That's against the law, officer.
Civil forfeiture laws have been covered
here before. John Oliver has also covered
it. The below video is from
this past weekend.
South Gate Police Chief Randy Davis told the NBC affiliate that the officer seen in the video works for the US Marshals Service. Chief Davis also specifically pointed out the fact that that the South Gate Police Department was not involved in the apparent camera-smashing incident, which he said took place on Sunday.
What was apparently happening was that the police and federal agents were making a drug bust in the small community of South Gate, California. A woman began filming the law enforcement action when one of the unidentified officers ran at her, grabbed her phone, threw it on the ground, then stepped on it.
A new investigation into civil asset forfeiture in California by Drug Policy Alliance begins to illuminate just how big the drug busting business is in South Gate, and also why there seem to be so many federal agents there.
South Gate Police Captain Darren Arakawa says that high forfeiture revenues reflect the city’s longstanding commitment to drug enforcement. [...]
South Gate has seized $8,091,207; San Jose, whose population is ten times greater, has federal forfeiture revenues of $2,651,112.
There are under
100,000 residents in South Gate. Yet, South Gate is making money hand over fist in civil asset forfeiture.
Every year South Gate anticipates how much revenue it will earn the following year. The anticipated revenue has tended to grow. In FY 2008 the city expected to collect $230,000 the following year, by FY 2013 it projected revenues of $1.2 million from forfeitures the following year.
South Gate failed to keep records related to its participation in federal forfeiture for five years as required by the federal Department of Justice.
How did this happen? Well, South Gate has had a crime problem. They seem to have a drug problem. Is the solution more police? Kinda.
The focus on drug enforcement raises questions in light of other facts. The city has a violent crime rate that is 31% higher than the state average, and a property crime rate that is 6% higher than the state average. And the community of South Gate has relatively few police officers relative to the population to address these problems. In 2013, the city had 0.72 full-time sworn officers per 1,000 residents, more than three times fewer than the national average of 2.3 officers per 1000 residents.
The police force was cut from 144 personnel in FY 2009 to 117 in 2012. As the police department shed overall staff it increased the number of officers assigned to asset seizure. In FY 2010, 11 personnel were cut from the force while two positions were added to asset seizure efforts.
Here's an interesting fact:
Law enforcement in California keeps 65 percent of all revenues generated through civil forfeiture.
Wow, that's a lot of money!
Here's another interesting fact:
Federal law provides as much as 80 percent of the proceeds to state law enforcement and stacks the deck against property owners.
You don't need to invest any money in a child's education to do that math. Having the federals involved is just better business when you're stealing people's stuff. According to
South Gate's budget, their $39+ million in General Fund sources, $2,979,856 come from "Other Sources."
"Other sources" sticks out
The Drug Policy Alliance investigation puts South Gate's revenue over the past 9 years from asset forfeiture, to be close to $8 million. It has also been growing exponentially the past few years.
How South Gate spends it seized funds.
Most of it is spent on overtime for the law enforcement that have to work overtime to get that money. It's a revenue stream that becomes a snake eating its tail.
The hopes now are that with Eric Holder announcing the end of the Federal "Equitable Sharing" program, this type of behavior can be curtailed. Even though there are big loopholes, and how much money will stop flowing to the municipalities is pretty suspect, it will still be a lot of money these municipalities are going to be losing. The communities who have been most terrorized by their law enforcement agencies are not going to soon forget how they were treated. If we are lucky stopping the police and the government from literally robbing people is a start to more positive change.
The report is worth reading—it's eye-opening.
You can watch video of what all that money gets you below the fold.