Property being taken by cops? Gosh, we're outraged!

The continuing saga of the now-disbanded Twin Cities' Gang Strike Force has caused the Minnesota Legislature to perk up it's ears and identify an opportunity to make some headlines. Here is the StarTribune's headline and sub-head from Tuesday, Dec. 29th:

Minnesota Legislature to take hard look at forfeiture rules
The Gang Strike Force's meltdown could lead to new legislation governing property seizures by law enforcement agencies.

As reporter Randy Furst stated in the article: "the Legislature is swirling with proposals to dramatically change the rules governing forfeiture".

Isn't it encouraging that our elected officials have uncovered a serious problem and are anxious to do something about it? They've found that some individuals were violated by the rotten Gang Strike Force, and they're going to put a stop to it. They're going to protect us from any more such violations.

This is so typical of political hypocrisy. Asset forfeiture has been around for a long time; the Gang Strike Force just took a perfectly normal, legal process and pushed it more blatantly rather than keep it "under the radar" like most police forces.

Yes, asset forfeiture is legal, made so by the legislature who is now pretending to be up in arms about it. They made it legal for law enforcement agencies to take property "involved in a crime", and keep the property for their own use or sale. Naturally, they didn't restrict what "involved in a crime" really meant, so police forces have done very much whatever they damn well pleased.

Asset forfeiture is so embedded into government that it is a major source of income to police departments, and they have to share the booty with other parts of government. The rules were set so that if your property was taken by police, you have to prove that it shouldn't have been... a serious form of guilty until proven innocent... by you, at your expense. It's so easy to take assets that you don't even need a crime, or even a good suspicion of one. If a police force sees an asset they want, they can find a way to get it.

I first wrote about asset forfeiture 6 and a half years ago, and it was a well-established ripoff long before that. The FBI became so expert at doing it that they ran courses for police departments around the country. Government has warehouses full of stolen property.

Read my 2003 article "Another knock on your door" to learn more about how widespread and grievous asset forfeiture is. You might also want to take a look at my 2005 article "How much justice can you afford?" to see how having enough assets to be forfeited can get a criminal off the hook.

I wrote a short blog several years ago about a local case... a well-known sports star was arrested for drunk driving in his luxury SUV. Several local police departments involved in his arrest got into a dispute over which of them should get to keep the SUV, or how they should divide the spoils.

That the Minnesota Legislature should be up in arms about asset forfeiture now is complete hypocrisy. What they're really upset about is that the Gang Strike Force didn't keep good records, pushed it too far, and didn't spread the booty around properly to other government agencies. They didn't STEAL BY THE RULES.

You betcha... they'll take "a hard look" at asset forfeiture, and they'll do no more than tighten the controls to make sure the cities, counties, and state get their split of the stolen goods. Remember this next election, when legislators point to their participation in correcting asset forfeiture laws.