Crazed Man Holding Pillow Outside In Minnesota? Maybe

People in Jordan, Minnesota thought this was a deranged man
standing out in the street. It was just a cardboard cutout,
but I suppose the mistake was understandable

Police in Jordan, Minnesota got a weird call the other day.

It was freezing cold, and a person reported a deranged man standing motionless outdoors, with no coat on, hugging a pillow.

Police raced to the scene, only to find a cardboard cutout of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Well, that was an easy mistake. If you've seen any of the company's TV ads, he does look like he's a bit much. And the premise of the ad is something: A sleepy couple encounter Lindell inside their bathroom medicine cabinet.

I don't know about this company's pillows, but I do know if this medicine cabinet encounter happened to me, I'd probably never be able to sleep again.

According to Jordan, Minnesota police, "Those cardboard cutouts sure can look real from a distance and the caller certainly was not wanting to get too close thinking who is this deranged person standing outside in the cold hugging a pillow."

Or, for all we know, the person who called police knew it was a cardboard cutout but was still freaked out anyway. A plausible scenario, don't you think?

Supreme Court Nails Local Cops For Stealing Stuff

The Notorious RBG wrote Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court
decision restricting civil forfeiture. 

I've complained before in this here blog thingy about something called "civil forfeiture."

It's been increasingly popular among some local law enforcement agencies across the country. It's basically "legal" theft.

Though as of Wednesday, it wasn't so legal anymore. The U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimiously that the Constitution's ban on excessive fines applies to individual states as well. That makes total sense to me and should be obvious.

Nonetheless, if you can get the most conservative and the most liberal Supreme Court justices to agree on something, that probably means they want to get rid of something that's terribly wrong.

There's no doubt about it. Civil forfeiture is indeed wrong.

Civil forfeiture essentially occurs outside the court system. It started as a pretty good idea: Civil forfeiture targeted large criminal enterprises by siphoning their money and supplies and resources away. No money supply and the cartel or whatever shrivels.

But then, many police departments discovered forfeiture was a way to boost their budgets. They would seize money and goods from people they arrested, which might be OK if the people involved were actually convicted of a crime and the amount of stuff taken was in line what the fines and such would have been anyway.

However, local law enforcement in some jurisdictions got into the habit of seizing cash, cars, real estate and other property from people who were not convicted of a crime, or in many cases, not even charged with a criminal offense. Then, these law enforcement agencies would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for people to get their property and cash back.

It's gotten so bad that some police departments have taken to randomly pulling over people with out of state license plates over for trumped up traffic violations. The police would then take any cash that was in the vehicle and that's it. To me, that's theft. To these corrupt police department, they called it "law enforcement."

Yeah, right.

A lot of people besides the nine members of the Supreme Court are saying good riddance to civil forfeiture, although I'm sure it wil continue in some form as crafty law enforcement agencies find loopholes around the ruling.

Again, forfeiture opposition makes strange bedfellows. I mean, the ACLU and the conservative Cato Institute are against civil forfeiture. If you can get those two groups to agree, that's something.

There are countless horror stories out there about civil forfeiture. One of them was the case the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday, Timbs v. Indiana. Police confiscated Tyson Timbs' $40,000 Land Rover after he was caught selling $400 worth of heroin.

Nobody questioned the fact that Timbs needed to bear consequences for his crime.  But Timbs had purchased the Land Rover legally: He used a life insurance settlement from his father's estate.

As the Huffington Post describes the case, Indiana law says people convicted of crimes like Timbs' should pay no more than $10,000 in fines. The Land Rover the cops seized was worth four times that.

One Indiana judge said the seizing the car was disproportionate to the crime. But Indiana's highest court overruled that lower court judge, saying the U.S. Supreme Court has never said that the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines applies to states as well as the federal government.

So, the U.S. Supreme Court had to state the obvious today, in a ruling written by the Notorious RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: That the Constitution - not just parts of it, but all of it, applies to the states.

The Supremes also based their decision in large part on the 14th Amendment, which says "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Well, again, duh!

I guess Supreme Court watchers could see this decision coming since November, when the Supremes had oral arguments in the case. Justic Neil Gorsuch scoffed at Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, who was arguing that it how the 8th and 14th amendment had supposedly never been tested this way. "Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights... Come on, General," Gorsuch said.

Indeed!

Even before Wednesday's Supreme Court decision, states had been feeling the heat and beginning to at least consider cracking down on civil forfeiture.  Frankly, I think the only people who liked this grifting was corrupt so-called law enforcement agencies.

In South Carolina, the Greenville News recently published the results of a two-year investigation it conducted with other news organizations regarding civil forfeiture in that state. The Greenville News reported that South Carolina police collected $17 million in forfeiture money and property between 2014 and 2016.

In almost a fifth of those South Carolina seizures, people whose property was taken by police were never even charged with a crime, never mind convicted. One South Carolina example that Reason cited was of an elderly woman whose house was nearly taken away by the cops because a few small-time drug deals were conducted on her property.

The woman had nothing to do with the drug deals, and any time she became aware of somebody dealing drugs on or near her property, she tried to shoo them away. (Which is brave of an old lady. You never know what these drug dealers can do.)

The Greenville news investigation results were so odious that the conservate law-and-order South Carolina legislature began considering a bill that would require a criminal conviction before any property could be seized from someone.

That legislative effort might have something to do with something that Jarrod Bruder realizes now that he shouldn't have said out loud, but it is what everybody assumes.

Bruder is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association.  As the Greenville News reported: 

"(Bruder) said without the incentive of profit from civil forfeiture, officers probably wouldn't pursue drug dealers and their cash as hard as they do now. If police don't get to keep the money from forfeiture, 'what is the incentive to go out and make a special effort?' Bruder said. 'What is the incentive for interdiction.'"

Um, maybe police incentive to enforce laws is because it's their job? Wild suggestion, I know.

Reason said three states had already passed similar laws and 29 states had passed some sort of civil forfeiture reform, so you know this was getting pretty unpopular.  Still law enforcement is still  resisting the trend, and many of them will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply.

New Mexico passed a law last year in which civil forfeiture could only take place if there is a criminal conviction. Incredibly, some New Mexico cities ignored the law, saying the municipalites could opt in to the law if they wished, but didn't have to.

Nope. New Mexico courts said, again, being a version of Captain Obvious, that a law was a law and everybody had to obey it.

In Oakland, California, the FBI cracked down on a crooked landlord who was illegally trying to evict residents so he could make a lot more money on rent. So far, so good. But then, says KQUED, U.S. Marshalls seized the property.

