I got my latest New Yorker on my Kindle this morning, and while browsing through it, I ran into an article that sounded intriguing entitled Taken. I was utterly shocked and dumbfounded at what I read. I could not put down this article!
It turns out (why did have I never heard about this?) that municipalities, states, and even the Justice Department have the LEGAL right to deprive innocent citizens of their money, cars, homes, and even their children, if they are just SUSPECTED of wrongdoing.
In fact, there are entire police departments and district attorney offices that could not even FUNCTION without the money and goods so procured!
The article starts off with the story of a couple passing through the small town of Tenaha, Texas, with their two sons. They were on their way to buy a used car with several thousand dollars they had in cash in the glove compartment. In Tenaha, they are pulled over by a police car. The cops asked if they could search the car for drugs. They found the cash and a glass pipe that was a gift. They then told them to come to the police station, and escorted them there. Here's what happened:
The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright [the couple] that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.
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