Cash-hungry police departments were hard at work in 2014, saving American citizens from expensive wine collections and farm tools.
Civil asset forfeiture, the practice that allows police officers to seize money and assets from residents without ever charging them with a crime, has increasingly become an encouraged tactic in police departments across the country.
Under current law, police can seize any property they suspect of being involved in a crime, and essentially force its owners to prove their property’s innocence. This means police officers can use even routine traffic stops as an excuse to ask residents to hand over any large amounts of cash or valuables they have on hand, which they can then pocket and keep by branding it “suspicious.”
A number of excellent exposes this year revealed how police departments have come to rely on seizures as an alternative source of income, and factor their gains from civil seizure into their budgets. In videos of police training sessions obtained by the New York Times, cops were trained to view property as “little goodies” for their department, and to focus their policing on people who might provide them with the most useful assets.
We’ve compiled ten of the most egregious cases that came to light this year. A few of these took place before 2014, but were reported or litigated this year. A number of them come the Washington Post’s fantastic series on civil asset forfeiture, or from the Institute for Justice, which represents citizens unfairly targeted in these cases.
1. When police took $17,550 from a 35-year-old African American small business owner during a routine stop for a minor traffic violation. He sued for its return, but only received the money back after his business had already folded because he couldn’t pay his overhead.
2. When Iowa cops took over $100,000 of two gamblers’ winnings from a World Series of Poker event—and then later had their homes in California searched—resulting in a federal lawsuit. The cops initially pulled the two over claiming they failed to use a turn signal, but a dash cam later proved that false. They detained them for two hours, found a small amount of marijuana, charged them with a misdemeanor and a $65 fine, and took off with the cash. Both of the gamblers had medical marijuana cards.
3. The cops who raided a Michigan man’s house, took his most expensive tools and froze his assets, initially did not charge him with a crime, but arrested him one day after the media began reporting his story.
4. When cops dropped misdemeanor drug charges on a D.C. resident, but kept his mom’s car anyway, and forced her to pay $1,772 to get it back.
5. Or really any time the D.C. police, who were also caught illegally planning their gains from civil seizure into their budgets, justified seizing cars over “minor offenses allegedly committed by the children or friends of the vehicle owners.”
6. That time an attorney training cops in civil seizure described seizing a 2008 Mercedes like this: “Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like ‘Ahhhh.’ And he gets out and he’s just reeking of alcohol. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.’ ”
7. When more Iowa cops pulled over a Minnesota couple for speeding and seized nearly $50,000 from them. Their only justification for the seizure was a K-9 unit that “gave a silent indicator on the vehicle.” The couple was never charged with a crime, but the police did not return the money.
8. The Pennsylvania police, who seized a $160,000 wine collection from two private wine collectors. The wine aficionados were infiltrated by undercover cops who suspected them of illegally dealing the alcohol. They agreed to sell four or five bottles that the cops had requested for a wedding gift, which the police used as “proof” that they were illegal dealers.
9. When an Arizona SWAT team raided the home of a medical marijuana patient, found they had grown slightly more than they were legally permitted to, and seized $455,000 without any proof the cash was connected to the “crime.”
10. When New York Police pulled a couple over for a cracked windshield and ended up searching their car for drugs. They didn’t find any, but took the $32,000 the couple was carrying to repair a house they bought in foreclosure. The cop even demanded the money in the man’s back pocket, telling him that if he needed money for an emergency he could “Go find an ATM.” The government eventually returned half of the money, but only after the couple paid $9,000 in legal fees.
And as a bonus, here’s an instance that’s not quite civil seizure, but is too great not to be commemorated: when armed drug cops raided an elderly man’s garden and took his suspicious-looking okra leaves.
Thanks for keeping America safe from disgusting vegetables another day.
