Not only is civil asset forfeiture so ridiculously wrong, these departments are literally money laundering as well. It's theft, racketeering, and organized criminal activity. Absolutely despicable.
Wrong word again="ARE Stealing! And very arrogantly at that. More than one case that a retiring or separating U.S. soldier has had his entire Military Separation Pay Stolen by the LEO's. One had his money taken and his truck and left standing on the side of the highway. Worse, even when they learn that their victim is innocent, they refuse to give the money back telling the victim that sueing then will cost more that taken, if they can ever afford to do so. Laughing all the way to their proverbial pocket. I have no doubt that eventually someone is going to treat these highway robber's like the highwaymen they are and it is going to be bad! KnifeMaker
Stealing and "civil forfeiture" are synonyms. Forfeiture is not and can't be legit before a conviction, and even then only things demonstrably involved with the crimes convicted. It's not mere stealing though, it's armed robbery.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. Also, the fact they aren't bragging about record drug seizures should tell you everything you need to know about their denial of policing for profit.
Police love drug prohibition, after all, no other policy or law has given them more power and money in the past 50 years Fun Facts: -Police unions have spent more money than any other entity on opposing legislation and ballot initiatives aimed at drug law reform -96% of no-knock warrants are drug related -To thirds of all new prisoners since 1980 have been drug offenders
Worse. Mysterious cash arrives without convictions? Sounds like a huge risk for a bribery corridor. Look for the patterns in the data and you will see who ia already doing this. Cartels will exploit this.
What baffles me is how something so clearly unconstitutional and even spelled out in the constitution has been declared perfectly legal. This is just a very poignant example that it doesn't always matter if someone is obviously in the wrong, sometimes there isn't a guard at the door. I hope that in the future they have to return almost every dime of of seizures and end up bankrupt over it.
sadly it's not that surprising, just look all the shit that has happened with 2A related stuff, things like "assault weapon" bans and mag capacity bans have been ruled unconstitutional multiple times by federal courts, up to and including SCOTUS, yet for some reason certain state and local goverments are still allowed to uphold these blatently illegal laws and even pass new ones, basically openly pissing in the face of the federal courts. SCOTUS made it perfectly clear in the 2022 bruen ruling that all of these bans are by default unconstitutional unless lawmakers can provide some kind of historical precedent dating back to before the 2A was written, yet like I said, it's been nearly 2 years already and these illegal laws still stand, with many more new ones being proposed and even passed as we speak. this shit will never end.
The Institute for Justice website has a Civil Forfeiture Laws map of states that shows which states have implemented some reforms. It's a disgusting practice that needs to stop.
Every state can outlaw it..cops will turn it over to the feds..magically get 80%of the value of money or property from the feds..you want your money back sue the feds who don't have it either
It is what Steve Lehto has been saying for some time. Governmental agencies involved in Civil Asset Forfeiture are no better than the criminals they claim to be going after. It is as ludicrous as a police agency opening up a working brothel so they can catch "johns" but only arresting them after the act.
@@jasonshults368Yea but the law doesn’t apply to police. They could drive by and bash you on the head with their baton on video and they will investigate themselves and find no policy violations.
Yes but have some fun with it... take all the money away from the cops outright. Yes, even cash they have right now should be taken away from the cops. In fact go back 5 years based on records and reallocate the money they seized for: Public school music and arts programs Public Libraries Public parks Low income assistance programs Then we'll see how many still try to take money when they can't get anything for it themselves.
I used to live in a town where police would stake out check cashing places, and then stop Mexicans as they left and seized their money. They would take an entire weeks pay from a hard working man, just because they could. If they got someone that was paid bi-monthly, they could make a family homeless when the victim couldn't make their rent. You wonder where so many homeless come from, this needs to be looked at. Many people can not pay their rent after being robbed by police.
This is something I thought about. It's cruel and heartless. Right now if you're on disability you aren't allowed to have more than, I believe, $2000. If you do they cut your monthly check. If you have that much money and don't report having it (and you get caught) the penalties are ridiculous. You are set up to fail, it's impossible to follow the rules and survive. So how is anyone supposed to save enough money for ANYTHING! If you have to move, first and last month's rent plus security is waaay more than $2000. If you need a car, how are you going to get one that actually runs for less than $2000? Plus register and insure it? NOT POSSIBLE! That leaves you with 2 options: carry the cash on your person, or hide it in your home. If you're in an area with lots of break ins you're going to carry it. This leaves a LOT of seniors at risk of becoming homeless. The way the "rules" are set up it's literally impossible to follow them and survive. I know I worry about it all the time. The way our government treats it's citizens is just disgusting. What rocket scientist thought this up? It makes me wonder if there isn't some ulterior motive. Are they deliberately trying to force seniors into homelessness? Kill them off? Warehouse them where they can take all that money back? It doesn't take a genius to realize $2000 is NOTHING. Especially these days. Renting a room is around a thousand plus a week. That doesn't necessarily include utilities. Or the deposits for utilities. How can you do the right thing and survive?
