Barry Cooper (born May 21, 1969) is an American drug reform activist and filmmaker. Formerly a police officer in Texas, Cooper is best known for KopBusters, a series of online videos in which he attempts to document police misconduct, and Never Get Busted Again, a series of videos aimed at teaching drug users how to evade arrest by the police.
Early life and career
Born , Cooper was raised in California until 1979, when his family moved to Texas.
Cooper began his law enforcement career with the Gladewater Police Department as a police dispatcher. He was later hired by the Big Sandy Police Department as an interdiction officer in East Texas and trained his own narcotic detection dog. While working in law enforcement, he confiscated large amounts of narcotics and money. Cooper's former superior officer, Tom Finley, described Cooper as "probably the best narcotics officer in the state and maybe the country during his time with the task force." Finley was the Commander of a defunct West Texas drug task force, called the Permian Basin Drug Task Force. Finley and the PBDTF became embroiled in scandal after a former task force officer issued a sworn affidavit claiming illegal activities by other officers. Richard Dickson filed the affidavit and forwarded it to the Office of then-governor, George Bush. In the affidavit, Dickson said that members of the Task Force (including Finley) forged payroll documents, food receipts, and claimed that at least one officer pocketed money meant for a Confidential Informant.
Cooper reports noticing that people arrested for possession of marijuana were nonviolent and cooperative, in contrast to people intoxicated on alcohol who "... would fight and scream and act crazy." He also noted being deeply affected by the emotional trauma he witnessed while participating in home narcotics raids with other officers attired in raid gear and "more guns than we would ever need." Cooper also stated, "We're sending the kids to the department of human services, we're sending the parents to jail over marijuana. Well, I knew some of these people and I knew they weren't gangsters. I knew they were nonviolent people." As a result of this allegation, Ector County District Attorney John Smith requested a Texas Ranger investigation, and a later grand jury investigation. Despite finding untagged evidence, missing narcotics and money, and banking irregularities the grand jury failed to reach an indictment. Governor Bush defunded the task force and terminated all of the members. He went on to fund a Texas Department of Public Safety controlled task force to take over the PBDTF.
Cooper left law enforcement after his department was sued in a federal civil rights case due to his alleged misconduct.
Activism
Cooper struck on the idea using an internet-distributed reality TV format program called "KopBusters" that would muckrake abuses of drug enforcement organizations. In a typical KopBusters sting operation, Cooper and his associates would place fake drug evidence and cash and call the police to report the "suspicious" materials. Then they would video record the police activity to see if the officers took the cash and destroyed the other evidence, the latter being a felony offense, according to his lawyer. Cooper set up a sting with no real evidence to trick Odessa, Texas police into raiding a fake marijuana hothouse and published the video of the event publicly via KopBusters.