working for a regional drug task force subsequent to getting caught for small marijuana-related crimes, before his death. According to his mother, who thinks he had been forced into such crimes and said that the drug task forces should put a stop to using “little fish.”
Investigators have not yet determined how Sadek has died and a recent investigation has concluded that the task force acted appropriately.
According to some experts, the confidential informants must gather more information regarding risks. Jennifer Cook, American Civil Liberties Union spokeswoman says that informants do dangerous police work without the training.
The U.S. Justice Department guidelines state that authorities should be taking into consideration the risk of harm for a potential informant, but does not say that the person should be informed of the risks.
Liz Brocker North Dakota Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman, refused to comment on any policies or procedures that might be in place for drug task forces in the state.
Loyola Law School professor Alexandra Natapoff based in L.A said the employment of criminal informants “is almost entirely unregulated” all over the country, although that is starting to change. The Florida Legislature in 2009 passed “Rachel’s Law,” which requires police to adopt policies to protect informants, after 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman had been to death in 2008 while working as an informant.
Natapoff said, “That law is “only the beginning of the protections that we need for young, vulnerable informants.”
Tammy Sadek believes that her son was petrified of becoming a confidential informant. She’s started a Justice for Andrew Sadek Facebook page with more 3,200 likes so far.
“I would like to see (task forces) stop using kids,” she said. “I know it’s common, but these are just little fish.”
3 Comments
First off he wasn’t a kid as his mother keeps saying. Second, he was offered a choice. Become an informer or spend time in jail for a crime he did commit. What exactly were these low level drug crimes?
This scenario is all too common. A kid gets busted for some weed, and the cops pressure him to turn over his sources. The kid could have said no, and gotten a minimal sentence like probation. Instead, he winds up dead in a river with a bullet in his head. The cops who should have been protecting him used him as an informant which led to his death. They should be charged. It’s irresponsible to put a kid with no training in a situation like this. In Florida, this is common practice. Getting someone to do the hard part of their job by putting the informant in the danger zone is a great way to get more arrests. Florida is a big prison state, with more prisons in a single two county area than in all of Massachusetts. Rick Scott and Pam Bondi are all about building, then filling, more prisons as “economic stimulus”.
“had been found in the Red River, with a bullet stuck on his head.” Stuck on his head with what?