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Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

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Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#21

Post by noonespecial »

nyolfen wrote: post #17
noonespecial wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those particular geese only lay golden eggs until you kill them. My guess is they got greedy and then got attention. It was fine and good when they took PimpDaddy's caddy because drugs, but not so fine when they took his grandma's house too because he parked there for an hour last tuesday.

man you're not even trying with the racial dogwhistles here but it speaks to a deeper truth

The racial aspect of this is a great big elephant-in-the-room stomping-on-your-toes issue in this situation. I figure if you're gonna whistle about it, whistle loud.

Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#22

Post by PythonicAlpha »

bavcyc wrote: post #20

Matt Taibbi has an interesting book out "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap." There are issues in the US beyond just the seizing of assets, the question is how do we fix it so that everyone can prosper? The idea of the United States is still awesome, but have we as a country ever come close to the ideal? Is it possible to reach the ideal?

It might not be possible, to reach the ideal. But what I currently see is, that justice, freedom and democracy are loosing very fast in all the world around us and fastest in those countries that once where the first democratic nations.

It is totally frightening and a bad sign for all humanity.

Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#24

Post by Gustomaximus »

finkel wrote: post #10
daurnimator wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should be paid using tax money based on how well they're doing their actual job So.... if the police do a bad job; and crime is rife; we get rid of the police department? Or conversely, if there is no crime, we give more and more money to the police?

Those are both extremely fallacious measures of whether the police are doing a good job.

Fallacious = based on a mistaken belief.

synonyms: erroneous, false, untrue, wrong, incorrect, faulty, flawed, inaccurate, inexact, imprecise, mistaken, misinformed, misguided, misleading, deceptive, delusive, delusory, illusory, sophistic, specious, fictitious, spurious, fabricated, distorted, made up, trumped up

Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#25

Post by mark-r »

DenisM wrote: post #3

The atrocities have been going on for decades, yet suddenly everyone is interested. Any ideas what changed, so that press is paying attention now?

The media attention has been going on for decades too. It's just that nothing changes.

Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#26

Post by MichaelGG »

cpayne wrote: post #19
DenisM wrote: post #3

The atrocities have been going on for decades, yet suddenly everyone is interested. Any ideas what changed, so that press is paying attention now?

As @roymurdock posted, the NY Times article has a video of the guy being quite explicit in the "benefits": http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-w...

He describes how excited the cops were to steal a guy's car. He even says "and gulp we had to give it back" because they didn't follow procedure. Put aside the inanity involved in stealing people's property in cases like this, it's a pure greed motive where cops are looking at the population to go raiding.

They sound little better than privateers.

Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#29

Post by nyolfen »

mark-r wrote: post #23

What surprises me is that this hasn't been declared unconstitutional. I thought you couldn't be deprived of property without due process? I know it has survived numerous court cases so I'm baffled.

it's almost as if the original american political ideals are corrupt enough to afford chattel property rights over human beings and aren't actually built on ethical grounds

Re: Police Can Seize and Sell Assets Even When the Owner Broke No Law

#30

Post by jeangenie »

mark-r wrote: post #23

What surprises me is that this hasn't been declared unconstitutional. I thought you couldn't be deprived of property without due process? I know it has survived numerous court cases so I'm baffled.

My guess w/r/t constitutionality would be that many seizures are executed in connection with drug prosecutions in which such rights are abridged. It's arguable this is also constitutionally suspect.
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