cannabisnews.com: Police Breaking Drug Seizure Laws!





Police Breaking Drug Seizure Laws!
Posted by FoM on January 10, 1999 at 09:33:18 PT

The Star's eye-opening investigation last Sunday showed that law enforcement agencies from Missouri and the federal government have conspired to divert millions of dollars from Missouri schoolchildren. Under state law, money seized in drug cases is required to go to public school districts, except in rare and special circumstances. 
Instead, however, some police and sheriff's departments and the Missouri Highway Patrol have designed a covert way of keeping the money for their own use. When police discover a horde of drug money, they ship it to a federal agency as a way to avoid the Missouri legal requirement to surrender the money to public education. The federal agency keeps some of the money and returns the rest of the money to police. Voila! After the money is laundered, the local police agencies contend it's legal for them to keep. Police excuse this blatant violation of state law by insisting that once they turn the money over to a federal agency it belongs to that agency and no longer is covered by Missouri law. Police further contend that when they get money back from a federal agency, they sometimes use it to fight the war on drugs so everybody ought to be happy. There are a number of problems with these arrangements. One of the most flagrant is that police, knowing full well that their actions are suspect, have taken pains to hide their moves by secreting records of the seizure transactions. When confronted by The Star with evidence of the money-laundering scheme, law enforcement agencies -- ones pledged to uphold the law and bring lawbreakers to justice -- insisted that records of how they handled the drug money will be kept sealed. Clearly, that is unacceptable. Records of actions by tax-paid agencies should be public records so that the public can determine how well or poorly the agencies are carrying out the job the public pays them to do. The obstinacy of Kansas City police on this point is particularly problematic. Don't officers in the Kansas City Police Department remember how much trouble they got into by hiding the existence of the notorious secret slush fund T-account? Sunshine and openness are the friends of responsible citizens and responsible public agencies. If agencies are taking actions they feel must be covered up, there probably is good reason for halting those actions. There are two basic underlying problems here, as we see it. First, Missouri lawmakers were correct to craft laws that were designed to discourage police agencies from seizing money or property for their own use. Efforts to thwart that goal are insupportable. Second, lawmakers may have been in error to direct appropriately seized money to schools. Yes, the schools can certainly use the money because they never have enough resources to do everything positive they could for children. But, giving the public the notion that seized funds would go to education sets up false expectations among the citizenry. Many Missourians still remember being lied to by politicians about the way legalized gambling money was going to solve all the schools' financial problems. Gambling did not do that; nor would drug money. There are no easy short-cuts to funding public education. However, even if lawmakers set up exaggerated expectations, they did write laws that clearly insist seized drug money go to schools. And law enforcement has set out to deliberately keep that money away from students. Until the law is changed, it says what it means and means what it says. Drug money is to go to schools, not to fund law enforcement fantasies. Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon and Gov. Mel Carnahan have made the right kind of noises about fixing this unsavory situation. Lawmakers have clamored about passing new legislation to prevent this kind of money-laundering. We're not sure new laws are needed. It strikes us that authorities such as Nixon and U.S. Attorney Steve Hill ought to see to it that the current laws are enforced as written. The easiest way to get that done is for Nixon, Carnahan and other leaders to insist on opening the records to demonstrate how widespread this problem is. Once the records are open, it should be clear what other repairs ought to be made. All content © 1999 The Kansas City Star 
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Comment #3 posted by beez on January 18, 2001 at 00:07:50 PT:
shit
fuck the police
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Comment #2 posted by Reggie on April 18, 2000 at 10:32:41 PT
weed
I like to smoke pot everyday. It is my friend.
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Comment #1 posted by Stick on January 10, 1999 at 09:48:22 PT
How do we police the police?
There's no stopping the big money in drugs and forfeitures. Even cops will lie and cheat to get a piece of the action! Now to find that cops have devised ways to devert drug money from the school children to their own personal gain, this makes the police look worse then ever!
Stick's Home Page
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