Oklahoma Taking Roadside Asset Seizures To A New, Chilling Level

Republican Oklahoma State Senator Kyle Loveless
wisely distrusts asset forfeitures and new devices
that read prepaid gift cards to seize those, too.  

I've always hated the idea of asset seizures, the ability of police and prosecutors to seize money and other valuables from people without first determining through the justice system whether said people are guilty.  

Oklahoma is taking it to a whole new level.

They now have card readers that can take assets from pre-paid cards, you know, those gift credit cards or those things from Walgreens or whatever that you can use to buy stuff there.

So far, they can't read regular debit or credit cards, but I'm afraid that day will come soon, since the techology seems to be there.

According to Oklahoma's News9, the devices are called Electronic Recovery and Access Devices, or ERADS. These devices read prepaid cards and allows police to seize money from the cards without getting a warrant from a judge and without filing criminal charges.

The motivation behind using ERADS is fine: Apparently, drug runners use pre-paid cards to conduct their business and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol sees ERADS as a way to thwart this activity.

But you can see how a corrupt cop and just stop people randomly and get rich quick. Who would know?

Already, people are becoming wary of driving into Oklahoma because of these ERADS. For instance, News9 said a company called Peak Power Manufacturing of Lake Park, Florida sent a letter saying it's banning its employees from travelilng to or through Oklahoma because their employees use these cards for business travel.

"We simply cannot risk seizure of our employee's and our company's assets based upon the whims of an honorable, dedicated and well-intentioned Oklahoma State Patrol Officer," company officials wrote

Not all lawmakers in Oklahoma are on board with this idea, either. News9 said State Senator Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, wants to shelve these ERADS, at least temporarily.

"So we're going to be able to tell their balance, tell their records, tell those other things without a warrant, without charges, and without an arrest and without a conviction. That's un-American," Loveless said.

Asset forfeiture has become big business for police agencies. For example, in Oklahoma, law enforcement agencies can keep all of what they take. In the fourteen years ending in 2014, Oklahoma got almost $99 million from seizing cash or selling off seized property, ThinkProgress reports. 

Loveless, the Oklahoma state lawmaker, says he doesn't like asset forfeiture at all, whether its from prepaid cards or other sources.

"We've see single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken.....We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's misspent."

It's true people can appeal to get their assets back. But its hard. Largely because the burden of proof is on the victim of the asset forfeiture to prove the stuff is theirs. Whcih is hard.

A lot of the people who have their assets seized are innocent. In five years ending in 2015, Oklahoma seized about $6 million from motorists along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma, and $4 million of that was taken from people who were never charged with a crime.

As I noted last year, in 2014 U.S. Attorneys sized $4.5 billion in assets, more than burglars reportedly took from victims that year.

Asset forfeiture reduces public confidence in law enforcement. It seems outside the rule of law, and it smells of corruption. As I also said last year, we don't need more mistrust in our instititions.

So let's make asset forfeiture harder, not easier, like with the ERADs Oklahoma is using.

World's Cutest Trespasser Caught On Surveillance Tape

Surveillance video captured a boy sneaking into a home's garage
so he could hug and play with a dog that was in there. 

Surveillance cameras detect all kinds of break-ins and trespassing incidents.

The one in the brief video at the bottom of this post is probably the cutest.

This was taken by a surveillance camera in the garage of Hollie Mallet's house in Pierre Part, Louisiana.

The garage doors are open and a Black Lab named Dutchess is sittting inside the garage.

All of a sudden, a boy runs into the garage -- clearly trespassing -- and hugs the dog enthusiastically, and the dog seems to enjoy the attention.

The boy, now caught red handed, then runs to his bike and takes off.

Mallet wasn't exactly ready to press trespassing charges against the boy. Instead, she posted it on Facebook in an effort to find the kid.

"Anyone know who this sweet little boy is? Every now and then when he rides his bike he will quickly come and love on my dog and play fetch real quick, but always leaves quick like he doesn't know if he should be here!

"I'd like to tell him he's welcome to stay and play, she loves the attention!"

Soon, neighbor Ginger Breaux saw the video, and clearly identified the perp in the garage as her son Josh.

Beaux was torn. Josh knew he wasn't allowed to just go onto other people's property, so that was bad. But Josh clearly had a lot of compassion for dogs and other animals, so that was a very good thing.

