Josh Paniagua

May 25, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) El Dorado County sheriff’s Deputy Mark Zlendick was arrested last Tuesday in Douglas County, Nevada on drug-related charges.

Authorities responded to a call involving a domestic dispute on the 1300 block of Centerville Ln. Once arriving, police detained Zlendick and an unidentified woman. Zlendick was eventually arrested and after conducting an investigation of the scene, officers discovered narcotics — including crystal methamphetamine — and drug paraphernalia.

Zlendick, an officer of 11 years, was taken in and booked at Douglas County jail for trafficking methamphetamine, suspicion of possession of a controlled substance, conspiracy, and possession of paraphernalia. His bail was set at $55,640. Zlendick posted bail and he is now on paid administrative leave for the duration of the investigation.

What should be particularly noted about this case is Deputy Zlendick is not only a police officer, but he is assigned to the South Lake Tahoe Narcotics Enforcement Team, otherwise known as SLEDNET. In other words, he works for the same people that raid medical marijuana dispensaries, raid grow operations, red-flag houses for investigation, while at the same time allegedely trafficking in meth.

In fact, Anti-Media obtained an exclusive interview with a victim of Zlendick and SLEDNET’s thug-like tactics and behavior. Going only by the internet alias “Dyrti Al” (we’ll refer to him as Al), our source walked us through his unsettling experience.

Al was working at a tattoo parlor owned by a man named Gino Dimatteo who also happened to own a medical marijuana dispensary in Tahoe. Police had discovered that Dimatteo had been selling more product from his shop than on record, to which they responded with attempts at extortion. After Dimatteo refused to be extorted, the harassment began.

“Around the time they were building a case against him, they went around and raided everyone’s house who had anything to do with him,” Al says.

Al was one of the people who had their house raided.

“They obviously didn’t have enough on me to get a warrant, so they came and asked if they could look around my house. I said no, and they told me they were going to get a warrant […] knowing they couldn’t get one, one of the sharper fellas in their lynch mob made a deal with me. They were looking for a safe and large amounts of pot. If they didn’t find either, they wouldn’t charge me with anything they found in the house,” Al tells Anti-Media.

He eventually agreed to their terms. Al had been operating a very small and miniscule grow operation in one part of his house. So small in fact that the officers that discovered it allegedly laughed at it. But incarceration wasn’t the only thing worrying Al during the raid.

“I was literally shaking from all the commotion and there were reports recent at the time where SLEDNET was pretty much shooting every dog in every raid they conducted,” Al says. “I expresed my concerns about this and the cop who got arrested for selling meth [Zlendick] told me ‘If we wanted to shoot your dog, we already would have’.”

Al also suggests that Zlendick might have been high during the raid, adding: “Figured his pupils were dilated from the thrill of their shitkicking, but it appears now that it may have been chemically induced.”

The police haggled with Al for some time, threatening him with federal prison time for involvement with Dimatteo (a claim which was completely dry of evidence), jail time for his tiny grow operation in the back room, and threatening to return with a real warrant and tear his home apart if he did not leak information (that he did not have).

“One of the cops was petting my dog while he was saying all this to me, implying it would be in my best interest to play ball with them, etc.” Al says.

The harassment from police didn’t stop at the raid. SLEDNET officers subsequently pursued, what I like to call, a stalking campaign to further intimidate and harass Al.

“They called me at work, made me call them back, came in and questioned random clients I was tattooing at the shop who were even more clueless than I was about what was happening. I don’t believe these officers to be actual retarded people. They weren’t conducting terrible investigatory police work that made no sense, they were making a point that Gino should leave town with no regard to how it was fucking my life up and involving people who were just going about their day.”

Al left Tahoe soon after in order to avoid any further conflict or confrontation with SLEDNET officers.

“Being in the tattoo business for a decade plus, I’ve dealt with every different kind of gangbanger. The only thing that separates cops from all the other assholes is they don’t have a criminal record. Looks like this asshole [Zlendick] has one now.”

We saw a similar case in October 2014 when Lieutenant David Hansberry and Officer Bryan Watson of Detroit were suspended after being accused of extorting drug dealers, stealing drugs from dealers and evidence, selling drugs, executing fake arrests, and orchestrating illegal transactions from June 2010 to October 2014. They were recently indicted on Wednesday, April 8th.

Are we still stuck in the illusion that a badge and gun inherently implies security? Or are we recognizing the fact that police have the capabilities and the tendencies to be just as criminal and disgraceful as every other human being?

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