Biography
Barry Cooper is a former police officer who served as one of the nations top narcotics officers before becoming disillusioned with the war on drugs. Cooper quit the police force and created a DVD video series for Marijuana users to give them tips on how to avoid police tricks aimed at busting them. Cooper was approached by the family of a woman who was serving an 8 year prison sentence after police searched her truck while she was leaving a shopping mall due to a tip from an informant and found it filled with drugs. The family believed the drugs had been planted by the informant on the orders of police and accidently targeted the wrong truck. In December 2008, Cooper rented out an empty house which was retrofitted with cameras and then made an anonymous tip to police claiming the house was being used to grow Marijuana. Police raided the home with a warrant that claimed informants had been inside the home and purchased drugs. This proved that the department had lied in affidavits used for search warrants and this evidence caused the conviction of the woman to be overturned after she spent 4 years in prison. Cooper ran for Texas Attorney General under a platform of police reform and soon was arrested for filing a false police report over the anonymous tip he had made that triggered the raid. Cooper had his 7 year-old taken son by CPS after authorities claimed he created an unsafe environment by teaching his children that the police were out to get him. In 2011 Cooper and his family fled to Brazil where he was granted political asylum and where he currently lives in exile.
