Asset Forfiture & Thug Selfies

[roo_ster]

Stop and seize
Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/

After the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America’s highways.

Local officers, county deputies and state troopers were encouraged to act more aggressively in searching for suspicious people, drugs and other contraband. The departments of Homeland Security and Justice spent millions on police training.

The effort succeeded, but it had an impact that has been largely hidden from public view: the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes, a Washington Post investigation found. Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back.

Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of “highway interdiction” to departments across the country.

One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.

Many of the reports have been funneled to federal agencies and fusion centers as part of the government’s burgeoning law enforcement intelligence systems — despite warnings from state and federal authorities that the information could violate privacy and constitutional protections.

A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network’s chat rooms and sharing “trophy shots” of money and drugs. Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.

Stay classy San Diego Local, State, and Federal LEOs.




Not the first ^^^ to post gangsta-style with their ill-gotten gains:

[MillCreek]

I especially like the laser on the Hi-Point carbine while wearing your curlers. 

[brimic]

If they can get away with doing it to you on the road, the next step is to do it to you in your own home.
Why worry about pesky warrants when the onus of proving rights violations now rest upon the confiscatees?

[fifth_column]

Abusing the rights of thousands of people is justified if even a single instance of criminal activity is found.  Statists Everybody knows that!

[makattak]

What is that gang sign in picture 5? The Crocodiles?

(By crickey, 'e's got a fiver, a tenner, and two quid! What a motser!)

[Scout26]

I would have to ban myself were I to post what I truly think about this.

[roo_ster]

I especially like the laser on the Hi-Point carbine while wearing your curlers. 

Gangsta ready to bust a cap in yo *expletive deleted*ss ANY time of the day or night.  Cause that's how he roll(ers).  Fo shizzle.

[roo_ster]

Oh, and what caught my eye over and above the usual asset forfiture outrage was hte folowing:

One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.

"private intelligence network"  "including their Social Security numbers"

Boy, that sure gives me warm & fuzzies. 

A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network’s chat rooms and sharing “trophy shots” of money and drugs.

They were going to call them "money shots" but that would have been in poor taste.

[brimic]

“All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym. Hain is a marketing specialist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training firm based in Guthrie, Okla., whose founders also created Black Asphalt.


Hain’s book calls for “turning our police forces into present-day Robin Hoods.”

Somehow I think he has the Robin Hood idiom backwards.

[HankB]

I'm a little surprised that we haven't heard about anyone hunting down these uniformed thieves after one of these shakedowns . . .

[Battle Monkey of Zardoz]

I too would have to ban myself if I commented. Let's just say, how this article describes cops is how view all cops. Good cops do not exist.

[Scout26]

“All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym. Hain is a marketing specialist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training firm based in Guthrie, Okla., whose founders also created Black Asphalt.


Hain’s book calls for “turning our police forces into present-day Robin Hoods.”

Kane is the next county due west of me.  I used to spend a lot of time passing through it.  (Never got caught though.)

[Battle Monkey of Zardoz]

I'm a little surprised that we haven't heard about anyone hunting down these uniformed thieves after one of these shakedowns . . .

It will happen.  And the proper response is jury nullification

[brimic]

It will happen.  And the proper response is jury nullification

The proper response to illegal seizures should be 4-5× in punitive damages- paid for out of the police department's pension fund or by the police union itself. 
Police have to learn that stupid hurts.

[KD5NRH]

They were going to call them "money shots" but that would have been in poor taste.

Given the fondness cops have for the 1970s gay porn star mustaches, it might confuse them.

[Balog]

Even when not banned, isn't civil asset forfeiture (aka cops robbing people) mostly practiced in the South, and in known corrupt shtholes like Chicago/Philly/NJ etc?

Given the inter-state nature of many of the seizures (cops always pick on out of towners) I think this'd actually be a good place for the Feds to step in. Armed robbery is not covered by the 10th Amendment, and "people who aren't from around here get robbed at gunpoint" seems like the sort of thing that'd legitimately affect inter-state commerce.

[SADShooter]

It won't happen, but the seizures would dwindle to nothing if the budget authorities structured seizure revenue as a direct offset to the LE agency budget. Grab a million in forfeitures, lose a million in general fund support.

[Tuco]

They have become nothing more than armed tax collectors.

[brimic]

Even when not banned, isn't civil asset forfeiture (aka cops robbing people) mostly practiced in the South, and in known corrupt shtholes like Chicago/Philly/NJ etc?

Given the inter-state nature of many of the seizures (cops always pick on out of towners) I think this'd actually be a good place for the Feds to step in. Armed robbery is not covered by the 10th Amendment, and "people who aren't from around here get robbed at gunpoint" seems like the sort of thing that'd legitimately affect inter-state commerce.

Surely you jest. The feds are just another layer of enforcement of the state's power over the people.
The feds are actively helping local police to target motorists.

[Balog]

Surely you jest. The feds are just another layer of enforcement of the state's power over the people.
The feds are actively helping local police to target motorists.

I didn't say it would happen. Just that I'd like to see it happen, and it would be a rare instance where the Feds telling the States what to do would be constitutional. I'd like to be able to buy integrally suppressed full auto SBR's with under barrel grenade launchers out of vending machines too, but that doesn't mean I think I'll ever see it happen.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Graded by state.  https://www.ij.org/asset-forfeiture-report-florida


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[brimic]

There is a good lesson to be kearned in all of this, its called 'STFU.'
The only words the poluce need to hear are:
-Am I being detained ir am I free to go?
-I do not consent to any searches.

Yes it will piss them off, but what are you expecting from a traffic stop, ap at on the back and an attaboy for outstanding driving?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

That will not save you from forfeiture. It just makes em work harder to take your stuff. And may not play as well in a courtroom as some other places.


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[KD5NRH]

That will not save you from forfeiture. It just makes em work harder to take your stuff. And may not play as well in a courtroom as some other places.

Well, I guess you could try "I ain't never seen a pig with such a purty mouth as yours."

Please post video of the response.

[brimic]

That will not save you from forfeiture. It just makes em work harder to take your stuff. And may not play as well in a courtroom as some other places.


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I don't see a reason to make any armed criminal's job easier.  Yes I said it, these police are criminals,  the fact that the current laws back them does not change that fact. The 'I was just doing my job' excuse was debunked 70 years ago.
The sad part is that some people ignore history and get their feeble little erections everytime a man in a spiffy uniform beats or confiscates from the current scapegoat of a society.