While some Texas towns don't know how to raise revenues the town of Tenaha Texas doesn't have that problem. The Tenaha TX police officers are jacking African American motorists for their money, property and cars. Between 2006 and 2008 at least 140 African Americans had their property seized on the highway...under the guise of search and seizure drug law.
Property seizures seen as piracy. Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town.
Driving While Black it's not a myth it's a reality...
But in Tehana, a town of chicken farms that hugs the Louisiana border, critics say being a black out-of-towner passing through with anything of value is seen as evidence of a crime.My SA News
That's because the police here allegedly have found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: voluntarily sign over your belongings to the town, or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.
My SA News
some of those arrested:
great-grandmother had $4,000 until she entered the twilight zone of Tenaha Tx and the police seized her money. There is no record of anything illegal found or criminal charges filed.
an interracial couple who were threatened with having their children taken from them and placed in the Tenaha TX foster care system...who gave up their $6,000 cash. There is no record anything illegal found or criminal charges filed. They got a lawyer and the money was returned but they are part of a class action lawsuit
seizing $10,032 from a man who was driving through Tenaha 3 yrs ago to buy a headstone for his terminally ill aunt a man got his money back along with $110,000 in 2008 as part of a settlement. There is no record of anything illegal found or criminal charges filed.
another man had $3,500 taken from him when a marijuana roach was found in the ashtray he was charged with money laundering but the judge threw out the charge and he is still waiting to get his money back
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Mayor George Bowden says all they are doing is enforcing the law in Tenaha.
But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha's practice something else: highway robbery. The attorneys have filed a federal class-action lawsuit to stop what they contend is an unconstitutional perversion of the law's intent, aimed primarily at blacks who have done nothing wrong.
Tenaha officials "have developed an illegal 'stop and seize' practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching and often seizing property from apparently non-white citizens and those traveling with non-white citizens," asserts the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.
The property seizures are not just happening in Tenaha. In southern parts of Texas near the Mexican border, for example, Hispanics allege that they are being singled out.
I know that there are many who can address the issue of search and seizure law much more informatively than I can but I am sick and tired of hearing about stories like this one...but I am reminded of our new Attorney General Eric Holder and I am hopeful of the return of Civil Rights because he knows we have cowards in this country.
If you want to read more:
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My San Antonio News
02/07/2009 Property seizures seen as piracy
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Chicago Tribune
Highway robbery? Texas police seize black motorists' cash, cars Suit says cops force motorists, largely black, to forfeit cash and cars—or be charged with trumped-up crimes