A North Carolina teenager was hoping to get her life back on track after a state judge ordered a man who sexually abused her to pay her $69,000. Instead, she got a nasty surprise.
The local police department had already seized the cash through civil asset forfeiture, and it was already gone. Despite a judge’s order, she will get nothing.
The case is a stunning example of the misplaced priorities and perverse incentives that asset forfeiture creates for police—and of how the federal government allows state and local police to evade reforms to stop forfeiture abuse.
My partner works customer service for a big company and had a customer call in to say an employee at some location was threatening his life. Her nee jerk response was for the customer to call the police but he responded with the names of other minorities that were killed by police and said he felt calling the police would be a bigger threat to his life than the problem employee. Sad that this is how far we’ve fallen, oh wait, this has always been the case. We just now have the means to document and report these abuses of power.