Brickbats

Badges? We Don't Need No Stinking Badges!

|

When a San Jacinto Count, Texas, deputy constable pulled over driver John Pickens, they didn't give him a citation for the expired plates on his car. They didn't even give him a warning. In fact, they just seized his cash—some $4,000—and jewelry. They said it was connected to drugs, even though they didn't find any drugs in Pickens' car. But it had to be tied to drugs, they said, because Pickens was coming from a "known source city," Houston, and had a criminal history. After a local television station started investigating the story, the local district attorney told the constable to return the money seized from Pickens, as well as cashed seized from another motorist