Re:Judge orders Wyoming to return $92k seized by officers
by downandout on Monday December 04, 2017 @10:05PM
(#15849437)
Well, my comment specifically said that I basically felt that any cop doing civil forfeitures except in extremely limited circumstances is a dirtbag. Apparently these happen (at least) several thousand times per year. I’d argue that anyone who participates in these forfeitures after the fact or must approve them as they come in (DA’s, police captains, etc.), along with anyone that trains, orders, or encourages these officers to do them (again, except in all but the most obvious cases), is also a dirtbag. So for thousands of these to happen each year, a not-insignificant percentage of the 900,000 number you quoted are actively involved or at least complicit in the state-sponsored armed robbery of US citizens. That is unacceptable.
There are over 900,000 law enforcement officials in the US. If even a small percentage of them are exposed as corrupt or abusive, the headlines would be full of these stories, and yet most police officers would be unfairly implicated if you concluded that "most" police were abusing their powers.
We do need to find better ways to prosecute and deter abuse of power by law enforcement officials and prosecutors, but that should be done without undermining or implicating the officers who are doing their job lawfully.