They now want to evict the residents so they can have an empty building that would sell for a huge profit in the Bay Area's tight housing market. Who cares if they make people homeless if there's profit to be made, right?

The residents, and Oakland, and California officials are fighting this.

All this means that the Supreme Court ruling was a victory, but local, state and federal jurisdictions better keep an eye on rogue law enforcement agencies out there.  They're supposed to enforce the law, but some of them are stealing just as boldly as a guy with a gun holding up a liquor store.

Police Departments Are Battling It Out Through Lip Sync Challenges

You never know what will be the next weird "it" thing. Pokeman, planking, bad jackets worn by Melania Trump. You know random.

The latest Big Thing is police departments from all over the nation are battling it out on social media through lip sync challenges.

Police personnel in various cities have been taking popular songs and lip syncing to them. I guess for bragging rights.

On one hand, some of these police departments look like they have too much time on their hands. On the other hand, police do need to blow off steam occasionally, and this, at worst, a harmless way to do that.

This seems to have originated in Texas, but might have been inspired by a viral video from about three years ago, in which a dash cam video inside a Dover, Delaware captured an officer hilariously performing Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off"

A lot of these latest lip sync battles are on YouTube. Here are a couple good ones I've found.

This first one is from the Flower Mound, Texas Police Department:



Of course, somebody had to do "Uptown Funk" and the Norfolk, Virginia police department obliged. The lead guy in this video looks very much like a massive version of Bruno Mars:



The San Francisco office of the California Highway Patrol does "Bohemian Rhapsody" The driver in this video has quite a blonde version of a Freddie Mercury mustache.



I have to say that many members of the Rapid City, South Dakota Police Department are definitely eye candy:



Finally, the rather white Cleveland, Tennessee Police Department go both Latino and chill doing Camila Cabello's "Havana."  I hope they didn't take their service revolvers into the pool with them:

Goose Vs. Cop: Goose Wins

A goose attacked a police detective in Clarksville,
Tennessee in an assault that was caught
on security cameras. 

From the YouTube Police Center channel, we get this video of a Clarksville, Tennessee detective attacked by an assailant as he makes his way to the office recently.

The goose gets the upper hand quickly, shoving the detective into the bushes and causing all sorts of havoc before the detective escapes.  

The goose was apparently trying to protect a nest that had young goslings. This kind of attack is fairly common in the spring.

The goose was engaged in what botanists say is "wing slapping," which uses the strongest part of their body to fend off would-be attackers.

The good news is the detective wasn't hurt, aside from a bruised ego.

So far, no charges are pending against the goose, but it does clearly seem to be a case of assault on a police officer.

Watch:

Burlington, Vermont Police Chief Has Perfect Response To Protests On Veterans Day.

Burlington, Vermont Police Chief Brandon del Pozo
got veterans and democracy exactly right in
a statement about anti-Trump protests on Veterans Day.  

I'm going to let Burlington, Vermont Police Chief Brandon del Pozo be my unwitting guest blogger today.

Like many cities across the nation, people in Burlington are holding an anti-Trump rally.  

The march against Trump in Burlington is scheduled for today, Veteran's Day. Some people objected to the demonstration being held on Veterans Day.

Here's how del Pozo responded to that objection today on Facebook:

"There's a rally scheduled today at City Hall Park to rebuke what so many feel is the hateful and racist rhetoric of the United States president-elect.

Some people are upset that it's happening on Veteran's Day, a time reserved for somber reflection on the service and sacrifice of so many everyday Americans. 

But I think it's the perfect day for a protest rally. How do you better honor people's legacy than by using something great they've given you?

Protest on Veteran's Day, Americans, if you desire! It's our right, and it was secured by the men and women who are our veterans. It seems like a more profound way to honor them than simply laying a wreath."

By the way, responding to critics on Facebook, del Pozo assured everyone he'd have the same attitude had Clinton won and right wing protesters took to the streets. He also said he has no tolerance for violence. He just wants to encourage peaceful democracy.

Good work, Chief!!!

Dramatic Video Shows Cop Saving Three Year Old Boy's Life

From a dash cam video. Granbury, Texas Police Officer
Chase Miller takes a boy who is not breathing from
his distraught parents and begins CPR. It worked. 

A viral video is going around showing the actions of a Granbury, Texas police officer saving the life of a three year old boy.

If you haven't seen it, it's scary, but a must-see. It's at the bottom of this post.  

Brayden Geis came down with a fever, had a seizure and suddenly stopped breathing one day earlier this month. His frantic parents called 9111.

Granbury, Texas Police Officer Chase Miller wasn't directly called to respond to the crisis, but he was in his cruiser nearby so he raced to the scene and got there before the ambulance showed up.

You could tell Miller is a pro. His dash cam shows Miller calmly taking the boy from his frantic mother and immediately start CPR. The mom, Bethany Hoover, obviously distraught, turns away, unable to look.

At one point, Miller needs to go get a CPR mask from his cruiser and calmly instructs Brayden's father, John Geis, how to continue CPR on his son, which he does until Miller comes back with the CPR mask.

After a few excruciating moments, you see everybody step back a bit in extreme relief. The boy is breathing again.

Thankfully, he's fine now. The doctors got his fever under control, and he's back to being a normal three year old.

As the NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth reported, the boy and his parents returned later to the police station to thank Miller.

Miller, it turns out is so modest that he didn't tell his own wife when he got home that he saved the kid's life.

It's a dramatic video, but it's nice to see a good ending. Watch:

Overdose Photos With Kid In Car Painful For Everybody

Boy, do I have mixed emotions about this.

The now-famous couple in the midst
of a heroin overdose with a four
year old boy in the back seat

According to Reuters and numerous other media outlets, the East Liverpool, Ohio police department distributed photos of a couple in a car, passed out from a heroin overdose, with the woman's scared four year old grandson in the back seat.

The photos went totally viral, and millions of people have seen them. One of the photos is in this post, as you can see.

The point of releasing the photo, says the East Liverpool police department, was to publicize how bad and how sad drug addiction is in Ohio and everywhere else.

"We are well aware that some may be offended by these images and for that we are truly sorry ,but is time that the non drug using public sees what we are now dealing with on a daily basis," said East Liverpool police in a Facebook post.

The passed-out couple, James Acord, 50, and Rhonda Pasek, 47, are charged with child endangerment.

The couple had been stopped by police because Acord was driving the Ford Explorer erratically. When the officer got to the car, Pacek was out cold and Acord lost consciousness.

