Middle Tennessee Police Profiting Off Drug Trade

[Uncle Joe]

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14643085/police-profiting-off-drug-trade

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A major NewsChannel 5 investigation has uncovered serious questions about Tennessee's war on drugs. Among the questions: are some police agencies more concerned about making money off the drugs, than stopping them?

At the center of this months-long investigation are laws that let officers pull driver over looking for cash. Those officers do not even have to file criminal charges against a person to take his/her money.

(snip)

In fact, Interstate 40 has become a major profit center for Tennessee law enforcement -- with officers stopping and often searching out-of-state vehicles. It's because of a state law that lets them seize money simply based on the suspicion that it's linked to drug trafficking.

"This is really highway shakedowns coming to the U.S.," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney with the Washington-based Institute for Justice.

Much more on link.

At the end one trucker was offered his freedom just for handing over his money.

This is just another example of how the insane, dysfunctional, Constitution raping so called "War on Drugs" is corrupting our nation.

[villager]

1. Of course, insane, dysfunctional, Constitution-raping cops enforce these "laws"

It's a profession that attracts a certainly personality type, alas...

[Uncle Joe]

5. The police are required to enforce the laws but the ultimate perpetrators are

the Congress, Presidents, state legislators and Governors for passing such ill-thought out, asinine laws that tear the nation down instead of building it up.

It's these draconian, freedom raping laws, turning what should an educational, medical, and/or personal privacy issue in to criminal ones which serves as breeding grounds for this type of institutional corruption.

Meanwhile we lead the world with a record breaking 2.3 million prisoners and violent offenders are released early to make room for non-violent but profitable drug offenders.

We've created a for profit prison industry with the sole motivation of making sure the "land of the free" criminalizes its' citizens.

[Dawson Leery]

8. Coppers are but the lowly tools of the powerful.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Exactly.

[Dawson Leery]

13. And we are supposed to feel sorry for them.

:eyes:

[Uncle Joe]

17. No we're supposed to treat the disease instead of the symptom.

Where did you get the idea that we should feel sorry for them?

[Dawson Leery]

19. The mass media gives the perception that police have

the most difficult job around. When it comes to fatalities, police work ranks at #35.

[Romulox]

2. "Just don't smoke dope!" isn't really a defense, it turns out. nt

[Aerows]

6. I don't smoke dope

But I am typically guilty of carrying cash. I never envisioned that made me a drug dealer, and that having out of state plates would indicate probable cause to stop me and search for "drug money".

That this passes not only for law in this country, but that the people of the state of Tennessee would put up with such horseshit tells me we may as well just accept that we have no Constitution anymore. In Indiana, they have ruled that they can just barge right in with no warrants if they feel like it, and carrying cash in Tennessee means you are a drug dealer.

Raise your hand if you think this will stop in Tennessee and Indiana if people quietly put up with it? If so, then I have a great little piece of ocean front property in Kansas to sell you.

[Romulox]

25. This is what they mean when they suggest an infringement on the rights of one of us

is an infringement as to us all. Not in an esoteric or abstract sense, but in a very real and very concrete way.

[Aerows]

28. Agreed, and for the record

I do not support marijuana being illegal. There has been far too much evidence that it has medicinal value, and to persecute people who are already ill seems to be the height of inhumanity to me.

[Aerows]

3. Wow

When carrying cash means you are a drug dealer, pretty much everyone in the US is a drug dealer. Where do they draw the line? Is the $50 I got from the ATM so that I can go through McDonald's and get gas in a few miles suddenly "drug money" if I get pulled over for some trumped up reason?

It sounds like a really good reason to avoid traveling through Tennessee for any reason, including to spend tourists dollars there.

[Fumesucker]

4. You think Tennessee is the only place this happens?

It's basically nationwide and has been for decades.

[Aerows]

10. No, and it scares the hell out of me

What country is this? Between Indiana and Tennessee, we've pretty much thrown our Constitution out of the window. It's just when it gets this blatant and they get away with it, that it spreads much, much further.

It frightens me that people justify this crap as though it isn't tremendous overreach, like the Indiana ruling.

What in the hell are they teaching kids in school these days that trains them that this is acceptable? I'm in my late 30's and in my Civics class, this would have been called search and seizure.

[socialist_n_TN]

20. Point made. And it's been happening in TN for a while too

There was one case that got a LOT of press involving a Tennessean who happened to be Latino. He owned a nursery and had $10k cash with him to buy stock for his business. He was stopped and his money confiscated, but he was not charged with anything. Basically, the only reason he was under suspicion was because he was Latino and had a large amount of cash.

He had to sue to get his money back and I'm STILL not sure it's been finalized yet. HE's won at EVERY step of the process, but the state keeps appealing it. Truly disgusting.

[Occulus]

7. They can also impound your car

and probably would if you were carrying a few hundred on you.

Better safe than sorry, right? :banghead:

[Fly by night]

11. Welcome to the Third World, all y'all. Uncle Joe and I ought to know.

When the "drug worriers" raided my farm, they purposely left mature cannabis plants growing that they came back later (twice) to take without ever turning them in to the state lab. Then they charged me with 3X more plants than I had growing.

