When Cops Commit Armed Robbery

When a person flashing a gun demands your wallet, empties it of its contents and goes on his way, you call the cops to report a robbery. Who do you call when the cop is the robber?

That’s probably a question a California bacon hot dog vendor is asking after a UC Berkeley bicycle officer took his cash and issued him a citation for operating without a permit.

A video of the incident made the rounds this week after Berkley alumnus Martin Flores took video of the incident and posted it on social media. In the video, the vendor objects but watches as the officer takes money from the wallet, stuffs into a pocket and then begins to write a citation.

According to the LA Times:

In a statement released Monday, UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Scott Biddy said vendors typically are given warnings before a citation and explained what prompted the officer to intervene.

“We have instructed our officers to monitor illegal vending outside our event venues. This action has been motivated at least in part by issues of public health, the interests of local small businesses, and even human trafficking,” Biddy said. “In a case such as this, it is typical to collect any suspected illegal funds and enter them into evidence.”

Two of Biddy’s excuses are extreme sophistry, but one is true. There is little to no danger to “public health” from outside vendors. Outside vendors sell food every day in the U.S., and even more so in foreign countries and there are no mass die-offs of people. Nor can a hot dog vendor kidnap and stuff women or girls into his hot dog cart in broad daylight to traffic them.

The “interests of local small businesses,” excuse is valid, however. That’s because local business license and inspection requirements are nothing more than a protection racket for crony businesses and a hidden tax on consumers. They also inhibit and prohibit people from starting businesses.

If governments– and UC Berkeley is operating as a government entity in this case — really cared about people, it would encourage entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency rather creating a barrier to a man earning a living, thereby possibly forcing him onto the government dole.

Witnesses said the officer was selectively enforcing the “illegal vending.” When Flores told the LEO what he was doing was wrong, the LEO responded, “This is law and order in action.”

And asset forfeiture – which is the process of police using extrajudicial powers to arbitrarily assume something someone has in his possession was illegally acquired – is big business for LEOs (legally entitled to oppress).

Nationwide use of asset forfeiture by LEOs has taken $2.5 billion from 61,998 cash seizures since 9/11 under a federal program called equitable sharing. As Forbes describes it:

 This federal civil forfeiture program lets local and state law enforcement literally make a federal case out of a seizure, if they collaborate with a federal agency. Not only can they then bypass state forfeiture laws, they can pocket up to 80 percent of the proceeds. So of that $2.5 billion seized through equitable sharing, local and state authorities kept $1.7 billion for their own uses.

The money and possessions can be taken without a “suspect” even being charged with a crime, must less convicted. And efforts to retrieve the property through the “legal” system often cost as much as or more than the property seized is worth.

According to a study by the Institute for Justice, LEOs took more property and cash from people in 2014 than was stolen in all burglaries that year. The amount stolen is rising by year; up from slightly more than $500 million in 2004 to almost $4.5 billion in 2014.

And this doesn’t even take into account funds stolen by small-time thieves like the Berkeley cop.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a staunch defender of asset forfeiture. But thankfully, a few liberty-minded politicians like Representative Justin Amash continue to fight for Americans’ rights.

Amash’s Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act to roll back Sessions expanded asset forfeiture order passed the House on Tuesday.

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