They were given Narcan, the medication that reverses these kind of drug overdoses, and perked back up. 

I think a lot of people, including myself, have strong feelings both approving of the idea of releasing these photos and against it.

On the in favor side, I can understand the exasperation of the East Liverpool, Ohio police department. Every day, both where I live in Vermont, and just about everywhere else, we hear about opioid and heroin addictions running rampant.

In Burlington, Vermont recently, we had a situation that was very similar to that in East Liverpool, but in the Vermont case, police did not share photos on social media.

In Burlington, in early July a couple passed out in a car from heroin on a hot day with a five year old boy inside the vehicle with them. The boy screamed for help, The screams caught the attention of passerby, who called police.

"My mommy and daddy aren't waking up,!" the boy yelled, according to police.

If that doesn't make you both incredibly sad and make your blood boil, you're not human.

The photos from the East Liverpool police department telegraphed the frustration of police and made a stab at creating public awareness. A good thing.

However, I wonder about privacy here. The boy's face is blurred out in the photos, but it would be easy for a local to figure out who he is. 

Plus, the passed out couple is easily identifiable and their names were publicized in many media outlets, including this one.

Of course, what the couple did was dangerous and awful and they deserved to be punished. They ARE in legal trouble, for sure. But I have mixed emotions about having their faces and photos splashed all over the Internet, like I admittedly did here.

The couple's arrest, and the circumstances of it, are a matter of public record. I wonder if this infamous photo will haunt them for the rest of their lives, or maybe help turn it around.

They've already lost the kid, who's had a chaotic life. Just six weeks before the photo was taken, Pacek was granted custody of the boy because his own parents were incapable of raising him, says Fox 8 in Cleveland.  He has since been placed with a great aunt and great uncle in South Carolina.

Maybe I'm having a Pollyanna moment, but it would be nice if the pair are at least as horrified as the rest of us are at the photo and find a way to get clean. It's hard, but I  hope they do it.

Or, at the very least, I  hope other addicts see the photo, and maybe it will inspire them, to try to get clean.

It'll help all of us. Including a couple of terrified little boys in Ohio and Vermont. 

Ohio Police Department Allows Doves To Commandeer Cruiser For Best Possible Reason

Mourning doves have set up a nest with two eggs at the
base of the windshield of a Parma, Ohio police crusiers.
The nesting doves are enjoying full protection from
Parma police offices.   

I love the population boom of birds I see bere in tbe northern climes this time of year.

Which is why I have to congratulate the Parma, Ohio, police department.

A pair of mourning doves decided to set up a nest at the base of a windshield on a backup cruiser parked in the department's lot.

Police could have shooed the doves away, destroyed the nest and moved on with protecting the citizens in the fine city of Parma.

But this was a backup cruiser and Parma police had all the tools they needed to protect and serve. They could live without the spare cruiser for awhile and make do with what they had.

Really. Why not protect and serve the doves?

While two eggs are awaiting hatching at the base of the windshield, Parma officers sealed off the parked cruiser with police tape and traffic construction barrels, says television station Fox 8 in Cleveland.

Who says police tape is only for crime scenes?

Police officers have set up an umbrella over the nest to keep it dry, left a container of water out for the birds to drink and have even dug up worms from a nearby muddy lawn to feed the mourniing doves.

"Our officers are human beings just like anyone else. We care for all lives human and animal," said Lt. Kevin Riley of the Parma Police Department. They want to make sure the doves and their young are well taken care of, according to Fox 8.

By the way, the Parma Police Department names the dove mom Gerty for some reason.

Works for me!

And congratulations to the soon-to-be mourning dove parents.

Lousy, Selfish Parents Turn Easter Egg Hunts Into Nightmares For Children

Incredibly idiotic, self-absorbed and moronic parents
 ruined a children's Easter Egg hunt in
Connecticut over the weekend. There was trouble
at a similar event in Vermont, too.  

PEZ decided it would be fun to hold an Easter egg hunt over the weekend near their Connecticut museum

It turned out to be a bad, bad idea.

Because some parents can be real selfish idiots.

To make sure their precious darlings got the prize eggs before anyone else, and to make sure other kids went without so their offspring could, some parents rushed the fields with the eggs before they were opened, and ignored staff instructions to wait, says the Hartford Courant.

There was also similar trouble at another Easter egg hunt here where I live in Vermont.

At the Connecticut event at Pez, it turned into chaos as a result, and ultimately canceled. Thanks for ruining Easter, jerky parents!

Here's the Facebook statement from PEZ:

"Unfortunately, people whose to enter the first field prior to anyone from PEZ staff starting the activity. The crowd moved to the second field, waited for only a couple of minutes and proceeded to rush the field without being directed to do so and before the posted time.

Due to the actions of a few, the good intent (of the event) was quickly turned into a mess. I would like to seriously apologize to each of our guests, this was not something created to frustrate or make people angry."

One parent said her kid got a bloody nose because another parent pushed him to the ground so their kid could get the candy or whatever. Another kid's Easter basket was broken in the rush, says the Hartford Courant.

The Courant quoted one parent, Sandra Laviana-Aitken, who wrote on Facebook: "......human greed took over. People foret what it is like to be nice and patient and share all things they obviously were not teaching their children."

Another witness, Nicole Simmons, said, according to the Courant, "Even in the few minutes we were there, you could see the crowd of people almost like a swarm covering the field and just everywhere with no regard that there were other people, children and cars around them."

Yet another woman said parents were letting their uncontrolled children pick up eggs prior to the start. Then when the event started all the parents rushed in and were picking up the eggs."

Nice example you set for your kiddies, you adult jerks. Just grab all you can and leave everyone in the lurch. If there's rules to the game, ignore them.

Your children are going to be really special adults. They'll probably end up embezzling money from some charity because they were taught to grab everything they can and rules are stupid, and who cares if somebody else gets screwed over.

Some parents complained that the PEZ event got out of control because there wasn't enough staff and security there. Yeah, but you'd think a simple family Easter egg hunt wouldn't require deploying the National Guard and Army Rangers to keep the peace.

But I guess I'm mistaken.

At Wilson Castle in Proctor, Vermont, that other Easter egg hunt turned ugly when something like 1,200 people showed up and lines got long.  By all accounts, the event was poorly organized.

According to multiple media sources, people became annoyed by long lines and a lack of organization, and as the police report said, there were "multiple irate parents."

