Part V: How money fuels the type of raids that killed Breonna Taylor

This is Part V of my series titled “We Must Still Fight For Breonna Taylor.” On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor was killed by three officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department. The officers were executing a no-knock warrant as part of a drug investigation. This five-part series is intended to shed light on several systemic issues that led to her tragedy. It’s more than just arresting the cops, although this series will also discuss law enforcement accountability. We must still fight for Breonna Taylor, the countless others who came before her and nationwide reform to the systemic issues that fuel these tragedies.

Part I: We must still fight for Breonna Taylor and other Black women
Part II: When innocent people think burglary during a midnight drug raid
Part III: How the weakening of the Fourth Amendment has led to tragedies
Part IV: How culture has become a roadblock to reform in drug raids

We’re down to the final segment of this series.

We’ve covered (to name a few) the War on Drugs, no-knock warrants, paramilitarism, history of police culture and violations of the Fourth Amendment. Each of these are systemic issues specifically germane to the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed in a failed drug raid.

Addressing these issues with proper reform and legislation are a few necessary requirements in preventing another Breonna Taylor, Tarika Wilson or Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones. Still, there’s one element yet to be discussed in this series. It’s a factor many operations often boil down to.

Cash.

It rules more than the average person is aware of when it comes to drug policing. Through a method known as civil asset forfeiture, police departments are profiting on the backs of innocent people, and disproportionately people of color.

The process is simple to comprehend. Civil asset forfeiture allows police officers to seize a person’s property (such as their cash, car or home) on the mere suspicion that it is linked to criminal activity, even if the property owner is never charged with or convicted of a crime. In other words, they can strip owners of their cash without any evidence of wrongdoing.

That money or property can only be recovered if the owner takes the case to court. Considering the price of legal fees, most individuals are forced to concede.

“The only legal recourse that person has to get their money back is to go to an attorney and sue the police department for the money,” said Dr. Peter Kraska, a criminal justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University who spoke with me for this series. “Of course, as soon as you go to an attorney, what’s the attorney going to say? ‘Give me a $2,000 retainer, then we might start the case.’”

Most police departments in America are typically able to keep 80% of the value of what they seize either through state programs, or under the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program. Prosecutors obtain the other 20%.

“It’s very lucrative, and it gives the police a huge incentive to get inside people’s residences to get their stuff,” Kraska said.

This policy is different from criminal forfeiture cases, in which people who are convicted of a crime have their property seized. Civil asset forfeiture means an innocent person can have their property taken, with strenuous, exorbitant and systemic barriers in place that often prevent them from getting it back. It’s policing for profit — counterintuitive to protecting and serving.

Police abuse civil asset forfeiture in Louisville, mostly against Blacks

To put it mildly, laws in Kentucky make civil asset forfeiture a walk in the park for police officers. That park is often in Black neighborhoods.

The Louisville Metro Police Department seizes the most cash and property in Kentucky. In other words, the same department that killed Breonna Taylor is the same department that has abused civil asset forfeiture more than any other agency in the entire state.

Seizures in Louisville have disproportionately affected Black people, according to a 2019 study by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. The city’s population is just 23% Black, but at least 56% of the people fighting to have their money returned to them were African American.

The study shows many of the seizures came from the Russell neighborhood, which is where the ex-boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, Jamarcus Glover, was arrested. Money confiscated in Russell and the surrounding areas helped contribute to at least $19.4 million in cash seized by the Louisville Metro Police Department during a five-year span.

That number is expected to decline following legislation that stemmed from Breonna Taylor’s death. “Breonna’s Law” bans no-knocks warrants in Louisville. Kraska estimates the law, if effective, to have a million-dollar impact on how the Louisville Metro Police Department is funded.

“If this ordinance ends up eliminating, let’s say 98% of these drug raids, they could be looking at $1–3 million in a loss of revenue,” Kraska said.

It’s not just drug raids that produce profit through forfeiture funds in Kentucky. Charles Clarke, an innocent 24-year-old Black college student, was stopped inside a Kentucky airport on suspicion of trafficking narcotics. Clarke maintained the $11,000 in his checked bag was life savings that would help pay for tuition. Police never proved he committed a crime and no drugs were found when they searched him. But since his luggage “smelled” like marijuana, the $11,000 was taken and tied to drug trafficking.

