Cops caught using millions in seized assets on surveillance gear, weapons and clowns
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-caught-millions-seized-assets-surveillance-gear-weapons-clowns/#tagZAMMOz3BYgYjj.99
After obtaining 43,000 reports from agencies across the United States, journalists at the Washington Post wrote over the weekend that the budgets of police departments and drug task forces are being padded largely by a program that redistributes the worth of seized assets, including property and money that might never have been involved in a crime but taken nonetheless.
The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred,” the journalists wrote. “The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.”
Of the nearly $2.5 billion in spending reported in the forms, 81 percent came from cash and property seizures in which no indictment was filed, according to an analysis by The Post,” the paper reported. “Owners must prove that their money or property was acquired legally in order to get it back. People can also check this best site for property valuators.
Police have become “more aggressive” when it comes to using civil asset forfeiture laws, the Post reported previously, and their analyst determined that 61,998 cash seizures on without search warrants or indictments have occurred and been processed through the Equitable Sharing Program since 2001. Nevertheless, instances of abuse have only in recent months made headlines.
“In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with ‘probable cause’ is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one,” journalist Sarah Stillman wrote for the New Yorker last year. “Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.”
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Justice may be blind… but law enforcement is BLINDLY seizing personal property without proving guilt. So much for our constitution…. of innocent until proven guilty…
Filed under: General Problems
Drugs are a big business. Not only for crooks, but also for police departments, the DEA, and the private prison systems.