In this image from WCAX-TV a guy who became belligerent
at a Proctor, Vermont Easter egg hunt flees from the cop who tried to
arrest him. A probably unimpressed kid in the foreground looks on.  

One jerk in particular got more and more belligerent, and the State Police showed up.

He made loud threats, demanded a refund, and then escalated things further. He fought verbally with a cop, who tried to arrest him, Vermont State Police said.

The guy ran, the police used pepper spray to calm him down, and he was booked.

Police had to chase the guy on foot for a short distance, and had to pepper spray him to get him under control.

Jack Thurston of NECN reported the pepper sprayed and arrested guy is Michael Cuthbertson, 34, of Newbury, Vermont. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

He pleaded innocent to the charges and told NECN that "everything went haywire" during the incident.

"I never tried to hurt anybody. I never planned on hurting anybody.....I do believe these charges are trumped up and highly overrated, Cuthbertson said in the NECN interview.

Cuthberton told NECN he's not a bad person, but wanted his money back so he could something more meaningful with his kid with the $20 he spent at Wilson Castle.

The Proctor event's organizer, Party OutFitters apologized for the event and promised refunds to ticket holders who didn't get in.

Trump Leaves Bad Taste in Vermont's Mouth

The scene outside Burlington Vermont's Flynn Center for the
Performing Arts during the Trump visit Thursday. 

I know I covered this yesterday, but I can't help revisiting it.

The bottom line: We love visitors to Vermont. Most of them. Not all of them. One visitor most of us don't like is Donald Trump.

Let's just say he was rude.

The Burlington Free Press continues to tell us more details of what a lousy guest Trump and his minions were while in Vermont on Thursday.

I think this is the first time I've ever seen Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger publicly angry. He's such a mellow, reasonable dude.

Weinberger remains reasonable, not he wasn't as mellow as usual this week. When it became clear that many more people were coming to see Trump than there was room for at the Flynn, Weinberger and his administration tried repeatedly to contact the Trump team about security plans and whatnot.

Trump's attitude was basically it's Burlington's problem to pay the city's police force oodles of overtime for security and crowd control. Trump's got money coming out of his ears. Most Burlington taxpayers don't.

Since it was Trump's event, shouldn't his campaign pay for it? After all, every time there's a major event in Burlington, the organizers either submit a detailed security plan to the city, or pay Burlington make the security happen.

Then there's the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. Every time the Flynn has an event, or a concert, or anything, a contract is worked out over what is allowed during the event, and what is not.

This is mostly for safety and insurance reasons, and to keep the historic Flynn in tip-top, beautiful shape.

One of the rules, according to the Burlington Free Press, was no campaign signs indoors during the event.

But, of course the Trump campaign immediately distributed a bunch of signs to the crowd. Flynn staff naturally objected, but the Trump campaign ignored that.

"I said to the campaign manager, 'you lied to me' and I was met with shrugged shoulders,'" Flynn Executive Director John Killacky told the Burlington Free Press.

What kind of president would Trump be if he just ignored everyone else and did what he wanted? What if he kept saying any issue was somebody else's problem and just expected others to do something just because he told them to.

We already see a hint of that, with his harebrained proposal to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it.

Good luck with that.

His money doesn't buy everything. What happens during a Trump presidency when a crisis erupts, and Trump dismisses it as somebody else's problem?

It won't be a matter of relatively powerless people and organizations, like the Flynn Center or Burlington, Vermont forced to put up with Trump. Other nations, terrorist groups, the economy and Congress won't just shut up and do what Trump says.

When and if that happens, we're all in trouble.

Police Departments Might Be Taking More Than Burglers

I really hope this cartoon is not reality. 

I don't mean to pile on law enforcement, but can certain jurisdictions please stop just stealing people's money just because they can?

It's true, They can. It's called civil forfeitures.

It invites so much crookedness and corruption that I don't think there's any hope of rescuing any of it.  With people aleady getting more and more skeptical about the police, do we really want the entire populace not trusting them?

I've complained about this before, but it bears repeating, especially with the latest study that came out. More on that in a minute.

Civil forfeiture is the ability of law enforcement and prosecutors to take money or property away from people suspected of committing a crime. This can happen without charging the owners of the cash or property with a crime.

I suppose the original impetus of this arrangement was full of good intentions. It started mostly as a way to stop the drug trade. Authorities could take assets used to promote illegal drug sales. And they could grab the money or property after an arrest but before a conviction.

That way, criminal enterprises wouldn't get a chance to stash the cash away,  out of reach of authorities. Civil forfeiture would help thwart the drug sales by interrupting the assets people had to continue this extremely shady business.

However, in some jurisdictions, it's become a method for quote, unquote law enforcement to shake down innocent people for property. And some of these police and prosecuting agencies take a LOT of money and property for their own use. Kind of like the Mob is famous for doing.

I had no idea how bad this was until an Institute for Justice study came out last week.

Says the Institute for Justice:

"Civil forfeiture laws pose some of the greatest threats to property rights in the nation today, too often making it easy and lucrative for law enforcement to take and keep property - regardless of the owner's guilt or innocence."

Blogger Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics crunched the data in the Institute for Justice report:

"Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time was +19.4 annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by 52.8 percent from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989.

Then by 2014, that number ballooned to roughtly $4.5 billion for the year, making this 35 percent of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means the police are now taking more assetts than the criminals."

Here's how the Washington Post described how bad things have gotten with forfeitures in an investigatige report last year:

"An aggressive brand of policing (is spreading) that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes.....

Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal batles that can last more than a year to get their money back.

"A thriving subculture of road officers now competes to see who can seiz 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."

In other words, these jurisdictions and governments know that they'll become unpopular with their constituents if they do try the traditional method of using tax dollars to fund law enforcement. So they just shake down people who happen to be passing  through.

I'm really stunned this kind of thing hasn't gotten more publicity. Especially considering how widespread this practice has become. Can you imagine if roving gangs of pirates were shaking down motorists, who, say stopped at a highway rest area?

Noah Smith, writing in Bloomberg View describes the various threats this state of affairs creates succinctly:

"The threat to individual liberty from stop-and-seize is painfully clear. Without requirements for an arrest or for a warrant, the power to confiscate cash is a clear diminution of property rights.

Effectively, the police have been given official sanction to commit literal highway robbery without the threat of punishment. People whose property was seized must pay a lot of monye and spend a long time in court for even the chance of getting it back, and police who seize money with no good reason don't, apparently, suffer any threat of discipline.

