Bad Samaritans

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate what he meant by loving your neighbor. It means being willing to take care of a perfect stranger at great personal expense, with bonus points if the stranger happens to be a race you do not trust. Given that narrative, I wonder what the Lord would say about this story.

Sarah Stillman paints a pretty clear picture in The New Yorker of abuse by law enforcement officials in a growing number of counties. The scam works like this. Cars with out-of-state or rental plates are pulled over for some manufactured traffic violation. The car is searched and occupants required to declare how much cash they are carrying. Cash, valuables, and even the cars are confiscated because of suspicion of ill-gotten-gains from drug trafficking. The county prosecutor demands the driver and passengers forfeit their assets (for an unproven charge) or be charged with drug-related felonies. No one even cares about whether the accused can prove the source of their cash was completely legal. It is a shakedown.

The county’s district attorney, a fifty-seven-year-old woman with feathered Charlie’s Angels hair named Lynda K. Russell, arrived an hour later. Russell, who moonlighted locally as a country singer, told Henderson and Boatright that they had two options. They could face felony charges for “money laundering” and “child endangerment,” in which case they would go to jail and their children would be handed over to foster care. Or they could sign over their cash to the city of Tenaha, and get back on the road. “No criminal charges shall be filed,” a waiver she drafted read, “and our children shall not be turned over to CPS,” or Child Protective Services.

Oddly enough, people with dark skin or Hispanic surnames seemed to be particularly popular targets of the legal smash and grab. Funny how works.

Here is the nitty-gritty of the shakedown.

In general, you needn’t be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with “probable cause” is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner’s guilt or innocence.

We also learn that there are few checks and balances on these asset forfeitures in some states. Weak oversight and need for funds by cash-strapped local governments is a recipe for disaster. Add in the high cost of fighting forfeitures in court and many people walk away.

Often, it’s hard for people to fight back. They are too poor; their immigration status is in question; they just can’t sustain the logistical burden of taking on unyielding bureaucracies.

These are antics worthy of the Sheriff of Nottingham. It is America becoming as dangerous to travel through as Sherwood Forest. It is also the antithesis of Good Samaritan. Instead of helping strangers, you steal from them. And you do it at gunpoint. Raise your hand if you think Jesus would approve of these unethical public servants. What about the public that supported the abuse of strangers as long as it fed public coffers instead of tax increases? Would the Lord give them a pass?

The police had confiscated a simple gold cross that a woman wore around her neck after pulling her over for a minor traffic violation. No contraband was reported, no criminal charges were filed, and no traffic ticket was issued. That’s how it went in dozens more cases involving cash, cars, and jewelry.

Just in case you still have any doubt . . .

Victor Ramos Guzman, a Pentecostal Church secretary from El Salvador, who lives in the U.S. under temporary protected status, is typical in all these respects. A year and a half ago, he and his brother-in-law were driving along Interstate 95 near Emporia, Virginia, en route, documents show, to buy a parcel of land for their church. When a state trooper pulled them over for speeding, Guzman and his brother-in-law disclosed that they were carrying twenty-eight thousand five hundred dollars in parishioners’ donations. Although the trooper found no contraband, he seized the cash. By reporting the case to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Guzman was in the country legally, but he spoke little English), the state police could gain up to eighty per cent of the seizure through the federal Equitable Sharing program.

So much for contrition. One of officers that refined the traffic stop and grab into an art form blamed God. According to the officer, God told him to go to this town and work his magic. He also said Jesus was ok with it because his heart is pure.

“Jesus knows who’s done what, and what was fair and what was unfair. And I would never do anything to embarrass Him. And that’s it. That’s the end of the story.”

I am so impressed. I never met anyone that never does anything to embarrass the Lord. Most especially one using legal ambiguities to steal from and traumatize people that just happened to be passing through his jurisdiction. The Bad Samaritan.

Read Sarah Stillman's article. It is eye-opening and disquieting.