Search Results: westnet (8)

Kitsap Sun
Now retired, Bremerton cop Roy Alloway was one of WestNET’s top officers. Next month he’s up for sentencing on federal tax fraud and gun dealing charges.

​Among defense attorneys, “narcotics officers” have a certain reputation: thuggishly violent goons who enjoy trashing suspects’ homes and bullying children. There’s no better example of why such perceptions exist than the WestNET task force in Washington state.

Reporter Sean Robinson of the Tacoma News Tribune nailed the federally funded task force to the wall in an exposé this week. The well-done piece revealed that the unit, based in Kitsap County and pulling officers from various departments, uses hyper-aggressive tactics and exaggerated claims of effectiveness, reports Nina Shapiro at Seattle Weekly.
Toke of the Town readers may remember that WestNET (West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team) is the same bunch of wanna-be Rambos who busted into the house of medical marijuana dispensary operator Christine Casey, pulled a gun on her 15-year-old son and took the money from her nine-year-old daughter’s Mickey Mouse Wallet.

Josh Farley/Kitsap Sun
Portrait of the Asshole as an Old Man: Drug cop Roy Alloway terrorized Washington medical marijuana patients for years. Now he’s pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegal gun sales, and could go to prison for up to five years.

Every now and then, karma gets it right.

A former police narcotics officer indicted after a federal investigation into illegal gun dealing at Western Washington gun shows pleaded guilty on Wednesday. He faces up to five years in prison, and is scheduled for sentencing on January 20.

Roy Alloway, a 56-year-old retired cop from Port Orchard, was indicted in May by a federal grand jury in Seattle along with three other men, reports Levi Pulkkinen at the Seattle P.I. Alloway was the biggest alleged gun dealer indicted, but the same sting also targeted another man purported to have sold a gun which was used to kill a Seattle police officer.
Alloway, a longtime Bremerton undercover narcotics detective, was infamous for his boorish behavior on the job with the Bremerton Police Department — especially when dealing with medical marijuana patients, with whom he had a deservedly horrible reputation. He pleaded guilty to illegally operating as a gun dealer and to income tax fraud.
The officer was so despised among Washington’s medical marijuana patients that a strain of medical marijuana was ironically named after him in retaliation for his being a raging asshole.
His 10 years with the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNET) made him a well-known officer around the state, particularly for his work in marijuana eradication, reports the Kitsap Sun, Alloway’s hometown newspaper.

Photo: KOMO News
All charges against Guy Casey, above, were dismissed — but the cops still don’t want to give his medical marijuana back.

​Two operators of a Tacoma, Washington medical marijuana dispensary beat drug charges earlier this year. Now they want their cannabis back.

Guy Casey and Michael Schaef said they are legally authorized to possess the marijuana seized during a raid and that the government no longer has any interest in the pot, reports Adam Lynn at the Bellingham Herald.
They’ve asked a Pierce County Superior Court judge to return to each of them 48 ounces of harvested marijuana and 30 plants — or their equivalents in cash.

Photo: Josh Farley/Kitsap Sun
Drug cop Roy Alloway terrorized Washington medical marijuana patients for years. Now he’s been federally indicted for illegal gun sales.

​Narc Is So Despised, A Local Strain Of Marijuana Was Named In His ‘Honor’

A former Washington drug cop so notorious for his misdeeds and aggressive tactics that a strain of medical marijuana was named after him in retaliation has been federally indicted for unlawfully selling guns.

Roy Alloway spent 32 years in law enforcement, the last 10 of which he was involved in the WestNET regional drug task force. Alloway took something of an unhealthy personal interest in giving additional pain to medical marijuana patients, according to many activists in the area, who “see him as a cop determined to lock up even legal users of pot,” wrote Nina Shapiro at the Seattle Weekly.
Alloway made a career of trashing houses and intimidating their occupants, apparently not giving a damn if the people he harassed were legitimately sick or not.
And that’s exactly why a potent marijuana strain was named “Alloway” in his “honor.” Created by a well-known Everett breeder associated with advocate Steve Sarich of CannaCare, the Alloway strain includes the genetics of popular Seattle strain PermaFrost, with a little White Widow reputedly in the mix as well. 
“Where do you begin?” said Sarich, who was raided by Alloway and WestNET in 2007.
“This guy is a real piece of shit, and has been for years,” Sarich told Toke of the Town Monday afternoon. “I can’t wait to see how many of the cases Alloway was involved with are overturned, if he gets locked away on these charges.”

Graphic: North End Club 420

​Pierce County, Washington prosecutors have dismissed numerous marijuana charges filed last year against two men who run a Tacoma medical marijuana cooperative, North End Club 420.

Guy Lewis Casey and Michael Jonathan Schaef — who operate the dispensary on Oregon Avenue in Tacoma — had been scheduled for trial in April, reports Adam Lynn at the Tacoma News Tribune.


Graphic: Citizen Alert

​​Washington drug agents have illegally seized signed petitions for marijuana legalization, according to organizers of ballot initiative I-1068.

Marijuana advocacy group Sensible Washington says it has learned that a dozen signed copies of  the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which it is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNET drug task force.

Advocates say that the drug agents who seized the petitions are interfering with a constitutionally-protected legislative procedure.
“Our estimate is that 2009 signatures are sitting in WestNET’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as ‘evidence’ during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma,” said Sensible Washington campaign director and initiative co-author Philip Dawdy.

Don’t Look At Me Like That. You Were Thinking It Too
Kitsap County, Washington is presumably safe from 9-year-old girls with Mickey Mouse wallets, thanks to those brave drug cops at WestNET

​A Washington State mother says that drug cops mistreated her son, took $80 from her daughter’s Mickey Mouse wallet, and trashed her house.

Christine Casey, affiliated with North End Club 420, a patient collective considered legal under Washington state law, told the Seattle Weekly that detectives from the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNET) handcuffed her 14-year-old son for two hours and put a gun to his head, reports Nina Shapiro.
They also told the frightened kid to say goodbye to his dad, Guy Casey, because they said the pot dispensary operator was going to prison.
As the Rambo-esque detectives trashed the home looking for cash, trying to prove the dispensary was illegally profiting from medical marijuana, Casey said they confiscated $80 that her nine-year-old daughter had received for a straight-A report card.
The gung-ho drug warriors found the money in the little girl’s Mickey Mouse wallet.

Photo: KOMO News
Guy Casey, North End Club 420: “I’m calling for everybody in the medical marijuana community to stand behind us”

​Law enforcement officers served three warrants Tuesday morning in their attempt to shut down a Tacoma, Washington-based medical marijuana dispensary, North End Club 420.

The warrants were served at two Tacoma addresses — a home and an office building — and an Olalla home, according to the West End Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNET), reports Stacey Mulick of The Tacoma News Tribune.
The multi-agency WestNET force, which focuses primarily on Kitsap and Mason counties, claimed it had been working on the case since January with the help of undercover snitches.
The North End Club 420 is one of three new medical marijuana dispensaries in Tacoma.