MICHIGAN HISTORY: The 1990 Owosso Wedding Drug Bust

In September 1990, police officers in Owosso arrested 86 drug dealers by holding a fake wedding.

Officers Debbie Williams and Lacy "Moon" Brown came up with the idea for a wedding and to invite as many drug dealers as they could.

They sent out invitations, acquired flowers, made centerpieces, and bought a $17 wedding dress at the Salvation Army. Two other police officers played the part of the minister and the father of the bride, and wedding “guests” were mostly made up of police officers.

Why would drug dealers come to a cop wedding? Well, they wouldn’t. Williams and Brown had ingratiated themselves into the drug community for so long – and were so believable – that the dealers thought they were attending services for two of their own kind.

Using a sense of humor, the two officers added little “clues” as to their identities within the wedding preparations: the wedding cake icing was police-uniform-blue decorated with little bumblebees to denote a “sting”. The band they ‘hired’ was called “S.P.O.C.”, a band who was supposedly pro-marijuana. They claimed the band name stood for “Somebody Protect Our Crops” but if you spell it backward, the band name was actually “COPS”…..made up of more police officers.

The ‘bride’ hid her .38 handgun in her garter.

After the ceremony, everyone gathered for the reception. The cue for the bust was when the band played “I Fought The Law (and the Law Won)”. Once the song started, one ‘guest’ shouted out,  “everybody here that's a cop, stand up!" The bride grabbed her handgun and she & her partner began identifying dealers to the other plain-clothed police officers. Many of the dealers thought it was just a joke, so it took a while to convince ‘em that it was an actual bust.

It was a very unique way to make a drug bust, and it happened in Owosso.

To read MUCH, MUCH more detail on this story, CLICK HERE!