Seward County, Nebraska has a population of less than 17,700. In 2004, the county commission was short of money and instructed Sheriff Joe Yocum to find new sources of revenue. So he did. His deputies began using any pretext to pull over out of state motorists on Interstate 80, with luxury cars having priority. Now Seward county leads the state in civil asset forfeiture. In the past 10 years, the deputies of this county have averaged more than a million dollars a year in seized cash.
It goes like this: you are pulled over on any pretext, no matter how weak. They ask for permission to search the vehicle. It doesn’t matter if you agree or not. If you refuse, they get a drug dog to alert on your car. Whether they find drugs or not, they take any money they find. They tell the motorist to sign a form abandoning the cash or face a felony arrest. Sign it or not, they are taking the cash and you are never getting it back.
Nebraska lawmakers made this scenario illegal in 2015, but the cops don’t care. They either file the forfeiture in Federal court, or they claim that there was evidence of drug activity. No matter what, if you have money, they are taking it. In my opinion, this makes those deputies no better than any other armed gang, and makes Sheriff Joe Yocum the head of a criminal syndicate. I would cheer if someone capped his ass, or any of his deputies.
Any cop who tells you that civil asset forfeiture is morally or Constitutionally acceptable is a tyrannical asshole, and I will cheer their getting capped as well. Even in the presence of a criminal conviction, taking thousands of dollars from someone is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Don’t bother quoting any bullshit case on the matter. I can fucking read, and some lawyer in a black dress trying to justify his boss’ theft of the people’s hard earned money is a travesty.
To those who think that the cops or the military will take your side in the civil war that we all see coming: they won’t. They will take the side of whomever is signing their paychecks, and that isn’t you. Tell me again how most cops are good people doing a tough job. So for now, I will rejoice whenever I see that someone has killed a Nebraska criminal cop. Maybe the “defund the police” people are right. At least I can shoot criminals without having the National guard tanks called in to burn down my house with everyone in it.
I think that many people who are drawn to police work do so for good reasons. They are then captured by the lust for power and money. This is why the original Constitution purposely kept the government weak and subservient. People, however, just love having the power to tell others how to live. In order to do that, they gave the government more and more police powers. Those police agencies are now so powerful, that we are in a virtual police state. One where you can’t even be confident in your ability to drive down the highway without being robbed at gunpoint.
