"Looking" Like a Criminal Ethel Hylton of New York City has yet to regain her financial independence after losing $39110 in a search nearly three years ago in Hobby Airport in Houston. // Shortly after she arrived from New York, a Houston officer and Drug Enforcement Administration agent stopped the 46-year-old woman in the baggage area and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. The dog wasn't with them, and when Miss Hylton asked to see it, the officers refused to bring it out. // The agents searched her bags, and ordered a strip search of Miss Hylton, but found no contraband. // In her purse they found the cash Miss Hylton carried because she planned to buy a house to escape the New York winters which exasperated her diabetes. It was the settlement from an insurance claim, and her life's savings, gathered through more than 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper and hospital night janitor. // The police seized all but $10 of the cash and sent Miss Hylton on her way, keeping the money because of its alleged drug connection. But they never charged her with a crime. // The Pittsburgh Press verified her jobs, reviewed her bank statements and substantiated her claim she had $18000 from an insurance settlement. It also found no criminal record for her in New York City. // With the mix of outrage and resignation voiced by other victims of searches, she says: "The money they took was mine. I'm allowed to have it. I earned it.'' // Miss Hylton became a U.S. citizen six years ago. She asks, "Why did they stop me? Is it because I'm black or because I'm Jamaican?'' // Probably, both -- although Houston police haven't said. // Drug teams interviewed in dozens of airports, train stations and bus terminals and along other major highways repeatedly said they didn't stop travellers based on race. But a Pittsburgh Press examination of 121 travellers' cases in which police found no dope, made no arrest, but seized money anyway showed that 77 percent of the people stopped were black, Hispanic, or Asian. In April, 1989, deputies from Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana, seized $23000 from Johnny Sotello, a Mexican-American whose truck overheated on a highway. // They offered help, he accepted. They asked to search his truck. He agreed. They asked if he was carrying cash. He said he was because he was scouting heavy equipment auctions. // They then pulled a door panel from the truck, said the space behind it could have hidden drugs, and seized the money and the truck, court records show. Police did not arrest Sotello but told him he would have to go to court to recover his property. // Sotello sent auctioneer's receipts to police which showed he was a licensed buyer. the sheriff offered to settle the case, and with his legal bills mounting after two years, Sotello accepted. In a deal cut last March, he got his truck, but only half his money. The cops kept $11500. // "I was more afraid of the banks than anything -- that's one reason I carry cash,'' says Sotello. "But a lot of places won't take checks, only cash, or cashier's checks for the exact amount. I never heard of anybody saying you couldn't carry cash.'' Affidavits show the same deputy who stopped Sotello routinely stopped the cars or black and Hispanic drivers, exacting "donations'' from some. // After another of the deputy's stops, two black men from Atlanta handed over $1000 for a "drug fund'' after being detained for hours, according to a hand-written receipt reviewed by the Pittsburgh Press. // The driver got a ticket for "following to (sic) close.'' Back home, they got a lawyer. // Their attorney, in a letter to the Sheriff's department, said deputies had made the men "fear for their safety, and in direct exploitation of that fear a purported donation of $1000 was extracted...'' // If they "were kind enough to give the money to the sheriff's office,'' the letter said, "then you can be kind enough to give it back.'' If they gave the money "under other circumstances, then give the money back so we can avoid litigation.'' // Six days later, the sheriff's department mailed the men a $1000 check. Last year, the 72 deputies of Jefferson Davis Parish led the state in forfeitures, gathering $1 million -- more than their colleagues in New Orleans, a city 17 times larger than the parish. // Like most states, Louisiana returns the money to law enforcement agencies, but it has one of the more unusual distributions: 60 percent goes to the police bringing a case, 20 percent to the district attorney's office prosecuting it and 20 percent to the court fund of the judge signing the forfeiture order. // "The highway stops aren't much different from a smash-and-grab ring,'' says Lorenzi, of the Louisiana Defense Lawyers association.
--- Renegade v6-27 Beta
Origin: Shark's Mouth 313-658-1110 750 MEGS Dual Amiga/IBM (23:313/108)