The Glade 4.0

!) You have no evidence whatsoever that the police "kept the money for themselves". The fact that seized money might eventually go into the department or city coffers does not mean that was their motive, especially in light of the fact that they paid her a reward.
2) There is nothing whatsoever unreasonable about this seizure. Evidence of a connection to drugs was discovered on it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think what has everyone so up in arms is that a connection to drugs can be made on almost any United States currency, making the seizure spurious at best.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

A connection to cocaine can be made on a large proportion of U.S. currency. There's no evidence that the same is true for marijuana. Furthermore, there's a big difference between finding residue on someone's $20 in their wallet, or even a few hundred in twenties in someone's wallet, and $12,000 in a restaurant go-box, and especially when a complete stranger hands over a box of money to this waitress lady for no apparent reason.

The facts have to be considered at a whole, and the seizure is anything but spurious. There's definitely valid reason to suspect the money was involved in criminal drug activity and start an investigation, and there is nothing at all wrong with seizing the money as evidence while that is ongoing. If the police cannot establish, however, by clear and convincing evidence (in other words, significantly more likely than not) that the money was, in fact, involved with criminal activity, then the waitress should get it back. Given the anonymous circumstances under which it was given to her, I suspect it will be hard to meet that standard and in the end she will, in fact, get it back.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

But that doesn't fit our narrative. ;>

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

What type of drugs may or may not be traceable doesn't matter. The percentages are such that almost any combination of bills totaling $12,000 will be tainted, whether the money is involved in drug activity or not.

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"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." - Alice R. Longworth

"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." - Ash Williams

The woman was clearly given the money. All money has trace drug residue. Police get to use for themselves any money they associate with drugs. They seized this money in association with drugs.

Lets look at the whole picture here. We have motive and opportunity that connect directly to the action.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Uh, yes it actually does matter. Almost any combination of bills totalling $12,000 will be tainted by cocaine, meaning that evidence of cocaine is not of significant value in tying the money to drug activity. Marijuana has not been shown to transmit as easily as cocaine and so evidence of being tainted with marijuana is of much higher value.

You cannot say that "well, 80% of all currency has traces of cocaine, and cocaine is a drug, therefore any other drug is equally useless in linking money to drug activity." That's silly. That's an Illicit Minor fallacy wherein you are saying, essentially, cocaine is a drug, marijuana is a drug, therefore cocaine is marijuana.

Furthermore, the fact that the money had drug residue is not the sole reason for the seizure. In fact, it's the least important one. The fact that the money was A) in cash, untraceable as far as we know B) contained in a restaurant go-box, a container not normally used for, nor intended to, transport cash and one likely to cause a casual observer to think it contained nothing of significant value and C) given to the waitress by a complete stranger are all far more suspicious than drug residue by itself. Even if it was cocaine residue on the money, there would still be good cause to seize it as evidence to conduct an investigation because of the other circumstances. In fact, it was ostensibly those circumstances that caused the waitress to be suspicious; her friend claims there was no noticeable odor of marijuana

Focusing on the frequent nature of cocaine residue is just chasing a red herring. Cocaine residue is not relevant to this case, and evidence of drug residue is not the biggest reason to suspect criminal activity here.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Irrelevant.



False.



False.



Irrelevant.



You're looking selectively at certain things, and trying to use your own idiotic predjudices against the police as evidence.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Just doing what you do DE to cover abuses of authority.

I'd bring the department up on RICO charges myself.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Her mistake was calling the police. Even DE thinks so. Just because there is "a law" doesn't mean you have to follow it (especially a fascist one like Khross describes). I imagine she wasn't aware there was "a law." If she suspected they would take it from her, I'd bet 12,000 that she wouldn't have called the cops.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Her mistake was to follow the law. Think about that for a moment, and what it says about our police.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Since the police don't make the law, and she didn't follow the law, having no duty to turn the money in, it says absolutely nothing - well, except for the fact that she still got a $1,000 reward.

Her "mistake" was to follow her own conscience, which became a lot less important to her all of a sudden when she found out she wouldn't automatically get the money back.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There isn't any law. The law Khross describes doesn't actually exist, and even if it did, it wouldn't be "facist". You're only using that term to appeal to emotion because you're unable to construct arguments that don't amount simply to childish resentment.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This.

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Everyone can un-bunch their undies now about "the Man".

http://www.startribune.com/business/146427415.html

Only after it got national media attention

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Uh huh...

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DE - if you are correct that she did not need to turn the money over to police, then they are even bigger dicks.

Protect and serve, man, protect and serve.

Cops are in no way legal experts, but they generally know a hell of a lot more than the average individual on the street. I should feel 100% comfortable walking up to a cop and saying, "Hey, I'm not sure the rules on this, can you tell me if I'm somehow breaking the law?"

If the answer is NO, as you claim, why should I expect to be punished?

They are not "being dicks" at all, and even if they are, the job of the polcie is not to avoid "being dicks" in the eyes of people who go out of their way to find fault with them.



You are in no position to lecture.



Irrelevant. The police are not claiming that she is breaking the law. She turned in the money because she suspected someone else had broken the law. She is not the target of an investigation.

[/quote]

No one is being punished here. Either she'll come out $1,000 ahead, or she'll come out $12,000 ahead if she files for a judicial forfieture hearing and wins. Hoiw exactly is that being "punished"?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And Lawson is in a position to make that statement because...?

There is not obligation on the police to either inform the prosecutor of their ongoing investigations nor obtain their permission. The only thing this is saying is that the investigation was unsuccessful in linking the money to any particular criminal activity.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Because, you know, the 90 days they already had it, wasn't enough to determine that there was no way to link the money to any specific criminal activity.

"A follows B, therefore A is caused by B" is fallacious.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Point to Diamondeye here.

Police merely enforce the law. If the law sucks, that doesn't directly imply the police are also corrupt.
(Which isn't to say they aren't, either. But you can't hold bad law against them.)

As a side point, despite that this turned out fine for the waitress, I've long known that the proper way to handle finding large sum of cash would be to hide it in your attic for a few months until it "cools down" before you start spending it, carefully.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's exactly what it means. Police departments get to keep any money seized as part of a drug investigation. We have such a law in the United States precisely because police and other law enforcement are largely corrupt. It is abused constantly to boost department funds across the country.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Bullshit. Police departments in this country are not "largely corrupt" - and they don't make the laws, so even if they were that wouldn't be the reason we have the law.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sure I am. And what exactly do you feel disqualifies me?



Nonsense. She turned it in because she suspected she might be breaking the law by keeping it. YOU are saying she wasn't, clearly she didn't believe that.



In order to come out $2000 ahead, they'd have to return $14k to her.