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View Full Version : TX - No crime alleged, no one arrested, cops steal over $400,000 from trucker




Anti Federalist
08-17-2011, 11:08 PM
Packed as it was, yeah, probably drug related.

Then again, maybe not.

Point is, there's no law against it, so that means they stole it.

Bet your ass, that money will never be returned and Officer Friendly and his pals will use it to buy themselves some new fancy toys.

Love the media headline too, "recovered"

Recovered from whom?


Police recover more than $400,000 cash during traffic stop

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8309340

ROSENBERG, TX (KTRK) -- Nearly half a million dollars was found tucked away inside an old television and a propane tank during what turned out to be a very unusual traffic stop in Rosenberg last week.

Why would someone be carrying around so much cash hidden inside pieces of junk? That question is exactly why police decided to take the money.

There is no law against carrying such large amounts of cash, but the money containers are certainly raising some questions. The currency is now being held for safe keeping at the Rosenberg Police Department.

Highway 59 is a corridor that connects Houston to the Mexico border. Drug busts and human trafficking arrests have been made there over the hundreds of miles spanned by Highway 59. But last week came an unprecedented seizure for Rosenberg police. It all began with a traffic stop.

Lt. Colin Davidson with the Rosenberg PD explained, "He makes the traffic stop. He decides that he's going to have Casey do what they call an open air search, or sniff, so you're not invading anything."

Casey is Rosenberg PD's detection canine, and police say she detected a lot in the driver's truck.

"Jumps up on the bed and starts indicating an alert on this cardboard box," Lt. Davidson said.

In the box was a propane canister. Inside the canister were rolls of $20 bills. It was small pickings, compared to what was inside a large TV case, filled with even more cash. Between the two there was nearly $432,000 in cash.

Lt. Davidson said, "I've never seen where they were rolled up like this, or in a tank. But it just shows one more thing we need to be aware of."

The cash is now in a locked evidence room. The driver, who isn't being identified but is said to be from Houston, was released at the time. He is said to still be under investigation.

"If it's drug-related, if it's weapons-related, if it's human trafficking related -- you know, that's the key," said Lt. Davidson.

That's just speculation at this point. For now, police don't know where the money came from, or where it was going. They only know that the investigation is ongoing.

Aldanga
08-17-2011, 11:13 PM
If this doesn't get you fuming you're doing it wrong.

heavenlyboy34
08-17-2011, 11:37 PM
JA! Citizen, vaht are you doing vith all zat money! You are verrrrry suspicious! DETAIN HIM! Surely if you are innocent, you von't mind us seizing it! /reenactment (imagine me saying that with a heavy german accent and wearing SS regalia)

pcosmar
08-17-2011, 11:42 PM
Why would someone be carrying around so much cash hidden inside pieces of junk? That question is exactly why police decided to take the money.
They don't trust banks.
It won't fit in a wallet.
To avoid theft. (except in this case)

:(

I suggest better stash spots.
Will happily build them for a modest fee.

Cleaner44
08-17-2011, 11:45 PM
Certainly the honorable governor perry will put a stop to this treasonous violation of ... oh hell, why bother.

NewRightLibertarian
08-17-2011, 11:46 PM
These people who were robbed should be happy they weren't shot dead as well. They got off lucky

GreedyHenry
08-17-2011, 11:48 PM
Why would someone be carrying around so much cash hidden inside pieces of junk?



To attempt to avoid being a victim of armed robbery as happened in this case.

Tarzan
08-17-2011, 11:54 PM
Welcome to the world of RICO. Another set of laws that basically allow the government to do anything they want.

Let's get Ron Paul elected... so we can get this crap off the books!

IPSecure
08-18-2011, 12:39 AM
So the dogs are trained to sniff for cash?

Krugerrand
08-18-2011, 05:54 AM
So the dogs are trained to sniff for cash?

There's a study posted around here somewhere that dogs are wrong apx. 50% of the time. Police dogs are a scam to justify violations of privacy without warrant. They should only be used for search and rescue.

Anti Federalist
08-18-2011, 12:39 PM
There's a study posted around here somewhere that dogs are wrong apx. 50% of the time. Police dogs are a scam to justify violations of privacy without warrant. They should only be used for search and rescue.

I'll see if I can dig that up, I know the study you're talking about.

Krugerrand
08-18-2011, 01:01 PM
Here's one, there may be others.


I'll see if I can dig that up, I know the study you're talking about.


"Though the police are honest and their aims worthy, history shows they are not appropriate guardians of the privacy which the Fourth Amendment protects."~Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 273(1959)

[Researchers] asked 18 professional dog handlers and their mutts to complete two sets of four brief searches. Thirteen of those who participated worked in drug detection, three in explosives detection, and two worked in both. The dogs had been trained to use one of two signals to indicate to their handlers that they had detected something. Some would bark, others would sit.

The experimental searches took places in the rooms of a church, and each team of dog and human had five minutes allocated to each of the eight searches. Before the searches, the handlers were informed that some of the search areas might contain up to three target scents, and also that in two cases those scents would be marked by pieces of red paper.

What the handlers were not told was that two of the targets contained decoy scents, in the form of unwrapped, hidden sausages, to encourage the dogs' interest in a false location. Moreover, none of the search areas contained the scents of either drugs or explosives. Any "detections" made by the teams thus had to be false. Recorders, who were blind to the study, noted where handlers indicated that their dogs had raised alerts.

The results? Dog/handler teams correctly completed a search with no alerts in just 21 of the 144 walk-throughs. The other 123 searches produced an astounding 225 alerts, every one of them false. Even more interesting, the search points designed to trick the handlers (marked by the red slips of paper) were about twice as likely to trigger false alerts as the search points designed to trick the dogs (by luring them with sausages). This phenomenon is known as the "Clever Hans effect," after a horse that won fame in the early 1900s by stomping out the answers to simply arithmetic questions with his hoof. Hans was indeed clever, but he couldn't do math. Instead he was reading subtle, unintentional cues from the audience and his trainer, who would tense up as Hans began to click his hoof, then relax once Hans hit the answer.*
http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/21/the-mind-of-a-police-dog

Krugerrand
08-18-2011, 01:04 PM
If we want the police to keep us safe from the boogie man, we must accept the random theft that goes with it.

brushfire
08-18-2011, 01:10 PM
That happens all the time:

http://archive.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/12/aurora-not-returning-money-it-seized-despite-a-court-order.html

This village ignored the court's injunction. It actually made freedomwatch a while back... Blowing off the courts isnt a courtesy only reserved for presidents...

Philip Dru: Agorist
08-18-2011, 01:45 PM
This article would have come in handy about a year ago when I was in a knock-down, drag-out debate with a hardcore statist who kept insisting that anarchy could never be viable due to there being "highwaymen" robbing the population at every turn. We already have that now even without anarchy! What's worse is, under the system of the state, not only are the highwaymen robbing us blind, but we actually pay them a legitimate salary on top of that and furnish them with millions of dollars in equipment we ourselves are not allowed to have. It's like a double financial whammy and we are left without the ability to equitably defend ourselves from them.