Sunday, September 8, 2013
To Serve and Protect (And Sometimes Steal Your Stuff)
I read very few things that make me cringe with a potent cocktail of outrage, despair, and anxiousness. This article did just that. It opens with a man taking his lower class family to see his father in the next state over. They buy a used car and put the only cash they have, some $6,000, into the center console. The man is driving at night and is pulled over for driving for too long in the left lane, or "passing lane" (not a crime.) The officer asks if there are any drugs in the car, the man says no, the officer "smells marijuana," though they never found any, and the situation quickly escalates. At the end of story, the couple is told that they can either hand over all their cash to the police department or give their two children to Child Protective Services. All of this was completely legal. How? Civil forfeiture. Basically, it's a law that lets police officers take your stuff. The law allows officers to seize your possessions WITHOUT finding any evidence or even charging you. All they need is probably cause, which, in the case of the story from the New Yorker article, can be "smelling" marijuana (but not finding any.) I didn't believe this could be true at first. I could not bring myself to believe that in America, the supposed home of the free, that this law could exist. But somehow, it does. Lately I've been seeing a lot of articles and video clips popping up on Facebook and Twitter about police officers unlawfully searching people and their vehicles, but nothing compares to this. It is clear that many police officers in this country are unable to protect society justly, as our laws outline. And unfortunately, police officers are the sympathetic ones in courts, because both entities are operated by the federal government, and they can often get out of cases like this with only a slap on the wrist. Frankly, I believe that not only should we update outdated and unconstitutional laws like civil forfeiture, but we should take power away from corrupt police officers who unjustly harm innocent citizens.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The fact that the police officer demanded that the couple handed over their children is what caught my eye. It seems like this isn't even something that could happen in America, let alone be legal. It makes me sad to see articles about police playing the "bad guy" when most of them are probably good people, and a police's job is top protect us. One bad apple ruins the entire bunch. Would you agree with this law if it only said you could take material goods (not children), or do you still that's unlawful?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI'd say that even with material goods this law is completely unconstitutional. As they say in the article, this family had all their cash with them and it was taken (for no reason,) which could very well have ruined their lives. I'd just like to mention that this is also not the only outrageous case like this. The article goes on to tell 4 or so other stories just as unbelievable as this one.
DeleteI can barely believe this! How could the criminal justice system be this corrupt? To be honest, I agree that law enforcement should have the right to question or search WITH probable cause or with a search warrant. However, it is downright ridiculous that there seems to be no regulation as to whether these officers are doing their jobs correctly. Not only that, but the corrupt police officers are being rewarded for the seizure of valuables. Because the officer (in the first story) told the mother that she could either keep her kids or the money, it is obvious that she would choose her kids. It is incredible that an innocent person is so unfairly treated and harassed. What a shame to our nation!
ReplyDelete