Castleberry Alabama-where the police force is a continuing crininal enterprise.
- Thread starter Maggot
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Asset forfeiture == police corruption. Here in CO we tried to amend the AF laws, but the hands in the cookie jar didn't like the prospect of having to live within the law themselves.
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you know its bad when the canadian govt gives a travel warning to their people about asset forfiture happening in the us
Asset forfeiture was a hugely effective weapon against cartels and high level traffickers. The biggest stick the govt had was going after the ill gotten proceeds. As with pretty much everything, it got abused.
Another game here in AL was to arrest people, almost always drug dealers, and file for asset forfeiture. They could then make a deal with the DA (who got a portion of the seized assets) to drop the charges in exchange for the assets. It's nothing short of organized bribery, and was the reason I refused to seek AF in most cases. What still happened though was that during drug raids we'd place the drugs, money, and other property into evidence. Even without seeking AF on my side, the DAs and Defense Attys would work out deals to dismiss the charges in exchange for the money. It was total horseshit.
What Castlebery and many other places are doing isn't Asset Forfeiture, AF is tied to criminal prosecutions, which isn't what's happening here. What's happening here is racketeering, kidnapping, extortion, theft, etc under color of law.
Another game here in AL was to arrest people, almost always drug dealers, and file for asset forfeiture. They could then make a deal with the DA (who got a portion of the seized assets) to drop the charges in exchange for the assets. It's nothing short of organized bribery, and was the reason I refused to seek AF in most cases. What still happened though was that during drug raids we'd place the drugs, money, and other property into evidence. Even without seeking AF on my side, the DAs and Defense Attys would work out deals to dismiss the charges in exchange for the money. It was total horseshit.
What Castlebery and many other places are doing isn't Asset Forfeiture, AF is tied to criminal prosecutions, which isn't what's happening here. What's happening here is racketeering, kidnapping, extortion, theft, etc under color of law.
So long as it's done after the application of due process, hell yea. Asset forfeiture before a CONVICTION is plain and simple unconstitutional and I don't care what contortions some court may use to justify it.
But again, the Second Amendment gets treated with kid gloves compared to the butt fucking taken by the Fourth over the last 60 years.
Seems there's more than one 'sjw group' that needs pruning, purging, and flushing.
Yet another item of business for the Law Abiding Citizens to take care of.
Yet another item of business for the Law Abiding Citizens to take care of.
There used to be a stretch of Interstate bear Cleveland that was absolutely notorious for this... And the 'feds finally took them down, IIRC. This was in the early '80s.
Back c. 1989 I was driving from Fayetteville to Vermont by way of Lynchburg,VA, where I was meeting a buddy for the ride up... few days off around 4th of July. I got pulled over in a tiny town in Virginia doing 40 in a... 40 zone. At 4 am. Only to be told it is a school zone. During Summer vacation. On the 4th of July. $85 ticket. They take a credit card. I asked the 'officer' about the time of day and the fact it was a federal holiday and was told, in no uncertain terms, "We think a lot of our children here." In other words... if I don't pay the ticket... I'll spend July 4th waiting for the judge to come back from fishing.
Every profession has its crooks. Compared to lawyers and politicians.... the police still manage to come off as saints!
We all know some slip through the cracks. For a while.
Cheers,
Sirhr
Back c. 1989 I was driving from Fayetteville to Vermont by way of Lynchburg,VA, where I was meeting a buddy for the ride up... few days off around 4th of July. I got pulled over in a tiny town in Virginia doing 40 in a... 40 zone. At 4 am. Only to be told it is a school zone. During Summer vacation. On the 4th of July. $85 ticket. They take a credit card. I asked the 'officer' about the time of day and the fact it was a federal holiday and was told, in no uncertain terms, "We think a lot of our children here." In other words... if I don't pay the ticket... I'll spend July 4th waiting for the judge to come back from fishing.
Every profession has its crooks. Compared to lawyers and politicians.... the police still manage to come off as saints!
We all know some slip through the cracks. For a while.
