By Eapen Thampy, on October 3rd, 2011% 1. Tennessee’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security graciously provides this FAQ for people who’ve had their property taken from them (sarcasm intended).
2. New Mexico cops seize 102 pounds of marijuana and 28 guns from New Mexico resident. Money quote: ”These are not your typical go-shoot-a-deer type of stuff. They are rifles a SWAT team possesses.” (where do you think the SWAT team got their guns? if you guessed SWAT teams buy their guns with seizure money or seize them from citizens, go to the head of the class)
3. Federalism is dying a slow, painful death as the DEA continues to raid state-legal Oregon marijuana growers. Quote:
Keith Rogers said Thursday he made sure the 20 people he allowed to grow medical marijuana on property he owns in the southern Oregon town of Gold Hill checked out under Oregon’s medical marijuana law.
Rogers, an insurance agent, said that didn’t stop about 30 federal agents from breaking down doors on his five rental houses, pointing guns at his wife, searching his house and the houses of five renters, bringing in a backhoe to rip out hundreds of plants, and seizing them along with shotguns, cell phones and a tractor.
4. Feds raid State Department contractor for awarding her husband’s company large contracts. Takeaway: aren’t these people at least entitled to a trial before you take everything in their house at gunpoint? Is this an excessive search? In any case, I look at this story as one of thieves stealing from thieves.
5. The Jackson County, Oregon prosecutor receives a salary paid directly out of forfeiture dollars. Expect to see raids on trumped-up charges authorized by this police state apparatchik.
6. Justice in domestic battery cases is now up for sale in Shawnee County, Kansas.
7. Cops in Camden County, New Jersey make no bones about where they get their operating dollars: “It’s just business.” Also, keep in mind that when the government says “drug forfeiture money” it’s fairly rare that anyone is actually convicted of a crime….so by definition the money can’t be “drug forfeiture money”. What they’re really saying is “we have a very profitable highway robbery business”.
By Scott Alexander Meiner, on July 26th, 2011% A recently unsealed indictment confirmed that an investigation into the Kansas City Kansas Police Department’s elite tactical Selective Crime Occurrence Reduction Enforcement (SCORE) unit resulted in criminal charges against officers Jeffrey M. Bell, 33, Darryl M. Forrest, 31, and Dustin Sillings, 33. The officers are accused of having pilfered money and goods planted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.According to the indictments, the officers are accused of stealing cash, video games, entertainment consoles, and a recording device. A Kansas City Star article noted:
Among allegations in the indictments; SCORE officers conspired to steal while carrying out search warrants. On July 7, 2010, while serving a search warrant at Webster’s home, they stole a Play Station portable and a camcorder. From January 2010 to Jan. 4, 2011, Sillings served five search warrants and stole at least six Play Station video games. During the Jan. 4 sting, Bell stole a Nintendo game player; Forrest stole a video game, an Apple iPod and $300; and Sillings stole $340.
This is a common and fairly foreseeable problem. And it isn’t unique to Kansas City. Most states have erected a set of laws that reward police departments for taking private property. Usually it’s done under the color of civil asset forfeitures. Police departments take whatever they claim has anything to do with alleged illegal behavior including anything that might have come from the proceeds of alleged illegal behavior. Property owners are then forced to prove the innocence of their property if they hope to have their property returned. The police departments and prosecuting offices divvy up the proceeds from the seizures either directly, or through laundering the proceeds through the Department of Justice’s Equitable Sharing program.
Sometimes they make charitable donations for good will which is a nice diversion from the fact that an overwhelming amount goes back to the police departments. That process and how the money is spent often have little to no external oversight. Voters and appropriating bodies get to spend less on police departments because the police departments generate enormous asset forfeiture profits. This means that the police departments do not have to answer to the local citizenry because the citizenry have lost their power of the purse. Rudimentary controls like bans on asset forfeiture funds being used for salaries (if present) are largely ineffective because the forfeiture funds are replacing funds that would otherwise be spent on salaries. And the incentive for profit, without having to answer to a tempering citizenry, leads to enhanced profit seeking techniques like the paramilitary SWAT raids that killed Iraq war veteran, Jose Guerena.
This takes us back to Kansas City. We’ve set up a system whereby our cops are incentivized to seize property with little oversight and little citizen control. We’ve already corrupted our police departments. Is it really a surprise that some of the cops are cutting out the middlemen and not sharing with the department?
By Eapen Thampy, on November 15th, 2010% From around the nation:
- In the Indianapolis Star, Heather Gillers and Tim Evans have an excellent piece on the practice of Indiana prosecutors hiring private counsel (sometimes themselves) to litigate civil forfeiture cases in court on a contingency basis.
- In Missouri, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, DEA, Dept. of Homeland Security, the IRS, and other federal agencies raid the grounds of Camp Zoe, a popular festival ground in southeast Missouri. They then file a civil forfeiture motion to seize all 352 acres from the owner, Jimmy Tebeau, without filing criminal charges. I am cited in the Riverfront Times article.
- The feds seize $5.5 million from a plane at a Kansas airport.
- US Attorney in Ohio collected $14+ million in forfeitures in fiscal year 2009.
- After facing a firestorm of criticism surrounding the use of SWAT raids, abuse of asset forfeiture funds, and other heavy-handed enforcement tactics, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration is seeking comment on proposed reforms. Comments are due Dec. 20th.
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