Undercover operations: uncovered

Stings, pigeons and moles. \nThe work of undercover police officers is typically a secret within the halls of a police department, but at noon today, Paul Marcus, Haynes Professor of Law at Virginia's College of William and Mary, will uncover the myths in his lecture, "Undercover Law Enforcement Operations: Word from the street, the police station and the courthouse."\nMarcus will present the lecture in the law school's Moot Court Room, where he'll discuss the legal issues surrounding covert police activity.\nHis lecture is sponsored by the IU chapter of the American Constitution Society.\nLaw student Drew Yoder, IU ACS chapter president, said the legal implications of undercover operations can cause a lot of problems. Yoder said one of the topics Marcus will cover in his lecture will include what legal activities undercover cops engage in, as well as some things they do that tend to be illegal.\nThe lecture is especially important to IU, said law student David Stevens, ACS member.\n"Undercover police operations involve many interesting civil rights and legal issues," Stevens said. "Perhaps more important to the non-law students (at IU) are the questions that are raised by movie depictions of undercover police work."\nStevens said with films like "Reservoir Dogs" and "Donnie Brasco," undercover police work has a wide interest, and he hopes everyone who attends will enjoy learning more about the topic -- a topic one police investigator said he feels has been falsified by television and film.\n"It's almost embarrassing to me," said detective Richard Seiffers, a 33-year veteran of the IU Police Department. "The things people portray in TV and the movies is not reality, and people get the idea that's the way things are normally done and they're not. The glitz and the glamour and the total disregard for following the law, like Miami Vice -- it's not accurate."\nMarcus will give an overview of operations such as stings and buybacks and the legal restrictions covering an area of law enforcement that seems so popular in the pop culture of cop shows both old and new.\n-- Contact staff writer Brandon Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.