But stop-and-seize also presents a danger to public trust. When the cops go around taking money from innocent people to fund their own departments and salaries it understandably decreases trust in the government and the legal system. That is something we can ill-afford at the present time, with trust in the police already at a low ebb over a series of videos and police killings.

If they don't trust the government, people will be less likely to report criminals, and possibly less likely to follow the law themselves."

Just what this country needs. More upheaval.

Virginia County Tickets Cars Awaiting Inspection At Repair Shops For Not Being Inspected

Why is this Virginia car enforcement officer
writing so many tickets for cars parked waiting
for new inspection stickers at repair shops?
I smell a scam.  

Is parking and car safety enforcement a tool to make sure everybody is complying with the law, or is it just to raise revenue easily off a bunch of what certain county governments regard as suckers.

The money  making schtick is what seems to be going in Fairfax County, Virginia.

 According to the Washington Post, a car enforcement gal named Jacquelyn D. Hogue has been going to repair shops and ticketing cars for expired inspections stickers. The cars are parked there because their owners are getting new inspection stickers.

There are several repair shops in the Mariah Business Center, and all of them have been seeing traffic enforcement ticket soon-to-be inspected cars.

The Washington Post says repair shop owners "don't understand why Fairfax police have zealously sought to enforce laws on expired tags or inspections, mainly on drivers who are making the effort to get their cars into compliance, while on private property. Hogue's appearance in the industrial park often set off a scramble to hide customers' cars inside the shops, the shop owners said."

The Post article explains that Fairfax pollice are only on the property because a letter issued by Mariah's property management firm specifially ranted police permission to enforce county traffic, parking and towing ordinances.

'Why aren't they barking up their property manager's tree?....That is their business. Without that letter, we have no authority - none - to be in that parking lot,' said Fairfax Police spokeswoman Lt. Brooke Wright.

Here's where it gets (intentionally?) confusing. The property manager declined to answer the Washington Post's questions. The repair shop operators rent from owners of individual buildings in the park, and the owners claime they can't change or withdraw the authorizing letter because they are not members of Mariah's condo association board of directors.

Murky? You bet. Which means I really smell a rat. I have no proof or evidence of this, but I bet the condo association is taking kickbacks from inspection ticket inspections. The condo association board wins financially, as do Fairfax Police.

And probably Hogue, who is the one who is always writing the tickets. She declined the Washington Post's request for comment. Surprise!!

It's all about revenue generation, not public safety.

This is all just one incident, but I wonder how many other swindles are going on in Our Fair Nation between police or other authorities and land owners.

I know I'm sounding paranoid and conspiratorial, but something is amiss, I'm sure.

I hope somehow this scam gets broken, but I'm not holding my breath.

Michigan Cops, DA Wants To Ruin Black College Student's Life Just Because

DeJuawn Wallace being arrested in a February traffic
stop, from a police dash cam. He didn't pull
over immediately, but continued to drive
to a well-lit area, for safety. Cops
and a prosecutor object to this.  

UPDATE: 
As expected because of the negative publicity and the fact that even prosecuting the case made prosecutors a laughing stock, they dropped the charged Thursday agains DaJuawn Wallace.

His "crime," as you'll read below in the original post, was being cautious.

But as the Huffington Post points out, Prosecutor Christopher Boyd offered a plea deal for Wallace to plead guilty to a lesser charge, before the publicity over this stupidity blew up in Boyd's face, and he had to drop the charges.

However, Boyd and very many other prosecutors offer "plea deals" to people charged with crimes, even though many of these people might not have actually committed any crimes.

But, the defendents are often poor and don't have the resources to fight the bogus charges. Or, they've had previous run-ins with the law and realize nobody will believe they are innocent.

Prosecutors usually occupy elected positions. The prosecutors offer these bogus plea deals to innocent defendents because it gives them a higher conviction rate, making them more appealing next time they're up for re-election.

While there are some damn good, honest prosecutors out there, a large number of them, apparently, think their career and their bragging rights is worth ruining the lives of many innocent people by giving them bogus crime records.

One researcher estimates there might be as many as 20,000 people in jail serving time or crimes they did not commit. And some of those crimes actually happened, but were committed by someone else who is still out in the streets.

It's just easier for prosecutors to grab the low hanging fruit and win easy prosecutions against innocent people. Again, just to advance their careers.

Absolutely shameful.


PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

One dark early morning in February, DaJuawn Wallace, 24, was driving along a very poorly lit road in Kockville Township, Michigan.

Suddenly, the blue lights of a police car flashed in back of him.

Wallace knew that there had been incidents in the area in which people pretending to be cops, complete with blue lights pull people over and rob them or even worse.

Wallace said he signaled to the cop that he would keep driving - slowly - until he arrived at a safer, brightly lit area.

People are often advised to do this.  In and near Detroit, there have been recent cases of people impersonating police and stopping people to rob them.

A mile and half down the road, Wallace pulled into the glare of a brightly lit Sam's Club parking lot and stopped.

The cop decided to charge him with a felony count of fleeing and eluding police for not pulling over sooner, reports the Michigan news site MLive.com

This despite the explanation from Wallace. The DA "generously" offered a deal in which Wallace could plead guilty to a misdemeanor with a delayed sentence, meaning the charges would be dismissed if he completed a one-year probation.

But if he does that, he probably would lose his job and almost definitely his college financial aid.

Saginaw County Chief Prosecutor Christoher Boyd said when a police officer in a official police cruiser orders you to stop uou must. "You don't get a driver's license and get to pick what rules you are going to follow and what rules you are not going to follow," Boyd said, as reported at MLive.com.

Well, Wallace DID stop, once he got to a well-lit area, and he didn't try to speed off and outrun the cop. He just didn't know if he was about to be robbed or not. So I guess if you're a young black man in Michigan, you don't get the choice of trying not to be a victim of crime.

Nobody has come up with evidence so far that Wallace did anything other than seek a well lit, public place. The only reason why cops stopped him in the first place is because his car resembled one that had just driven on a sidewalk at a nearby college. It turns out, the sidewalk driver wasn't Wallace.

So what's Boyd's deal? Does he just never want to "lose" a case? Maybe his ego is too fragile to give up on a prosecution when facts present themselves?

Or is Wallace an uppity black kid. After all, he's pursuing a Master's degree in college. You don't want any n*****s being successful, right Prosecutor Boyd? God forbid a white guy like you lets a black guy find success.

The above paragraph might be an over the top accusation. I sure hope it is.

Nonetheless, Mother Jones reported today that the vast majority of prosecutors in the nation are white men. Obviously, most of them aren't racist. Still, when 79 percent of prosecutors are white men, and 14 states have an all white male prosecuting lineup, you do want to see a little more diversity.

This week, the Michigan case has suddenly gotten lots of publicity. When bad PR  happens, the prosecutor will try to find a face saving way out in which Wallace doesn't end up with problems concerning his job or school financial assistance.   He'll just got some sort of toothless warning.

One sign that things might work out in Wallace's favor is public support. MLive.com has an update saying there will be a rally in his behalf tomorrow.

But who knows how many other people get in trouble like Wallace did? For doing something innocent, or at least benign, I bet a lot of people have their lives ruined by the occasional overzealous cop or prosecutor.

Time to fix this problem, maybe?

Texas State Police Say Officer Needs Counseling Because He Posed For Pic With Snoop Dog

Are you a crazy person, or at least need counseling if you pose for a photo with rapper Snoop Dog?

That's what Texas Police officer Billy Spears must be wondering after his bosses got mad, really mad at him for the crime of posing with Snoop Dog.

This Texas police officer got in
trouble with his bosses for the High Crime (ha!)
of posing for a pic with Snoop Dogg.  

Maybe it's because Spears' bosses hate him for some reason, or he did something else wrong, but posing with Snoop Dogg is apparently a big, BIG no-no in Texas Police circles, according to The Guardian newspaper. 

Spears briefly posed with Snoop Dogg at SXSW in Austin recently. Snoop put the photo on his Instagram page and captioned it, "Me 'n My Deputy Dog."

Texas Police said Spears should have never posed with Snoop Dog because he has past criminal convictions for drug possession.

The Dallas Morning News says the counseling was needed because posing with a convicted drug dealer reflects badly on the Texas Department Of Public Safety.

Of course throwing the book at a cop for posing briefly for a pic with a famous person reflects badly on the department, too, but never mind.

Spears said he didn't know about those convictions, which is plausible because you can't expect a cop to know the criminal history of every single celebrity walking around out there.

Besides, Snoop Dogg has no outstanding warrants and no new criminal charges hanging over him. In that respect, the rapper was just another citizen walking around. I'm not sure what the harm is in this photo, then.

Maybe Spears was supposed to come up with some excuse to arrest Snoop Dogg again, just because they figure he's not a good guy?

Apparently, since Spears was forced to undergo counseling for being so outlandishly crazy to spend, say 20 seconds, posing for a photo with some random celebrity.

The counseling, says the Dallas Morning News, includes an order not to pose for photos with anybody. No sense in having a police officer appear friendly, with all the negative publicity about police brutality circulating around.

So be forwarned, law enforcement: If you see Snoop Dogg, stay as far, far away as possible.

Chicago Police Apparently Has Their Own Guantanamo

Homan Square in Chicago. Kind of
a Chicago Police Guantanamo Bay. Probably
very unconstitutional. Will it be stopped?  

I've long been suspicious of heavy military equipment owned and operated by local police.

You know, tanks, missile launchers, all that kind of stuff that risks blurring the line between protecting and serving the public and turning areas to tense military zones.

But if a bombshell article in The Guardian is true, I had no idea it was this bad.

It turns out the city of Chicago has what amounts to its own Guantamano, a secret interrogation compound called Homan Square, which the Guardian called the "domestic equivalent of a CIA black box."

That means family or attorneys could not find people who might have been in there, people spent days inside shackled, sometimes beaten, and almost always denied basic Constitutional rights.

The horrifying Guardian article details the following:

"Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
Beating by police resulting in head wounds
Shackling for prolonged periods
Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility
Holding people without legal cousel for between 12 and 24 hours including people as young as 15"

The Guardian said at least one person was found unresponsive in Homan Square and later died.

Not surprisingly, the Guardian said Chicago Police Department officials would not respond to any of the newspaper's questions.

It appears Homan Square has been operating since the late 1990s, but it's been so secretive that there's been little public attention. People who were brought or imprisoned there tend not to talk about. Apparently, it's been made known that discussing it could make Chicago Police act rather unpleasantly toward people who open their mouths.

Many of those brought there are people arrested at protests. I guess out of concern for terrorism.

But many people who are unconstitutionally shelved into Homan Square are just rank and file drug dealers and similar accused criminals. Why not just book them like you normally do when they are arrested?

More sane police officials seem to be quite appalled by Homan Square. It's true police often have an office or building somewhere in which most people don't know what's going on. It's usually a quiet little getaway where police can talk with informants without blowing anybody's cover

Hey, you gotta do things like that in police work, so that's cool.

But Homan Square is different: Says the Guardian:

"But a retired Washington DC homicide detective, James Trainum, could not think of another circumstance nationwide where police held people incommunicado for extended periods.

'I've never known any kind of organized, secret place where they go and just hold somebody before booking for hours and hours and hours. That scares the hell out of me that even exists or might exist,' said Trainum, who now studies national policing issues, to include interrogations, for the Innocence Project and the Constitution Project."

Trainum should be scared on two levels. One, as he pointed out, that this civil liberties hellhouse in Chicago exists, as he points out. He should also be scared that other police departments have their own versions of Homan Square, and we don't even know about it.

Of course, the next important question is who in Chicago knew about this. How high up the chain of command does this go?

But the Guardian article does suggest quite a little coverup. This place seems to violate the official rules of the Chicago Police Department, though I'm sure people follow a lot of looser unofficial rules, too.

The Guardian quotes a former Chicago detective and current private investigator names Bill Dorsch:

"Transferring detainees through police custody to deny them access to legal counsel, would be a 'career ender,' Dorsch said. 'To move just for the purpose of hiding them, I can't see that happening.'"

Then why haven't any cops, detectives or brass had their careers ended by the shenanagans at Homan Square?

I know, I know, focusing on this Guardian piece makes me look like I think all police agencies are a corrupt criminal racket. Obviously, that's not the case. I still have faith in most police departments.

I also know that Chicago has a rich and sordid history of corruption, and Homan Square seems to be just part of that, um, tradition.

But given the fact that this exists, and for all I know exists elsewhere, is disconcerting to say the least.

We keep getting a steady drumbeat of cases concerning police brutality, overreactions and such in the news, and that seems to be unrelenting. Like the case I read about today of a sheriff dragging a mentally incompetent woman by the feet through a Florida courthouse. 

Some of the police unions think police officers and departments can do no wrong. However, every organization has bad apples, and I worry police have more than their share. So why not weed out the bad ones.

