Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-wish-list-when-deciding-which-assets-to-seize.html?_r=0
A Buick LeSabre was seized in September by the Robbinsville Police Department in New Jersey. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times
The
seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property
from suspected criminals. Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose
of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts
counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice
cars.
In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr.[right],
the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.”
And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could
not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar.
“A
guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,” he explained. “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.’ ”
Mr. Connelly was talking about a practice known as civil asset forfeiture,
which allows the government, without ever securing a conviction or
even filing a criminal charge, to seize property suspected of having
ties to crime. The practice, expanded during the war on drugs in the
1980s, has become a staple of law enforcement agencies because it
helps finance their work. It is difficult to tell how much has been
seized by state and local law enforcement, but under a Justice
Department program, the value of assets seized has ballooned to $4.3 billion in the 2012 fiscal year from $407 million in 2001. Much of that money is shared with local police forces.
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