Mallet solved the problem when she responded to Breaux. "Hope this sweet little boy Josh continues to come play with Dutchess.....A dog is a friend for life. So glad to see that innocence and love as caught on camera instead of what they are normally used for."

Here's the surveillance video:

TV Reporter Easily Finds Arsonist At Scene Of Fire

Carlos Peralta, having just confessed to arson to a TV
reporter, reports his crime to surprised cops. 

This post reflects stuff that happened way back in November, 2014, but it's still fun.

A reporter and photographer from television station WJLA was on the scene of a rip roaring arson fire in Rockville, Maryland when they started interviewing bystanders.

As you know, they always interview bystanders at fires.

The journalists knew it was an arson fire. Did anybody they were interviewing suspect who might have started the fire.

"Me! Me! I set it on fire," a guy named Carlos told our reporter.

Well, no self-respecting reporter would let that go without some follow up questions.

With the camera on, the reporter asked question Number 1: "How did you do it?"

Answer: "I just poured gasoline on the floor, set it on fire, went to grab a drink and came back," Carlos replied nonchalantly.

Next question: "How did setting the fire help you?"

Answer: "Just so you (the media) could get here for your attention."

In turns out Carlos lived in the building and hated what he said was deplorable conditions in the structure.

A follow up question from WJLA: "Why didn't you report the alleged deplorable conditions to police first?"

Answer: "I did! I did!" However, Carlos said police didn't pay attention to him.

They sure did when the reporter and cameraman led Carlos to police at the scene of the fire. They were astonished by the confession, but of course handcuffed Carlos Peralta, 27 and booked him on arson charges.

He became decidedly less chatty once taken into custody, WJLA said.

The fire caused about $400,000 in damage

Why You REALLY Shouldn't Get In A Car Wreck In India

Piyush Tewari is trying to change the culture of India
that discourages people from helping accident victims. 

Almost always, if people see a nasty car wreck, people run to help. Somebody calls 911, people run over to comfort or give first aid to the injured, others direct traffic away from the crash so it doesn't get even worse.

In India, if you get in car wreck, you're really screwed. Because nobody will help you.   

The system there turns people into indifferent jerks, says a recent article in the BBC.

Everything's stacked against you if you try to help an accident victim in India.

It arriving police see you rendering aid, they'll assume you're doing it out of guilt and charge you with causing the crash and you'll face criminal charges. Basically, you're a criminal for being a nice person.

It takes forever for ambulances to arrive at accident scenes in India, so it makes more sense to drive the victims to the hospital yourself. But if you do, the hospital will relentlessly hit you up for the victim's medical bills.

Even if you avoid criminal charges and hospital bills, you might be a witness in court proceedings involving the accident case.

Trials take forever to go forward, so you're stuck in limbo. You miss going to work, running your life.

BBC says there is a safety campaigner named Piyush Tewari whose cousin was once hit by a car and nobody helped.

He managed the Indian Supreme Court to issue guidelines that allow people to call emergency services and remain anonymous, provide them with immunity from criminal liability and forbidding hospitals from demanding payment from bystanders who take people to the hospitals.

Now he's working to get all jurisdictions in India to adopt these guidelines, and enshrine them in a Good Samaritan law. (Such laws are widespread in the United States.)

Let's hope Tewari's efforts work, because a lot of people are dying needlessly in India due to their system.

And thank goodness we in the U.S. live in a country in which, almost always, people run to help eery time they see a crash.

Horrible Person Left Dog To Die In Texas Flood, Thankfully Somebody Noticed

This dog was left to drown in a Texas flood, chained
to a porch as the water rose. A television news crew
and volunteers rescued her  

As noted in my sister blog, Matt's Weather Rapport, Texas had a really bad flood recently.

In one of the worst videos, but with one with a very happy ending, rescuers and a television news crews came upon a dog tied to a house in neck deep flood water, barely holding its head above water.

Television station KPRC reporter Phil Archer and a volunteer, Jeff Shimek jumped into the water, untied the dog from the porcj before the water rose high enough to drown the dog, and put the dog, named Archer, in their boat.  

"They chained him to the front of the fucking house,?" one of the men in the boat says when they encountered the dog.

Yep, they did.  You can see it all in the video at the bottom of this post. Poor Archer looks terrified, but that seemed mixed with gratitude when the rescuers put the dog in their boat.

The reporters and flood volunteers turned Archer over to the Houston Humane Society.

Humane Society spokeswoman Monica Schmidt said a ring around Archer's neck meant that she was chained outside for some time, Reuters reported.