Meanwhile, there are some people out there who think all police are awful. That risks encouraging a few wingnut wackos to go off and shoot some innocent cop. That's already happened, of course.

I'll repeat what I've said in the recent past: Maybe it's time for police departments to recognize that when people criticize some of their tactics, that doesn't mean we are anti-police. It can't hurt to at least listen to the critics. If the argument is bullshit, then fine.

But some critics might be exactly right about their police criticism. Really. It's time for reform.

If the Guardian's reporting is correct, time to disband the place One Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba is quite enough. We don't need more in the mainland United States.

Internet And Very Nice Human Beings Rescue 6-Year Old's Birthday

After a false start, Glenn Buratti ended
up having a really nice sixth birthday
celebration. Also, nice Minion, Glenn!  

I often whine and moan about all the awful trolls on the Internet, people who say and do the most vile things because they're scum buckets and just want to spread their dark clouds far and wide.

Like I said, scumbags.

But, the number of awesome people on social media seems to vastly outnumber the bad, hideous trolls.

Case in point: Glenn Buratti, 6, and his mother, Ashlee, invited 16 of his school classmates to the kid's sixth birthday party at their Florida home.

None of the kids showed up.

Mom took to Facebook and vented, talking about how Glenn, who has autism, was so disappointed and almost seemed permanently unable to smile after that, says television station WKMG

People saw the post and responded, big time. The Osceola County Sheriff's office did a flyover above Buratti's house with their helicopter. The celebration became a weeklong event, with neighbors, strangers coming over.  The local fire and police departments showed up with fire trucks and cruisers so Glenn could check them out.

Ashlee said she still hasn't heard from the parents of the 16 kids that didn't make it to the party. (I bet they're mortified now!) But it's OK. Glenn had a great birthday, thanks to the Internet and some kind people.

This all just makes it easier to ignore the online trolls, doesn't it?

I'll also put in added props because the video you see below shows Glenn holding a big toy Minion. Kid after my own heart, I'll tell ya.

Happy Birthday, Glenn!!

Pepper Spraying Seattle Cop Might Be Worst Yet

An unhinged Seattle police officer pepper sprays
passersby for no apparent reason on MLK day in Jan.  

I know, I know, I've been complaining about bad cops quite a bit lately.

My excuse: The more attention paid to the bad ones, the better. If everybody did this, the powerful police unions might see the error of their ways, stop protecting the bad cops and help get rid of them. Then let the good ones, which are in the majority, do their jobs well.

It's a dream anyway.

So it is that I give a Seattle cop her due in the rogues gallery of really bad cops.  The as-yet unidentified cop is new Queen Of Pepper Spray, the biggest doofus with the spray since John Pike, the infamous UC Davis cop who in 2011 pepper sprayed a bunch of peaceful protestors as if he was trying to clear the odorous aftermath of a frat party with Fabreze.

Unless I'm missing some context of what might have happened before this latest viral video from Seattle went out, I have to ask: Why was this dipshit cop in a panic, pepper spraying random people as they walked by, all in the name of keeping them from walking down a certain street during Martin Luther King events in mid-January?

On that day, demonstrators blocked major roads in Seattle in a "Black Lives Matter" protest that reported resulted in 19 arrests and one police officer suffering a broken leg. There have been numerous "Black Lives Matter" protests around the country in recent months during which protestors block roadways.

At least judging from the video, things didn't look out of hand at the scene of this pepper spraying, that is until the cop went totally off.

If you watch the video at the bottom of this post, you see the cop that did the pepper spraying is totally unhinged. She's yelling frantically, sounding panic stricken, as most passersby don't seem all that tempted to go down the street she doesn't want them to go down.

The other cops there look pretty chill, although I fault them for not calming our panicked cop down.

As the very brief video opens, you do see people off to the left, many of them clearly demonstrators of some sort. Some of them look like they might be itching to go down the street where cops, for whatever reason, don't want them to go.

Then this unhinged cop starts yelling frantically randomly spraying passersby, including Jesse Hagopian,  a locally well-known social justice advocate and a teacher at a Seattle public school.  It appeared that nobody on the scene was being particularly threatening.

All he seems to be doing in the video is walking by, then away from the police barricade, talking on a cell phone, seemingly in a hurry to get to another appointment elsewhere in the city.

I wonder if the woman just to the left of Hagopian triggered this. She seems to be a mild mannered, middle aged lady looking bemused as the cop with the pepper spray can yells incoherently. Maybe our unhinged cop noticed this and opened fire?  

Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle teacher and activist, was pepper sprayed
for the sin of walking down a street while talking on a cell phone.
Not surprisingly, he's getting ready to sue. 

Glad it was pepper spray and not a gun in her hand.

It's lucky this got captured and uploaded to YouTube, because I'm sure the police would have just said Hagopian was threatening officers, he was a menace, blah, blah, blah.

Aside from the pepper spraying, which apparently was inspired by Hagopian being guilty of walking in the city where he lives while black, this cop is apparently not good at crowd control, and keeping the peace.

It's hard to tell, because the video cuts off, but it looks like things were fairly mellow until the stupid cops starts spewing pepper spray in all directions. Then it seems people are starting to get angry.

The video ends with a woman scolding the cop: "We have the right to walk on this sidewalk!"

Maybe you used to, lady, but now cops can do what they want, apparently, laws and First Amendment be damned.

Way to de-escalate, stupid cop.

Why is it the worst cop, the incompetent ones, seem to be always itching for a fight? Yes, sometimes things escalate to violence in the police world, and it's totally not the fault of law enforcement. Face it, some people are jerks, and police, like it or not, have to respond with force.

But in this case, WTF?

Hagopian has announced his intention to sue, and good for him, especially with Seattle's reputation of stonewalling and denial when law enforcement is questioned.

Seattle Police say the incident is "under investigation," code word for letting this die a quick death after the media attention dies down and we hope no nosy reporter follows up in a few months.

We don't know the identity of this officer, or any other details.  It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it.

Hagopian's lawyer, James Bible is not optimistic.

"They're not going to respond......I would be surprised if the city of Seattle finds yet another way to absolve itself of any wrong-doing. They've made a mockery of accountability and until that changes, we're not holding our breath."

The U.S. Department of Justice in 2011 said Seattle Police engaged in a repeated pattern of excessive force, and critics say little has changed since that report came out.

A Seattle police officer recently got in trouble for arresting a 70-year-old black man because she apparently thought a black guy using a golf club as a cane is a menace to society.