Cheers,
Sirhr
Sounds like Amherst Virginia, just north of Lynchburg (where I resided for a # of years).
The way it was explained to me in drivers’ ed many years ago was that school zone is a school zone 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year unless otherwise state on the sign. The reason given was, while it may not be school hours and school may not be in session, a driver on the road does not know what extracurricular activities may be occurring at the school (athletics, summer school, etc). Many school zones around here have blinking yellow lights during the hours of enforcement, and most have hours of enforcement on the sign. But, when in doubt (and by that I mean unless you know for certain that the school zone is not being enforced) it is prudent to act as though it is.
South Boston.... I looked on the map. Doesn't look like a one-horse-town, but just try and find a decent hair jelly!
Cheers,
Sirhr
Got a lot of family from that area. One of them made the walnut furniture you slept on. Used to be a respectful place. I guess times have changed since the demise of big tobacco. Youu get the $$$ where you can.
And yet some people loudly continue to protest that the police can do no wrong despite mounting evidence.
The whole we are just doing the evil that our bosses tell us to do line of garbage stopped working long ago even before WWII
For profit law enforcement and lack of accountability has nearly totally destroyed the public's trust in the police departments & law and order in general.
When the courts twisted logic to the extreme to claim that they could take stuff from people without a conviction because the "stuff" is an entity with no rights it all went straight to hell.
There are however those that refuse to see the truth because it would shatter their precious illusions.
Anytime the police, governments, cities, courts etc start looking at fines / seizures as a part of their budget and bonuses, you know justice has just died.
The whole we are just doing the evil that our bosses tell us to do line of garbage stopped working long ago even before WWII
For profit law enforcement and lack of accountability has nearly totally destroyed the public's trust in the police departments & law and order in general.
When the courts twisted logic to the extreme to claim that they could take stuff from people without a conviction because the "stuff" is an entity with no rights it all went straight to hell.
There are however those that refuse to see the truth because it would shatter their precious illusions.
Anytime the police, governments, cities, courts etc start looking at fines / seizures as a part of their budget and bonuses, you know justice has just died.
Wait a second boge, you're saying the DA negotiated deals to drop charges for assets and one way or another ended up personally owning some a them assets? And the DA ain't currently in DOJ custody? Why the fuck not?
From experience, the cops in Alabama were by far the most corrupt and shady fuckers I've ever met on a whole. TN isn't much better thanks to Marsha Blackburn, roadside forfeitures was her big scam and she did a LOT to champion that. And she was rewarded for it with a position in congress.
I got as far away from that scam of a state as I could, but they still think I'm some kind of cash cow for them since I was born there.
And the road traps? That's real, has been for a loooong time, especially in small towns with one road passing through. They'll typically have two cops, loaded with radar shit, going up and down, passing in the middle, and then turning around at the town limit and doing that repeatedly all day long. They pull over anyone with ANY problem, perceived or otherwise, and especially an out of state plate. They'll have tricky speed limits that change repeatedly and arbitrarily through town. The whole town is essentially one big trap, and it's town after town after town...
In Memphis, they used to keep several "unmarked" cars parked at the junction of I40 and the big intersection feeding to the other interstates, and they'd pull over and strip every RV, van or vehicle with out of state tags.
I could go on and on and on about what I saw down there... I was in a unique position to witness a lot of it.
WA cops have totally changed my mind about cops, but it took quite a while. Didn't, couldn't trust them. But in the last 15 years, I've ran into several good cops, some I've went so far as to write to their captain to applaud their actions. And they haven't been dicks when they pulled me over, even when I deserved it. I'll go out of my way to help the cops around here provided they remember they are part of the citizenry and not above it. Sure we have bad apples, but in general the whole barrel isn't rotten here like it is in other places.
And to the good cops in AL and TN, I apologize, I know there are good ones, but it's hard to discuss them with so much corruption going on.
I got as far away from that scam of a state as I could, but they still think I'm some kind of cash cow for them since I was born there.