In my county, the leading vice/drug king-pin for 30+ years was a local judge. Everyone knew it but the cops, sheriff, FBI, TBI and DEA. Of course, all those "protect (the king-pin) and serve (themselves)" ossifers were likely taking a cut from what fell from the judge's table.

In the counties north, south and west of me, the local drug king-pins were the local sheriffs.

It really sucks to be in Tennessee these days, in so many (so many) ways.

Fortunately, there is always the Garden.

[suffragette]

12. Apparently, the officers could lose their jobs if they don't participate

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14643085/police-profiting-off-drug-trade

"Everything's paid through seizures and fines," Chandler said.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, "So if these officers out on the interstate don't come up with cash, then they might lose their jobs?"

"Well, it's a possibility, yes," Chandler answered.




Agree this shows how corrupt this direction is.


Thanks for posting and K&R.

[Uncle Joe]

16. They even have two competing agencies which almost got in to a fight over

pulling over one driver for his money.

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/14643085/police-profiting-off-drug-trade

And it can lead to turf wars.

After DICE got a $1 million seizure last fall, police video shows that a DICE officer suddenly found himself being blocked by a unit from the 23rd while watching the westbound lanes. Within minutes, five units from the 23rd were lined up in a show of force.

As a result, the two agencies had to work out a "letter of agreement," specifying who would have priority on the westbound lanes on which days.
Read the letter of agreement between the 23rd and DICE


Then, there's a 2008 video where a unit from the 23rd cuts in front of a DICE unit on a stop, prompting this heated exchange:

23rd DTF Officer: "Leave me the f***k alone!"
DICE Officer: "Let me tell you something..."
23rd DTF Officer: "Punk!"
DICE Officer: "You ever come up me and try to wreck me out again, it will be your last time. You understand?"

[suffragette]

22. Sounds like dialogue from a mafia film

Fitting since this all sounds like extortion.

Also have to say, some exceptional reporting in the piece in terms of the reporter asking the tough questions. Would like to see that more often and nationally.

[damntexdem]

14. Law enforcement? No, highway robbery!

Just one of the more-disgusting aspects of the "war on drugs."

[RainDog]

15. Indiana sheriff suggests RANDOM HOUSE TO HOUSE searches

after recent ruling

http://www.mikechurch.com/Today-s-Lead-Story/in-sheriff-if-we-need-to-conduct-random-house-to-house-searches-we-will.html

According to Newton County Sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., random house to house searches are now possible and could be helpful following the Barnes v. STATE of INDIANA Supreme Court ruling issued on May 12th, 2011. When asked three separate times due to the astounding callousness as it relates to trampling the inherent natural rights of Americans, he emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal.

if this guy thinks innocent citizens would be okay with random house to house invasions of privacy - he's not just an idiot, he's delusional.

[Aerows]

18. I'm sure there are plenty

lining up to justify this decision, too, which is scarier than the fact that it passed to begin with.

[Uncle Joe]

21. First they came for the people that flushed their toilets but I was constipated so I didn't care.

Then they came for the people with cash but I didn't have any so I didn't care.

Etc. etc. down the slippery slope.

[suffragette]

24. Please give me a warning next time so I can turn away

from my monitor when I spray.


:spray:


Spot on!

[Fly by night]

29. Mega dittos on that! (That's the first time for me to ever use that phrase.)

I just love LOL moments with the internets.

Although all of this is definitely gallows (or is it drive-by) humor.

[Heywood J]

30. I don't recognize this country any more.

Random house-to-house searches, because they might find some criminals that way. If they smash up your stuff because you might have something inside Grandma's heirloom china, they're immune to damages and you have to clean up the mess. The other chief interviewed in the article seems OK with random searches without warrants, just not house-to-house searches.

I really don't recognize this country.

[Romulox]

23. Our Constitution = wadded up rag, circling the trash bin. nt

[janet118]

26. Busted for possession of more than $500 cash . . .

Yipes.

In Mass. drug confiscation money is divided equally between the police and DA's office. No conflict of interest there. :sarcasm:

This is not a new thing . . . in the 70s, they used to do something similar to out-of-state travelers in upstate NY.

[Uncle Joe]

27. Believe it or not, there was a time when I believed this sort of thing only happened in Mexico.

I knew from plenty of news reports their police had systemic corruption, so it seems to me our nation is going down the same dead end path.

The only thing that's saved us from reaching the severity of Mexico's crisis is our nation's relative advantage in wealth, but as the dollar depreciates due to rising foreign competition, corruptive forces here at home will grow ever stronger and the dysfunctional so called "War on Drugs" can only grease the skids.

[JoeyT]

31. Just out of curiousity

I wonder where the people that defend asset forfeiture laws are? There's usually a few that insist this sort of thing *never* happens and that the laws aren't abused at all.

[Uncle Joe]

32. The whole system of justice in re: to drug laws is out of whack.

That blindfolded Ms Justice with the balanced scales is nothing but a cruel joke.