It practically took an act of Congress to suspend that police officer, though.

All cops accused of wrongdoing deserve due process. But when the due process shows that they've done wrong, why is it so hard to get rid of them?

I think a lot of people in this country want to know the answer to that question.

I know I do.

U.S. Attorney General Tells Corrupt Towns/Cops To Stop Stealing Stuff

A few, but certainly not all police departments
and prosecutors basically steal money
through "civil forfeiture" to fund their departments 

If you or I stood on some rural road somewhere, forced a passing motorist to give us his money, we'd be arrested and locked up for robbery.

However, a few corrupt police departments and towns and prosecutors have been doing just that, all perfectly legal.

Or at least they say it's perfectly legal.

Basically, a lot of them seize property and money for fun and profit, mostly profit, without any attempt at due process. Many of the seizures are from people who are innocent.

It's called civil forfeiture. I'd have no problem with this if someone were convicted of a crime, and their ill-begotten assets were sold and divied up between prosecutors, police departments and other government agencies.

But the key word here is convicted. Corrupt prosecutors and law enforcement agencies are seizing money and property from people all the time without these people even having been charged with a crime, much less convicted of one.

You'd think this would be unconstitutional, but people seem to be getting away with it.

Finally this past week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is kinda, sort of putting a halt to that sort of thing. But it's been really out of hand and Holder's actions only go so far.

One of the bests primers on this robbery by cop and prosecutor racket came last September when the Washington Post had a lengthy article about what I might call a seizure police-industrial complex, in which police just basically steal money from unsuspecting motorist.

--THE SCAM

Let's get into the infuriating Washington Post article. 

It all started in the aftermath of the September, 2001 terrorist attacks, in which local police were encouraged to focus more on searching suspicious people, drugs and other iffy activities they come across.

But then it morphed. According to the Post:

"......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.......Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back."

It gets worse:

"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 and 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 identfying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop."

Some federal and state officials shave warned this network is probably unconstitutional, but Constitution, Schmonstitution when there's money to be made, or more accurately put, stolen.

"A thriving subculture of road offices on the network now compete to see who can seize the most ash 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."

And here's a damning quote in the Washington Post article:

"All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine," Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Illinois wrote in a self-published book under a psedonym. Hain is a marketing specalist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training form based in Guthrie Oklahoma, whose founder also created Black Asphalt."

I thought prosecutors and cops were in the law enforcement business, not an extortion racket.

The Post said there have been nearly 62,000 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since September, 2001 without search warrants or indictments. A total of $2.5 billion was collected, and state and local agencies were able to keep $1.7 billion of that.

So again, no warrants, no court trials, no due process. Police just took money from people because they thought they were guilty. Or pretended to think they were guilty.

This money and property seizure crime spree, as I like to describe it, has been going on for years, with or without that Black Asphalt intelligence gathering crap.

Some examples:

Back in 2009, Wayne County, Michigan forced a woman named Krista Vaughn to pay $1,400 to get her car back, which had been seized by police after they mistook the woman's co-worker in the car for a prostitute. No charges were filed, but she still had to pay, said the Detroit News. 

It turns out Wayne County regularly did this sort of thing, collecting up to $8 million a year, often in cases in which nobody was charged with a crime, the Detroit News said.

Tellingly, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy would only provide a written statement saying 'If people are soliciting prostitutes, selling drugs or otherwise profiting from criminal activity, as prosecutors we have the right under the law to forfeit property.'

Notice that jerk Worthy (with the totally unworthy last name) didn't even address all the cases of innocent people, and she was far too much of a total wimp to be interviewed.

Back in 2011, authorities try to take a Tewksbury, Mass. motel worth $1 million away from its owners, Russ Caswell and his family, said the Institute for Justice, who helped defend the family. The try by prosecutors and police to seize the property came about because over 14 years, authorities made 15 drug arrests at the motel. During that time, more than 200,000 people stayed at the hotel.

The Caswells were never accused of participating in any crimes, or turning a blind eye to crimes. In fact, everyone acknowledges, the Caswells fully cooperated with police during investigations.

But, probably for the profit motive, police and prosecutors tried to seize the motel.

Thankfully, in 2013, a federal judge put a stop to the forfeiture and let the Caswells keep their property. The judge said police and prosecutors grossly exaggerated the evidence and had no authority to seize the property.

People can fight back, but that takes lawyers, time, legal expertise, and money, assuming they have any left after the cops stole their cash. Even when people fight back and are successful, the damage is done.

Like the people the Post cited:

--A 55 year old Chinese American stopped for speeding on Interstate 10 in Alabama had with him $75,000 raised by relatives so he could buy a restaurant. The dirty cops seized the money, and by the time he got it back, it was way too late for the restaurant deal.

---Mandrel Stuart, 35, said police took $17,550 from him during a minor traffic stop in Fairfax, Virginia. He turned down a settlement offer from the government for half the money because he didnt do anything wrong other than a minor traffic problem so what right did they have to take his money.

Stuart too the case to a jury and won, 'natch, but he lost his business. That's because he couldn't pay overhead after the cops stole the $17,550 from him.

The police will say they didn't steal it, but how else can you describe it?  It's just as bad as if police robbed a bank.

--HONEST COPS, PROSECUTORS

Not all police departments, prosecutors and local governments are in on this racket. Many refuse to participate, citing Constitutional, legal and ethical concerns.

The Washington Post quoted this guy:

"Those laws were meant to take a guy out for selling $1 million in cocaine or who was trying to launder large amounts of money," said Mark Overton, the police chief in Bal Harbor, Fla,. who once oversaw a federal drug task force in South Florida. "It was never meant for a street cop to take a few thousand dollars from a driver by the side of the road."

State law enforcement officials in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and other places backed away from this Black Asphalt idiocy because of Constitutional worries, the Post said

Finally, as I mentioned, one of the other good cops in this saga stepped in. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, is stepping down soon, but he's been taking a flurry of actions against some unconstitutional crap.

Holder's move doesn't go all the way in stopping this "legal" crime syndicate. But it's a start. Holder said police departments can no longer do this civil forfeiture thing unless it's related to a specific warrant or charge.

It might have been better had Holder limited to forfeiture to cases in which there was a criminal conviction, but like I said, it's a start.

I get it. All police departments and prosecutors' offices need adequate funding to truly go after the bad guys and gals.

But it doesn't exactly raise confidence in the criminal justice system when cops and prosecutors steal money to get the funds to arrest people who steal money.