Autistic Teen’s Only Friend Turns Out to Be Undercover Cop

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Autistic Teen’s Only Friend Turns Out to Be Undercover Cop, Arrests Him in Drug Sting
by Kristina Chew

November 5, 2013


The parents of a teenage son with Asperger’s Syndrome are suing his school district in Southern California on the grounds that he was unfairly targeted by an undercover police officer posing as a student. The then-17-year-old has suffered “psychological scarring” after his arrest, his parents, Doug and Catherine Snodgrass, assert in explaining why they are suing the Temecula Valley Unified School District, the director of child welfare and attendance Michael Hubbard and the director of special education Kimberly Velez on charges including negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Back in the fall of 2012, the Snodgrasses had been pleased to learn that their son, who is in special education and takes a number of psychiatric medications, had a new friend in art class, “Daniel Briggs.” Social interactions and friendships can be challenging for someone with Asperger’s Syndrome and “Briggs” became the teen’s only friend. Accordingly, the Snodgrasses encouraged their son to invite his new friend over but were always told “some bizarre excuse.”

Little did they know that “Briggs” was actually Deputy Daniel Zipperstein of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, who had been pretending to be a student for months at Chaparral High School in Temecula to zero in on students using and selling drugs.

“Briggs” put pressure on the Snodgrasses’ son to buy drugs, at one time sending him 60 text messages, telling the teen that he was “desperate” and also asking for the teen’s prescription clonazepam. The teen couldn’t provide the latter (his parents keep his medications locked up and dispense them for him) but was able to obtain small amounts of marijuana, which he twice sold to “Briggs.”

On December 11, the teen was one of a number of students arrested in the “culmination of a drug operation” that saw deputies going undercover at Chaparral and Temecula Valley high schools. He was put into handcuffs in front of his classmates, interrogated without a lawyer and locked up for two days. The Snodgrasses were not notified of their son’s arrest, only knowing that something was amiss when he did not return home from school. When they called the principal’s office, they were referred to the Sheriff’s Department.

Their son was held in juvenile detention for two days; they were only able to see him at a juvenile court hearing on drug sales charges two days later and “the look in his eyes will forever haunt us,” the Snodgrasses write.

A juvenile court judge took the teen’s disability into consideration and dismissed the charges due to “extenuating circumstances” in January 2013. In the meantime, the Temecula School District wanted to expel the teen but a judge reinstated the teen after his parents filed for due process. The district has filed an appeal and is now seeking again to expel the Snodgrasses’ son even though he is to graduate in December, and the appeal process will not be completed until next year.

Law Enforcement Officers, a School District and a Sting Operation

The Snodgrasses assert that their son was wrongfully swept into a “sting operation” whose goal was “identifying and purchasing illegal drugs from persons dealing on campus” and that had been set up by law enforcement with the assistance of key school administrators. As the Snodgrasses assert, their son “is not and never was a drug dealer” but a young man with numerous disabilities who was extremely eager to have a friend and unable to assess what was going on.

Their son is, the Snodgrasses say,”visibly affected,” with disabilities serious enough that they should have been obvious to the deputy. He not only has Asperger’s but also bipolar disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, impulse-control disorder and anxiety; when under stress, he displays physical tics and may self-injure. The Snodgrasses discovered that many of their son’s classmates had sensed that there was something unusual about the student named Daniel Briggs, with some actually calling him “Deputy Dan.”

(click the url for the rest of the story...)

http://www.care2.com/causes/autistic-te ... z2jom1g32v

Those kinds of operations should be illegal, they're such a waste of taxpayer money. If you have to create a crime where there wasn't any, just to make an arrest, then we have too many cops. Surely there are more important things that need attending to.

...so the kid couldn't get ahold of his own medication, but managed to get marijuana?

The state of the union indeed...

Entrapping school children is a waste of law enforcement resources and an abuse of children's rights.

Deputy Dan and his pals should get a real job. Perhaps going after real dealers.

So sad. I know how bad I feel when I find out someone I thought was a friend isn't. And this is a hundred times worse.

Seriously? This is drug enforcement?

Sounds more like harassment of a disabled individual.

This would be ridiculous even if he wasn't disabled.

This is disgusting. From reading the quote from the OP it seems like total entrapment to me.

He probably bought them from another undercover agent and then sold them to an undercover agent.

My guess would be that the police officer's mindset is similar to a college football's coach. Well, if I don't cheat and don't win, I'm sure to be fired. Whereas, if I cheat, I may actually get away with it.

So, the police officer may have thought, if he doesn't make any arrests, then he's not going to get anymore undercover assignments, and thus effectively be demoted.

This is probably part of the early intervention task force designed to weed out (pardon the pun) dealers to kids, as lifelong drug dependence often starts in school. In this respect the undercover operation has merit.

Obviously there is a question why the cop was hovering around a child with disabilities and what this had to do with his undercover operation? Perhaps more to this story? or perhaps he was using the Apsie kid to get a foot into the marijuana distribution in the school?

Anyone old enough to remember 21 Jump street?

Thats just about what I was thinking, he was likely a struggling officer in a failing operation looking to meet his quota, he identified an easy victim and took advantage of him. Like when the traffic police start giving tickets at the end of the month for turning too sharp, burnt out bulbs and driving 5km/h over etc. Perhaps he knew he had Aspergers and figured he could get the benifit of turning him in and the kid would likely get off as he did for having Aspergers, a win-win in his mind justifying his choice of target and action. I also would like to know how Deputy Dan found out what medication the kid was on and if he broke any school rules inorder to obtain this kind of information.

How old was the officer anyway, he must have been pretty fresh on the force to impersonate a teenager like that, or was it simply the aspie who could not tell the difference?

Why'd they have to make the title so hilarious?

I don't like the subtly ableist tone of the article. As if there's no possibility that the poor autistic invalid could actually be a drug user. Their actions should be condemned whether he was disabled or not.

I really see it as no different than trying to catch a predator but I think targeting disabled individuals is sick and cowardly and lazy.

And that's an alternative, don't think of it as a failure. The police officer could go to a school as a new student, ignore marijuana, and see if anyone is blatantly selling dangerous stuff like oxycotin or cocaine. If so, he could make a buy the first week. That seems like it would be more reasonable police work.

If no one is blatantly selling, fine, chalk it up as a success. Move on to the next school. In 5 weeks, the officer could scope out 5 schools. This seems like it would be a much more efficient use of police time.

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And I also wondered about the age aspect. When I was 21, I think I probably looked like I was still in high school. And that's the ironic thing. Sometimes us Aspies look younger than our age. And the program might be more successful if the officer himself or herself was Aspie!

I would wonder whether some police officer who's say 23 could really pose as seventeen.

I don't know where this took place, but here in the U.S. the officer that was pressuring the kid would've been fired and no charges would ever have been issued because, as this story is told here, the officer instigated the crime, and that's illegal because it's entrapment of an individual. The most they could ever do is ask if the person is willing to sell, beyond that it's considered entrapment by pressure.

I feel sorry for this person, seriously, they should never have had to go through such a thing.