I worry when traveling to buy cars or equipment in cash, not because I'm afraid random criminals will steal it, but because the police have taken up the practice with the backing of the state and federal government. Sad state of affairs.
Because their funding comes from crime. Taxes are just petty cash to them. But if they dont wave their arms about defunding visa vi taxes they are worried that the politicians will come for a cut of the criminal proceeds. Its all a shell game. All of it.
@methos424 yes truly. The US police (118 bil from 2019 data) have the third largest military budget after the USA (731 bil) and China (236 bil). Nearly twice that of Russia (65 bil) or Saudi Arabia (61bil).
Fun fact: there have been years where law enforcement seize more cash, property, and assets than all forms of theft combined They're quite literally the biggest thieves in the country in terms of total dollar value
@@ellencox8415 speed isn't a crime you dope . its just a moving violation . note you dont have to go to court most of the time because its not a crime ...
The problem is that most of the seized assets are not seized from people who have committed a crime. There are police departments who literally pull over armored trucks just to sieze the money inside. Feds sieze cash from people at airports without any criminal charge.
I would add a conviction tied to the money in a timely manner. They should not be allowed to drag the case on for years. I would think no more than 6 months to make a case and start prosecution. The money should have to be “stored” in a separate interest bearing account, with the legitimate owner to receive all proceeds of said account. Also, there needs to be a clause that should the government not prove its case they must pay all legal fees plus a surcharge
@@stevenwoodward5923 Better to spend that money properly training the morons costing us BILLIONS in civil litigation EACH YEAR now... I've known the US Constitution since I was 4 years old. Now we just need to spend more than 6 months certifying police officers who CLEARLY don't know it. I can show you 1.7 million videos JUST ON RU-vid, JUST IN THE USA, that absolutely hands down prove what I just typed is correct. LEARN!
Enforcement for pay is inherently corrupt. Civil asset forfeiture needs to be completely overhauled or thrown out. A minimum first step is that ALL funds from civil asset forfeiture should go to the state or federal general fund. NONE of the proceeds should go to the law enforcement, courts, or city where the forfeiture occurred. This would help to remove the financial incentive.
In a new study published by the Institute for Justice, Seattle University economist Brian Kelly tests both of those claims, that civil asset forfeiture lowers drug use and crime, and finds no evidence to support them. Kelly analyzed data from five states that use forfeiture extensively: Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, and Minnesota. He reports no statistically significant relationship between increased forfeiture revenue and lower drug use rates or higher crime clearance rates. To the contrary, Kelly found that clearance rates for violent crimes tend to fall as forfeiture revenue rises. That result is consistent with the criticism that the lure of found money diverts law enforcement resources from predatory crimes to drug offenses. Kelly also found that forfeiture revenue tends to rise as economic conditions worsen, which likewise suggests the practice is driven by financial incentives rather than public safety concerns.
I've lived in Charlotte and the Charlotte area since 1992. Huntersville is a suburb of Charlotte on the north side of the county. Welcome to N.C. I've already written my state rep on this issue in our state and our federal rep on that bill. Although we are a Republican-run legislature, both parties tend to lean towards this highway robbery. I'm not holding my breath on this. That's why I never carry cash.
I lived in Lexington about 20 years ago, that's Davidson county. Remember Sheriff Gerald Hege? He was buying himself motorcycles and crap with money he seized from people. Taking furniture from "suspected drug houses" and then put that furniture into his own houses. Beating up jail inmates on a daily basis.. the list goes on and on.. The worst part, is what happened to him for all those things he did. Look up Davidson County Sheriff Gerald Hege. They took away the motorcycles he purchased, and then bought him one as a "severance package" because he was allowed to retire after being charged with 18 or something indictments.
The equitable sharing used to deflect lawsuits is so absurd. If I were to rob a bank and use the money to pay my taxes, when the courts order that I repay it, I'm not going to be able to say "I gave it to the IRS. You need to collect it from them". The court is going to say "Money is fungible. You stole it, you need to pay it back".
The laws are for all of us peasants to follow, not for those who see themselves as above any law written, or those who can ignore them with zero consequences. It's long past time we ended the two-tier legal system this nation has.
Use the 16 million for better purposes. Then remove qualified immunity for individual officers and stop having the taxpayers pay for legal settlements resulting from successful lawsuits against the PD and individual officers. That would quickly weed out the bad apples.
If "all seizures are connected to large-scale crime rings," and some people have not been investigated or prosecuted, wouldn't that imply that the police are not following up on the activity of large-scale crime rings? It would seem that the police are content to merely fill their coffers without doing the work to fight crime? I'd much rather have the actual criminals being arrested and prosecuted. After all, if there are large-scale crime rings out therewho suddenly need money, wouldn't they then belikely to commit further crimes to get more money? I'd think that the police should start investigating this.
Nearly all seizures *are* connected to large scale crime rings. What else would you call an organization with tons of members that overwhelmingly targets innocent people, committing armed robbery at scale? In terms of being "more likely to commit further crimes", what do you believe we observe as a trend from civil forfit-armed robbery over the past 30 years? Note that in its heyday, the mafia also suppressed other criminals, sort of like how the current crime rings do so.
Civil Asset Forfeiture is familiar to some people I've known to vacation in Mexico, who have encountered the local police that 'allowed' these people to be released (not actually booked on a charge) for a 'small fee' (whatever was in their pockets). It's extortion in Mexico, but in the US we call it Civil Asset Forfeiture.
I was held hostage in a dirt floor Mexican cell once...true story. They wanted my parents to send money, I told them my parents are poor (they are) but they didn't believe me, so they held me for three more days and then let me go when they realized they weren't getting anything
@@post-leftluddite And for some reason people still go there for vacations. Huh. I know *I'll* never cross that border. Just to add, a coworker's cousin went there. The "Cops" found a spent bullet casing under the seat. The took the car, put them in jail. After 5 figures of some kind of money they were able to get back to the US. The car was just gone.
At least in Mexico it is called what it actually is and they are happy with a fee dollars, in the US they can take everything you own without any proof of you doing anything wrong
In some states the voters put heavy restrictions on asset forfeiture basically banning local police from conducting them. But the police found a way around it. The Feds told local police just give it to us we have no restrictions on asset forfeiture and we will give you back 80% and just keep a nominal fee of 20%. Local police defend themselves saying we didn't conduct asset forfeiture the feds did. It's basically a 20% fee to wash the money.
@@katiekane5247 How do you know so much about police training? Are you secretly a cop? Those "training" events are supposed to be a secret just like the "Tailhook" "training" the Navy used to do.
Can we make a citizens arrest of the officer transporting it? I suspect he may do something nefarious with it...he's obviously guilty at that point because he has it...hmmm.
Eminent domain has legitimate uses though. It needs to be more narrowly defined to stop eminent domain abuse. I agree that civil asset forfeitures and qualified immunity should just be abolished though.
This money should never be going to the police department that seized it. It incentivizes terrible behavior and we've seen the results plenty of times on this channel already.
How this is still legal shocks the conscience. If the police want to seize a suspected criminal's assets then there's a thing for that. It's called CRIMINAL asset forfeiture. Also, I feel like the law enforcement agency that seized the assets should be required to pay the citizen's attorney fees if they end up losing and have to give the money back. Maybe that would help de-incentivise them from taking cash from people that they know haven't committed a crime.
@@nukepuke932 Most realistic would be to convince enough people to oust DA and put in a DA that will criminally charge police when they commit crimes. Impeach every judge who won't apply the law if possible, otherwise go very hard and public about their misconduct similar to how cancel campaigns work now to get them voted out at levels where voting for them is a thing. You might even be able to bait some cancel culture people into jumping on that, they love that stuff, and in this case at least the targets are criminal conspirator with recorded criminal conduct rather than someone with wrongthink. I don't hold my breath on this happening short term, but compared to other options the difficulty is getting enough people on board/spreading the message. The last resort option is in a state with a governor that dislikes armed robbery, organize against forfeiture attempts with a hotline where any stop where it's attempted risks more bodies opposed to armed robbery than armed robbers. This IS a last resort, because it will escalate really fast and sooner or later it would force soldiers to determine whether they care about the constitution or whether they're willing to disregard it enough to back armed robbers with force. I would much rather large organized voting blocks overwhelm voting at the local level and start hammering the armed robbers with criminal charges instead of using 2A. If you really want to be cheeky about it, you could forfeit the assets of those convicted of armed robbery...
There was a "training video" released in 1985 how to spend this kind of money properly. It was called Brewster's Millions starring John Candy and Richard Prior 🤣
It was so bad about 10 years ago that even the loathsome Eric Holder was telling the Sheriffs and PDs to stop being so aggressive with it. It's not just money that can be seized. These people can civil forfeiture damn near any property, including your house for example.
They took a nice big stainless steel barbeque from a guy I know. And a couple hundred in cash. From me they took fly fishing waders and about $300 worth of flies. Those little tufts of hair on a hook ain't cheap. I guess those flies were suspected of being the fruit of a crime. And I've seen that guy cook, the grill was definitely about to be used to commit a crime against meat.
9:50 - My friend once represented himself vs. two city attorneys (for a $72 loitering ticket, of all things) and won his case. "I have a 100% success rate at trial, *which is more than I can say for those two attorneys!!!"*
Had a call recently asking to donate to law enforcement. Told them that when they stop stealing money from innocent people through civil asset forfeiture, I might think about it.
That is literally why they have to be careful with how they spend this money. Not only is money from civil forfeiture extremely heavily controlled on what they can spend it on. The department itself wants to be careful not to spend it on other things that could otherwise be covered by their budget because the city will cut their budget. If you find a $50 bill between the couch cushions and nobody claims it, mom will congratulate you on finding the money and then suspend your allowance for the next six weeks
They should do what the UK Post Office did with amounts recovered from the wrongful prosecution of the local postmasters - pay out cash bonuses. Policing for profit.
Theft abounds in Amerika -- under the color of law: civil asset forfeiture, eminent domain, income taxes, home taxes, personal property taxes, liens and forfeitures, adverse possession, local government permitting ordinances (a cost without benefit (usually anyway) to use your home), local gov't mandated HOAs and their violation, fine, lien and foreclosure actions, and I'm sure there's many, many more.
that's Steve for shining a light on this because the public has no idea it's going on. some people will argue with me very passionately about civil asset forfeiture saying no it's impossible because ......
@@lukedolce8583 which is a blatant violation of 4th amendment (plus due process). Property cannot actually commit crime and doesn't have rights, that's absolute bogus fantasy courts colluded with the executive branch to fabricate in order to steal property. Part of the reason government is trying to suppress 2A is that it's the last recourse against this behavior when checks and balances break down. The fact that police that do this aren't mass criminally charged is objective evidence that checks and balances failed. But a random person getting mugged on roadside isn't going to win a gunfight, it would need to be more organized than that. Which the constitution also provides for.
....i'm laughing the whole time I was watching this, great video my man 😂. This same issue happened to me, while the authorities TRIED to Seize my $43,500 Cash & my 2k Rolex as Evidence. ...I told them you Steal from me I Arrest you for theft! Even my passengers knew the Constitution Aswell, so they "police" threatened my passengers, my passengers called the state police while the other passengers stepped out of the vehicle since this was NOT a Traffic nor legal stop/interaction. They then asked for the names & badge #'s of the peace officers that are on scene, they began giving unlawful commands, they "local police" started walking towards the vehicle right when the state police showed up. ...after all was calmed down good thing Us the people still remain Strong ! P.s. I was saving my cash for a 97 Diablo, my dream car. Those gestapo/swine wanna to be's, are a joke! ain't touching my stuff! Lol 😂
Not one penny of that should be spendable at their discretion. I'm not going to say there shouldn't be ANY asset forfeiture, how else will abandoned property be dealt with? The idea that asset forfeiture should exist to deprive drug war defendants of competent legal counsel (the original purpose) is abhorrent and disgusting. What it's turned into is so much worse though, police just randomly stealing from people full stop. That justifies retribution, not merely calls for reform. Not a single participant is ignorant of what they are taking part of.
If they’re not gonna do the right thing and give the money back to whoever they stole it from, they might consider doing the next best thing, and put the remaining balance toward paying their normal expenses, such as salaries and operating costs, and then refund some money to the taxpayers because we know they take money from the taxpayers to pay for the criminal and negligent acts of bad apple officers. How could this option be overlooked?
I know how they can spend it. Help out a veteran like me and my wife by buying us a house in our old age. Tired of renting on a fixed income. I’m 71 and she’s 65.
I don't usually comment on a video I haven't watched but I cannot watch this video because the subject/title alone makes my blood boil. Thank you Steve, for raising awareness of this type of outrage.
Man, these lads gotta be disrupting massive organized crime every week to get that kind of dosh. Surely this is all perfectly documented and justifiable, right? Shirley.
I lived in Lexington about 20 years ago, that's Davidson county. Remember Sheriff Gerald Hege? He was buying himself motorcycles and crap with money he seized from people. Taking furniture from "suspected drug houses" and then put that furniture into his own houses. Beating up jail inmates on a daily basis.. the list goes on and on.. The worst part, is what happened to him for all those things he did. Look up Davidson County Sheriff Gerald Hege. They took away the motorcycles he purchased, and then bought him one as a "severance package" because he was allowed to retire after being charged with 18 or something indictments.
