Forfeiture laws in this Country have become, in my opinion, the single most corrupting influence on law enforcement, and it's past time it came to a screeching damned halt.
Police in Moorhead, Minnesota, will return a $12,000 tip they seized from a struggling local waitress, her attorney said on Thursday.
Stacy Knutson, a server at the Fryn' Pan Restaurant in Moorhead, got the tip back in November from a customer who left a takeout box inside the restaurant.
I don't want to violate anything by quoting the entire piece here, but this lady went out of her way to do the right thing, and even after the customer told her to keep the $12k she turned it in to the police, who told her she would get it back if it was unclaimed after 60 days.
Follow me across the squiggly...
At the end of the 60 days, however, the department told Knutson she would have to wait another 30 days to get the money.
Then police told her she would not receive the money at all because it smelled of marijuana and had been seized under a state law.
Link
The cops finally backed down, in this case, but horror stories of legalized theft from law-abiding citizens are all too common across the country, and the "War on (some) Drugs" has become nothing more than a weak excuse for police departments to seize practically anything from practically anybody for little or no reason. They don't have to prove you guilty of anything, or prove much of anything, to just take your money or stuff.
In Zimbabwe they might stand for such blatant, public corrupt practices; here we have put up with this crap too long.