And the road traps? That's real, has been for a loooong time, especially in small towns with one road passing through. They'll typically have two cops, loaded with radar shit, going up and down, passing in the middle, and then turning around at the town limit and doing that repeatedly all day long. They pull over anyone with ANY problem, perceived or otherwise, and especially an out of state plate. They'll have tricky speed limits that change repeatedly and arbitrarily through town. The whole town is essentially one big trap, and it's town after town after town...
In Memphis, they used to keep several "unmarked" cars parked at the junction of I40 and the big intersection feeding to the other interstates, and they'd pull over and strip every RV, van or vehicle with out of state tags.
I could go on and on and on about what I saw down there... I was in a unique position to witness a lot of it.
WA cops have totally changed my mind about cops, but it took quite a while. Didn't, couldn't trust them. But in the last 15 years, I've ran into several good cops, some I've went so far as to write to their captain to applaud their actions. And they haven't been dicks when they pulled me over, even when I deserved it. I'll go out of my way to help the cops around here provided they remember they are part of the citizenry and not above it. Sure we have bad apples, but in general the whole barrel isn't rotten here like it is in other places.
And to the good cops in AL and TN, I apologize, I know there are good ones, but it's hard to discuss them with so much corruption going on.
Oh yeah, that's how they (many of them) roll. I personally know of a cop that organized a drug raid, trumped up charges to put him away and take his property, had the listing removed from the public auction so there'd be little to no competition, and he bought this stolen family ranch for a song --all over a pound or so of marijuana! I installed this bastard's alarm system and he couldn't resist bragging about it. What an arrogant, creepy cocksucker. He got the alarm because he knew he did wrong and was afraid of reprisal. The prior 3 people in his position resigned due to death threats, I think one was actually ambushed.
Research Marsha Blackburn and what all she gained from roadside forfeitures. The reason? Why would this poor black man in an old car have $10k+ in cash unless he's a criminal? And since all money has coke traces on it, large amounts of money will have large coke traces, so it MUST be coke deal money, right? And these people have to get lawyers and spend years trying to get some of the money back. Most don't. It is and was a purely corrupt scam to steal from those most vulnerable in our society --poor people using cash.
Story of one guy that closed his bank account to pay off his house. He was on the way to do that. Old man, got pulled over, they harassed him and told him if he wanted to keep the money, he could go to jail and be charged. If he let them take it, he could go home and apply to get it back. He was in a catch 22 given all the circumstances. He lost his house as I recall, and never got the money back.
There's a documentary about this, they even interview Blackburn when she was DA and doing all this shit. Listen to her reasoning, it's so weak and she's obviously trying to defend her actions, which to any sane person sounds absurd. But it's in her own words, and they let her talk without editing the shit out of it too. No excuse.
Takes a marketin' feller to recognize another marketin' feller. Something 'bout the coiffure, I expect.
Jesus. That's fucked! How is it not considered extortion or forced bribery or something?
I should have been more precise. Not the DA personally. The DA's office would get a portion of seized assets. The PD had the "drug fund" comprised of direct seizures and proceeds from auctions.
The only real "personal" gain I saw was with seized vehicles. It used to be that if you seized a vehicle you had first choice on it as a take-home or work vehicle in narcotics. That held pretty true until something really nice was seized, then the bosses would take them. A guy I worked with did a helluva job on a long term investigation that ended up putting some very bad people away. At the end of that case he ended up with a top of the line Escalade and a few other nice assets being seized. Our boss promptly took the Escalade as her "own", to augment the Mercedes she was already driving from another officer's case. I drove a 10yr old pickup that had been seized long before I went to narcotics. The bosses would tell me that if I wanted a newer vehicle I should seize one. I refused to play that game and spent my whole time in that truck.
The upside to a lawfully run AF program is that it lessens the tax burden on citizens. The PD could purchase cars and equipment from the drug fund and not have to deplete the already inadequate budget. Unfortunately, politicians then say "if you want more money in the budget, you need to write more tickets, collect more fines, seize more assets" etc.
People + power + money is usually a recipe for some nasty shit
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