In May of 2008 recent Florida State graduate Rachel Hoffman reluctantly got in her car with 13,000 dollars in cash set to buy 2 and ½ ounces of cocaine, 1500 pills of Ecstasy, and a semi-automatic handgun in a Tallahassee P.D. approved sting operation. A few weeks earlier, two disparate events promised to change the trajectory of Rachel’s life. First, she earned admission to a master’s program in mental-health counseling. Second, more dubiously, Rachel found herself pinched by police who discovered 5 ounces of pot, along with assorted pills of Ecstasy and Valium surreptitiously tucked under her couch cushions. Threatened with possible felony charges of possession with intent to sell and “maintaining a drug house,” Rachel decided to cooperate. Information leading to a mere pot bust though—authorities informed Rachel—would not be enough to make the charges disappear. Instead, they would need Rachel to bring Tallahassee P.D. arrests netting large quantities of heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, or guns. With little choice, Rachel unwittingly made herself disposable. As such, Rachel took on a new, less human persona in the eyes of law enforcement. Rachel became Confidential Informant No. 1129; one of many replaceable, interchangeable parts in the modern War on Drugs.
Whether Rachel’s attackers discovered the wire in her purse, or simply found the nature of her first-time purchase suspicious is relatively inconsequential. What does matter, very much so, is that Rachel’s body—riddled with bullets from the gun she planned to buy for police—turned up 50 miles southeast of Tallahassee. As you might imagine, the murder of a white middle-class, female, suburban college graduate garnered considerable media attention. Hoffman’s case received prolonged coverage from Jenifer Portman of the Tallahassee Democrat, Vince Beiser of the Huffington Post, and ABC News. The saga of Rachel Hoffman and the overarching issue of confidential informants has now resurfaced, with the publication of Sarah Stillman’s recent New Yorker piece entitled, “The Throwaways.”
Far too often, confidential informants adversely effected by the modern war on drugs do not fit the description of Rachel Hoffman. Lacking the trappings of a college education, middle-class status, and perhaps whiteness, many cautionary tales of informants go untold. More frequently, the disposable citizens shuffled through the dangerous informant system are young people from low-income communities, often nonwhite, and sometimes underage. The risk, and potential loss of these human lives receives less media scrutiny and legislative concern then they ought to be afforded.