The guy pictured above in front of a bunch of, uhm, tobacco pipes is District Attorney Greg Mashburn. He represents the famed triumvirate of Cleveland, Garvin and McClain Counties, or as peddling meth dealers call it, Shangri-La.
According to the opening line of his Mission Statement, Mashburn claims "The mission of the District Attorney is to seek justice, protect our communities, and represent those who have been the victims of crime." He obviously takes that mission seriously. We know this because...
A) The quote is literally inscribed on the header image of every page on his website.
B) He aggressively tries to shut down local smoke and novelty shops like the now-closed Friendly Market, because you know, nothing claims more crime victims and damages more communities than the glass pipe / bong / organic rolling papers trade.
Earlier this week, Abby Broyles provided an update on Mashburn's battle against smoke shops for KFOR. Despite his first trial against a clerk for selling "drug paraphernalia" ending in a mistrial, he's not letting up...
Owners of a local business said they’re being unfairly targeted because of the products they sell in their store.
The Norman pipe shop was raided about a year ago.
The employees were accused of selling drug paraphernalia.
There’s already been one mistrial in the case.
Attorneys said this could take years to resolve.
There are three more trials to go.
Holy crap, Abby Broyles has gone full one-sentence paragraph Jenni Carlson on us! If Abby's next report is a sappy human interest story about a low-level thief who overcame adversity to become a high-level bank robber, we'll know something fishy is going on...
The Friendly Market in Norman is shut down.
It has been for months after police raided the store twice, seizing sales reports and glass pipes.
"People use them to smoke all kinds of different herbs and tobacco products," said manager Stephen Holman.
The first trial against a clerk just ended in a mistrial.
The jury was hung in favor of the Friendly Market...
Seriously, was Abby Broyles beaten up and bullied by paragraphs when she was young? In the name of Promo Joe, string some sentences together!
Prosecutors charged two young clerks, Holman, and the owner, Robert Cox.
'We informed him about the state law regarding drug paraphernalia, and he was asked to remove certain items from his store to be in compliance with state law,” said Norman Police spokesperson Sarah Jensen...
The clerks are charged with misdemeanors.
Holman and Cox are facing lifetime felony convictions if the state wins.
District Attorney Greg Mashburn told NewsChannel 4 the store broke the law and is confident to retry the latest case next year.
You really have to wonder why Mashburn is wasting his time with all this. The whole thing seems to contradict another one of his missions, which is "to protect the public from those who endanger, threaten and degrade the security of the community and to serve the public by protecting the personal rights of the people of District 21 to life, liberty, and security." How does aggressively prosecuting store clerks for committing victimless crimes accomplish that?
Answer – It doesn't. Mashburn is just another hypocritical politician who wants people to live free and happy lives just as long as those lives meet his approval and don't conflict with his self-righteous moral code. That's why he's still trying to destroy the lives of people who sold "drug paraphernalia" to consumers who may voluntarily want to smoke marijuana – a substance that's legal in more than half our states, and will go to a vote of the people in Oklahoma as early as 2018. When that happens, hopefully Mashburn will stop wasting his resources and go after the real criminals, like you know, reporters who don't believe in paragraphs.
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