Rachel Morningstar Hoffman was a 23-year-old FSU graduate when she was arrested in 2007 for possession of a felony amount of cannabis. To avoid a lengthy prison sentence, she was given two options: rat out other marijuana users, or act as a police informant in a high-level sting. The young girl chose the latter.
Police gave her $13,000 to buy cocaine, 3,500 ecstasy pills, and a handgun from two thugs. Hoffman had never been trained to work undercover, and police dispatched only two officers to trail her. They lost contact with Hoffman’s wire when the location of the deal changed twice—and they never regained contact. The two dealers kidnapped her and shot her dead.
Ford Banister II was a law student in Jacksonville as the case was unfolding in the local and national media. He never knew Hoffman, but the two had mutual friends, and he managed to get in touch with her mother. They spoke on the phone regularly for several months after her daughter’s death.
"When I talked to her mom, I felt I had a moral imperative to do something about this," Banister says.
What he’s doing now is radical. At 7 p.m. tonight, Banister is holding a press conference outside Miami Beach's City Hall to announce an initiative that could decriminalize personal amounts of marijuana in Miami Beach.
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A movement to decriminalize marijuana on Miami Beach kicks off Wednesday at City Hall.
SELIGMAN, Ariz. - A traffic stop for speeding has led to the arrests of a man and woman from Florida for drugs.
