Police are well known to rob citizens that make the mistake of driving with a lot of cash or valuables or their car. This civil forfeiture is under the guise of blocking drug money, but we know what it really is... simple highway robbery. The US is not a country with very many property rights. It's increasingly a stagnated country risking a downward trajectory.
This is definitely going on and there should be a recourse / feedback mechanism, but I wonder how much media bias distorts the picture. Specifically, are there genuine forfeiture cases that we never hear about because they are less sensational? If so, how many and what is their estimated effect. I've done a couple of drives across U.S. and being targeted crossed my mind more than once, so I really want to see stats on this.
In short, yes you need to be concerned. Just about anything can be subject to civil asset forfeiture. Even when you can get your cash or valuables back, it can cost a princely sum, and violate your privacy as well. If you want more information, look at Institute for Justice and Steve Lehto on YouTube.
For the wealthy here, it's very useful to be friends with the local police. In a city it's a bit more complex, but in a rural area - say, a place where you have a vacation home - it's quite easy. Every police department in the US has the equivalent of a "benevolent association".
Donations to these organizations are not usually tax deductible. Giving them a relatively small amount of money, say $10,000 per year, goes a very long way to making you friendly with them and the chief of police / sheriff / etc.
These organizations are basically slush funds. The money is used to throw parties at best, or enrich retired and connected police at worst. The state police have one as well, and they are supra-entities across the state. Donating to these organizations is one way Jeffrey Epstein was able to avoid prison for the sexual assault charges in Palm Beach.
If you are a wealthy person that likes to party, do hard drugs, or throw your own events, I highly recommend engendering yourselves with the local and state police via money donations. It goes a long way to solving problems.
My father (RIP) was a musician who played at many police events in the city I grew up. Police are people, and generally average intelligence people. They are no better or worse than other people, except they have the benefit of being above the law in all cases except those that rise to the level of a public relations disaster. My father was an alcoholic who should have had multiple DUIs, but always got out of it thanks to his local connections, among other legal issues he should have had. He was not a good person.
I am not posting this as an advocacy good or bad, I am posting this as advice for the reality we live
If you are wealthy enough to throw parties with security, guest lists, 200+ people, it's a rounding error. Extremely cost effective and useful. People purchase palatial estates primarily to throw huge parties and events, to impress the elites. It's not usually to walk around a mansion for your own private enjoyment (at least for those with penthouses in major cities).
A similar hack that's much cheaper and also works if you're poor or black is to go to your local station and buy one of their stickers ($25 ish?). When they pull you over they tend not to hassle you as much when they see the sticker.
This reminds me of a famous quote coined by the famous comic book artiste Alan Moore which is, "quis custodiet quie custodiet" which is Spanish for "Who Watches the Watchmen" (refers to his famous graphic novel and cinema film as well)
Also I believe it was Abbie Hoffman (famous 1960s peace activist) who famously is quoted as saying, "let he who fights dragons be careful not to become a dragon himself, and if he shall stare into the abyss, so too may he become an abyss" - so that basically means if you fight criminals all day even with the best of intentions, the wear & tear of it over time might eventually turn you into a criminal too
I think by now everyone is aware that law enforcement officers, just like any other grouping of people, can be highly dangerous. We only get in trouble when we let these groups operate in a brazen fashion. Communities that don't wield proper oversight of their law enforcement personnel develop these kinds of issues.
To ensure we contain the inevitable fallout evoked by abuses in these communities it, from time to time, becomes necessary for the larger society to "bring the hammer" so to speak when it comes to fixing these law enforcement agencies. Unfortunate, because it brings down some officers who could have been potentially good along with the problem officers who were naturally bad from the outset.
The job will attract these natural born bad actors. There's little we can do to change that fact. We can only control how aggressively we fight against them. So articles outlining the existence of police officers who are criminals should be expected. Their existence is a simple fact. How we should judge a society is by how aggressively we prosecute the police who are criminals. Some places do little, some places do lots. And sometimes the larger society has to step in and tell the idiot local leaders to step aside or get taken down with their officers. But my sense is that on balance, we're trying a lot harder than we were 20 years ago. And 20 years from now we will be more aggressive about rooting out corruption in law enforcement than we are today.
What did that measure actually do? County sheriff is an elected position; shouldn't it have been covered by California's normal recall process, which passed more than 100 years ago?
The California Constitution directly provides only for the recall of statewide officers, but it also requires† the legislature to "provide for recall of local officers" [except where the locality already does so], so provisions for recall must already have been in place?
If you read the other reply to my comment, you probably saw that in fact, the measure does nothing related to what you claimed it did. Most likely because recall provisions already existed.
Quite a biased Wikipedia article. If you read the sources, you can read quotes from the officers themselves, who openly discuss their tattoos, but say they are being misinterpreted as rogue law enforcement groups when they are just particular stations bonding together and displaying their pride.
> [the officer] bristled at the idea of calling the groups “deputy gangs” ... state penal code uses the term “gangs” to describe rogue law enforcement groups. Repeatedly, Murakami insisted that the tattoos symbolize hard work and “station pride” and that there was “no nefarious connotation” to having deputy subgroups operate inside the department.
Obviously law enforcement isn't perfect, but we should show both sides of the issue, and this wikipedia article is selecting only one side from already-biased articles.