Make no mistake about it: POLICE ABSOLUTELY DO CONDUCT STING OPERATIONS ON THE INTERNET (in fact you can Watch HaberPA’s YouTube Webisode on “Do Police conduct Sting Operations on the Internet?” by clicking below…)!
On March 22nd, 2016 the Granite Shoals, TX Police Department’s used social media to put out a fake alert on it’ s Facebook page stating: “Breaking News: Area Meth and Heroin Supply Possibly Contaminated With Ebola”
The post (which is pictured above and has been dubbed by some as a “Facebook Post Challenge”, or, if you ask the defense bar, a “Police Internet Sing Op”) actually led to a woman’s arrest after she showed up at the Granite Shoals Police Department to have her potentially contaminated contraband / meth screened with a “special device”.
Two days after the initial Facebook post, on Thursday, March 24th, 2016, 29 year old Chastity Eugina Hopson (pictured below) responded to the PD’s warning that: “If you have recently purchased meth or heroin in Central Texas, please take it to the local police or sheriff department so it can be screened with a special device. DO NOT use it until it has been properly checked for possible Ebola contamination!” When she showed up at the Granite Shoals Police Department with less than one gram of meth she was arrested and charged.
But the PD took heat when it went a step further and posted Chastity’s mug shot on it’s webpage, referring to her as the “winner” of their “Facebook post challenge”.
Falling short of attacking the Sting Op itself, critics have claimed that the PD’s act sharing the woman’s name and picture and effectively poking fun at her addiction was, well, uncool. One critic reportedly commented on the PD’s “winner” pic stating that: “You humiliated and shamed her and treated her like a criminal instead of like someone who has a disease. I work I with addicts and one of the reasons they don’t seek out help is the fear of judgement and because they feel ashamed. You could have offered this woman treatment/help and instead you plastered her face all over Facebook reinforcing the beliefs of addicts that they are worthless and undeserving of help.” And, as the criticism began to pile up, the PD ultimately wrote in a post that it wanted to show “all parts of the enforcement world on Facebook, and that includes our sense of humor”, but then, as of Monday, March 28th, 2016 both the original Ebola meth post as well as the “winner” post had been removed, and in their place was a picture of a cat, driving a car, with a caption that read: “‘And now here is a picture of a cat.”
Enter Tom Smith, Texas director of the advocacy group “Public Citizen”, who called tactics like the Ebola post “pure deception”, stating that: “At a time when we’re having a crisis with growing heroin addiction it’s outrageous that we would set traps for people instead of coming up with strategies to get them into treatment.”
https://www.youtube.com/c/michaelhaberlaw / http://habercriminallaw.blogspot.com
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Top notch, very skilled, and highly attentive. Mr. Haber is a fantastic criminal defense attorney. 
- Thanks again. You are second to none when it comes to defending your clients. For that, I thank you
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