Takings It To The Streets

A couple of St. Petersburg, Florida, cops show the kind of street-level take-charge, damn-the-red-tape moxie that makes America great: just getting a woman whose car they had seized and found pot in to sign ownership of the '68 Buick straight over to the sheriff's department. (The suits upstairs gave her the car back.)

Comments

[Warren]

The car would have been given back even without the paper's questions, sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said.

Sounds like bullshit to me. This was nothing but another days work for the gubmnt thugs. Thank you drug warriors for turning law enforcement into the routine shake down and extortion dept.

[Andrew Lynch]

Hilarious. I think I saw this scene in Once Upon a Time in America.

[Rick Barton]

"This is like a mob shakedown," said Trevena. "The document's language is clear. It appears to be extortion and official misconduct."

Look where drug prohibition has led us. Those deputies should be prosecuted for extortion or attempted theft. Not to do so, is to be soft on crime and would encourage more of this type of disgrace by law enforcement officials.

What other property has the Pinellas sheriff's office stolen from people? When those with the right to initiate force are crooks, every one else is in deep trouble.

[joe]

Tease! I thought there was an article about streets.

More posts about streets. And buildings. And trains.

[Abu Hamza]

Nice link to that wacky story Brian. If you are interested in a story for your magazine, you could talk about that story and also about the surreal forfeiture laws of Kansas. In Kansas, deputies and officers who arrest people with drugs routinely take wedding rings, gold chains, or anything else of value that is a "proceed of any conduct giving rise to forfeiture". Here is the law: K.S.A. sec. 60-4101 et seq. Missouri's asset forfeiture laws are, by comparison, very fair. Innocence is a defense, and it is the government's burden to prove that the property is tainted, rather than the owner's burden to prove the property is free from taint. Of course we all know about the federal forfeiture laws, which are a shocking injustice. Missouri law enforcement simply "adopts" the federal forfeiture laws by using a marshall, dea, fbi agent, or some other federal agent to handle the forfeiture. It's a nice circumvention of the laws of the state by those who swear to uphold the laws of the state. And the courts have said that the US constitution's supremacy clause prevents the MO state legislature from ending the federal "adoption" tactic. Ain't the drug war great?

That is all.

[Fred]

Good post Abu, but in the future use paragraphs. It makes reading easier.