Austin PD undercover officer allegedly gave material support to 'Occupy' action resulting in felony charges

At Firedoglake, writer Kit O'Connell asks, "Why did undercover Austin Police Department Detective Shannon G. Dowell provide material support for an activist protest that resulted in them being charged with a felony in Houston?"

Sounds like a reasonable question to me.

Last December, wrote O'Connell, "seven activists from Austin, Dallas, and Houston blocked the main entrance into the port by laying in the road and linking arms inside lockboxes (also known as sleeping dragons), which physically linked them together so that police cut them apart. The use of these instruments resulted in these seven being charged with Unlawful Use of a Criminal Instrument or Device, while others who merely linked arms and legs faced lesser misdemeanor charges."

So where did the protesters get these "lockboxes"? An undercover Austin police detective, later identified in court as Shannon G. Dowell but known to the protesters as "Butch," allegedly "obtained the materials, constructed, then delivered the lockboxes to Austin activists before they left for Houston," wrote OConnell. "Funds for the lockboxes came from Occupy Austin’s general funds allocated to the trip by its assembly."

That's classic provocateur behavior. Without the "lockboxes" constructed by the detective, the activists would have only faced misdemeanor charges, but they wouldn't have had that capacity without "Butch's" help. Is it unreasonable to suspect that's why he did it?

Attorney Greg Gladden who's handling the case told O'Connell that "The behavior of Austin Police Department is shocking to my conscience. I believe it is shocking to the conscience of the court. and it is one of the worst ways I can think of for the government to be spending its money, our money. The case needs to be dismissed and the Austin Police Department needs to rethink its role in society."

Notably, local police across the country have partnered with the Department of Homeland Security in undercover operations aimed at "Occupy" protesters, sharing information through so-called "fusion centers."

To be clear, I think intentionally getting oneself arrested in an action like this is dumb as a bag of hair and another example of the Occupy movement's failures of leadership. It furthers no identifiable political goal and forces activist groups to redirect energy and resources from their policy agenda to legal defense. But that doesn't excuse police from using undercover operatives to promote felonious behavior that wouldn't occur without their involvement. It's one thing to use undercover operatives to identify and prosecute crime, but quite another to facilitate and promote it.

MORE: See coverage from the Austin Chronicle and a followup post from Firedoglake, citing testimony from Detective Dowell that he couldn't provide the court with emails related to the undercover operation because they'd been deleted, which if true may violate state record retention laws. Other records related to the case, Dowell told the court, he'd uploaded onto a thumb drive which he claimed to have lost between his hotel in Houston and the courthouse. Judge Joan Campbell was not amused and has threatened to dismiss the charges if Austin PD cannot provide the documents by next week.