Clarke won his money back after a two-year battle. Police were forced to pay him back with interest. His case is a prime example of police abusing civil asset forfeiture, but it’s also anomalous when you consider three things: He had free legal action. He won the case. He had $11,000 seized.

The amount of cash taken is often much less than that. A paltry $300 is the average amount seized in Kentucky, according to a state-wide study done by Kraska. “But when you add all that cash and property up, it ends up being a significant amount of money,” he said.

It’s not just Louisville. Police target minorities across the country and abuse civil asset forfeiture

Money is often seized nationwide during basic traffic stops. In a 2014 study by The Washington Post, researchers found that aggressive police officers have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes. The Post examined 400 federal court cases and found that the majority of the defendants were Black, Hispanic or another minority.

Mandrel Stuart, a 35-year-old Black business owner in Virginia, lost his job after police confiscated $17,550 from his vehicle. He was stopped for having tinted windows, but never charged with a crime. Stuart said he was about to use the money to purchase equipment for his restaurant. But since officers found a tiny amount of marijuana residue (0.01 gram to be exact) when they searched Stuart’s car, they kept the money on suspicion of drug trafficking.

Stuart went to court. His money was returned, but the 14-month process forced him to lose his restaurant and go into the construction business.

The only reason we hear about Clarke and Stuart is because they fought for their case. It was worth it for them because the amount taken was so extreme. As previously stated, that’s not the norm. It’s small-time seizures that add up.

The average forfeiture amount in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs was $1,049 in a review capturing seizures between 2012 and 2017.

In Washington, D.C., the median value was $141 from 2009 to 2014.

These numbers contradict the original goal and intention of civil forfeiture. The practice began in the 1980s as police wanted to hurt the pockets of drug kingpins and halt their operations. Considering that it is typically just small-time currency being seized from innocent people, that mission has been deemed ineffective. Marauding drug cops have instead used the law to routinely pad department budgets.

“There are police departments in this country that have 25% of their operating funds coming from civil asset forfeiture,” Kraska said. “And they’re not bringing down drug kingpins.”

In the study on Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, the average amount seized totaled up to a staggering $150 million, with an overwhelming number of cases stemming from the city’s poor and Black neighborhoods. Civil asset forfeiture even helps pay off Chicago’s debt.

A separate investigation by The Washington Post found that agencies across America have used the cash to buy more military-style weapons, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. There’s also mention of more frivolous purchases, such as luxury cars (Mercedes, Corvettes, BMWs, etc.) and coffee makers to keep the break room happy.

“One of the things that was going on in Louisville is they would target specific people who have specific nice cars so they can get those cars themselves,” Kraska said. “They don’t have to turn those cars into cash. They can actually use them as their departmental vehicle. In Louisville, you can take that department vehicle home and use it as your personal vehicle.”

Time for nationwide reform

When protestors packed the streets this summer, a section of America decided to focus more on the looting. It was the people breaking into buildings, causing property damage and stealing whatever they could that drew ire.

The question is: Where is that uproar when it comes to civil asset forfeiture?

It’s systemic. It’s sophisticated. But this is the real looting. Considering the highly militarized weaponry strapped to their uniform, some might even call it armed robbery.

There’s been slight progress nationwide, with some states requiring less opaqueness. But it hasn’t been enough.

“One of the ways to handle it would be to convert it from civil asset forfeiture to criminal asset forfeiture,” Kraska said. That’s what the state of New Mexico did in 2015, abolishing civil forfeiture entirely and only using criminal law to forfeit property.

Some work has tried to be done at the federal level. The Obama administration “barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without evidence that a crime occurred.” The Trump administration reinstated such measures in 2017.

The Obama administration also dialed back the 1033 defense fund — another program that monetarily fuels police militarization — only for the Trump administration to rescind that, too.

Civil asset forfeiture is in no way the only discriminatory practice in America. Neither is everything else I’ve mentioned in this five-part series. But it’s important to ban this practice so vulnerable communities are not still paying the same departments that terrorize them. It’s bad enough their tax dollars are paying off the large settlements when police drug raids go wrong. Why take their hard-earned cash and material property, too?

“The whole program has become a runaway growth industry,” Kraska said. “Monetary and political pressure to do more raids on people’s private residences in order to collect more money to fund themselves. That’s highly problematic.”

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That completes this series. Thanks for following along. I can be found on Twitter @Khari_53.