A number of people have expressed interest in adopting Archer.

"She's a fantastic dog and deserves so much better than what she had," Schmidt said, according to Reuters.

The local sheriff is not happy with the people who left the dog chained in the water, either. If the find the people that left Archer behind, they might be charged with animal cruelty.

"This is infuriating," Sheriff Nevis wrote on his public Facebook page. "These residents will get a visit from me when they return."

Here's the video:

Watch This Idiot Intentionally Block Ambulance

This Mercedes blocked an ambulance for an
excruciatingly long two minutes, as seen
in a viral video.  

An ambulance driver in Slovakia encountered the world's worst douche.

According to the Daily Mirror, the incident in the viral video at the bottom of this post involved a Mercedes driven by Boris Zahumensky, a local entrpreneur who recently, unsuccessfully ran for elections to the local council.

Zahumensky later claimed he was trying to do the ambulance drive a "favor" by guiding the way to wherever the ambulance was going.

"I did not hesitate to risk my life and brand new car that I only had owned for two days to do this," he noted with a hero's humility. Or humidity, whatever

Of course the video contradicts our hero Zahumensky's account, as it shows him telling off the ambulance driver when it was finally able to come up alongside him.

Police revoked Zahumensky's driver's license and his weapons license has been suspsended.  

Here's the video:

John Oliver Exposes Most Sleazy "Legal" Business Ever: Zombie Debt Collection

Many people years ago were unable to pay debts, mostly medical payments. The statutes of limitations have long since expired on these debts, so generally those people would no longer be responsible for paying the debt

Except for some sleazy, sleazy businesses, that are made legal by corrupt state legislatures, or not made illegal by corrupt state legislatures.

BoingBoing explains the debt thing well:

"The sums themselves are "zombie debts" --- debts that have been long written off and generally don't have to be paid, which are bought up by collection firms that terrorize their victims and embroil them in difficult-to-navigate litigation that must execute perfectly, or the debts are resurrected and collected through paycheck confiscation."

These sleazy companies buy these debts for fractions of a penny on the dollar, then go after their victim. So you can see they can make a lot of money terrorizing people of modest means who are definitely not financial lawyers.

It's an outrage, and should be illegal, but some discrete campaign contributions to lawmakers probably helps keep these things going.

John Oliver recently had a brilliant segment on this outrage, in which he revealed how some state legislatures actually made it easier for these zombie debt collection agencies to terrorize former debtors, and how they remove the assumption of innocense in the proceedings against the people they're going after.

He also went to a debt collector's conference and captured video of people in the industry joking about bullying victims and ruining their lives.

Yeah, that's such a barrel of laughs. Awful people.

Then Oliver did something brilliant. He formed his own debt collection agency just like the sleazes who terrorize people.

He calls his new company Central Asset Recovery Professionals, whose acronym is CARP named for the bottom feeder fish.

Oliver was able to form this corporation, based in Mississippi with just a $50 fee. The company consists of just a web site that has the CARP logo and that's it.

According to Consumerist:

"'With little more to go on than that website,' says Oliver, 'we were soon offered a portfolio of nearly $15 million of out-of-statue medical debt from Texas'

The asking price was less than $60,000 for $14,922,261.76 in this zombie debt - ir around $0.004 for every dollar of debt owed. Purchasing the debt would CARP the names, current addresses, Social Security numbers, and amount owed (or previously owed, as the statute of limitations had expired) for nearly 9,000 individuals."

Says Oliver:

"So we bought it, which is absolutely terrifying....because it means if I wanted to, I could legally have CARP take possession of that list and have employees start calling people, turning their lives upside down over medical debt they no longer had to pay.

There would be absolutely nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that absolutely everything is wrong with that."

Rather than calling people and houding them, Oliver took the money an organization called RIP Medical Debt, an organization of accountants and legal eagles that forgive the debts without tax repecussions for the would-be debtors.

Once RIP Medical Debt gets their hands on the zombie debts, they go away, never to rear their ugly heads again.

Since Oliver was able to spend just $60,000 to ditch $15 million in debt, I see a charitable opportunity here. Maybe some fairly rich philanthropists can form debt companies like Oliver did to funnel debts away from the sleazy debt collection agencies so they can't profit in such an evil way.

Here's John Oliver's segment.

It's amazing this a segment on medical debt that lasts 20 minutes and you can't stop watching it: