mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-12-27 08:19:26 -05:00
62 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
62 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
|
Police Forces Keep the Take
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The ``loot'' that's coming back to police forces all over the nation has
|
|||
|
|
redefined law-enforcement success. It now has a dollar sign in front of
|
|||
|
|
it.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
For nearly eighteen months, undercover Arizona State Troopers worked as
|
|||
|
|
drug couriers driving nearly 13 tons of marijuana from the Mexican
|
|||
|
|
border to stash houses around Tucson. They hoped to catch the Mexican
|
|||
|
|
suppliers and distributors on the American side before the dope got on
|
|||
|
|
the streets. // But they overestimated their ability to control the
|
|||
|
|
distribution. Almost every ounce was sold the minute they dropped it at
|
|||
|
|
the houses. // Even though the troopers were responsible for tons of
|
|||
|
|
drugs getting loose in Tucson, the man who supervised the setup still
|
|||
|
|
believes it was worthwhile. It was ``a success from a cost-benefit
|
|||
|
|
standpoint,'' says former assistant attorney-general John Davis. His
|
|||
|
|
reasoning: It netted 20 arrests and at least $3 million for the state
|
|||
|
|
forfeiture fund.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
``That kind of thinking is what frightens me,'' says Steve Sherick, a
|
|||
|
|
Tucson attorney. ``The government's thirst for dollars is overcoming any
|
|||
|
|
long-range view of what it is supposed to be doing, which is fighting
|
|||
|
|
crime.'' // George Terwilliger III, associate deputy attorney general in
|
|||
|
|
charge of the U.S. Justice Department's program emphasizes that
|
|||
|
|
forfeiture does fight crime, and ``we're not at all apologetic about the
|
|||
|
|
fact that we do benefit (financially) from it.'' // In fact, Terwilliger
|
|||
|
|
wrote about how the forfeiture program financially benefits police
|
|||
|
|
departments in the 1991 Police Buyer's Guide of Police Chief Magazine.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Between 1986 and 1990, the U.S. Justice Department generated $1.5
|
|||
|
|
billion from forfeiture and estimates that it will take in $500 million
|
|||
|
|
this year, five times the amount it collected in 1986. // District
|
|||
|
|
attorney's offices throughout Pennsylvania handled $4.5 million in
|
|||
|
|
forfeitures last year; Allegheny County (ED: Pgh is in Allegheny County)
|
|||
|
|
$218,000, and the city of Pittsburgh, $191,000 -- up from $9,000 four
|
|||
|
|
years ago. // Forfeiture pads the smallest towns coffers. In Lexana,
|
|||
|
|
Kan, a Kansas City suburb of 29,000, ``we've got about $250,000 moving
|
|||
|
|
in court right now,'' says narcotic detective Don Crohn. // Despite the
|
|||
|
|
huge amounts flowing to police departments, there are few public
|
|||
|
|
accounting procedures. Police who get a cut of the federal forfeiture
|
|||
|
|
funds must sign a form saying merely they will use it for ``law
|
|||
|
|
enforcement purposes.'' // To Philadelphia police that meant new air
|
|||
|
|
conditioning. In Warren County, N.J., it meant use of a forfeited yellow
|
|||
|
|
Corvette for the chief assistant prosecutor. //
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
{At this point in the article there is a picture of three people in
|
|||
|
|
an empty apartment, with the following caption:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Judy Mulford, 31, and her 13-year old twins, Chris, left, and
|
|||
|
|
Jason, are down to essentials in their Lake Park, Fla., home,
|
|||
|
|
which the government took in 1989 after claiming her husband,
|
|||
|
|
Joseph, stored cocaine there. Neither parent has been
|
|||
|
|
criminally charged, but in April a forfeiture jury said Mrs.
|
|||
|
|
Mulford must forfeit the house she bought herself with an
|
|||
|
|
insurance settlement. The Mulfords have divorced, and she has
|
|||
|
|
sold most of her belongings to cover legal bills. She's asked
|
|||
|
|
for a new trial and lives in the near-empty house pending a
|
|||
|
|
decision. }
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
--- Renegade v6-27 Beta
|
|||
|
|
* Origin: Shark's Mouth 313-658-1110 750 MEGS Dual Amiga/IBM (23:313/108)
|
|||
|
|
|