Cops and Robbers

This is truly despicable.

Roderick Daniels was traveling through East Texas in October 2007 when, he says, he was the victim of a highway robbery.

The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.

But Daniels couldn’t go to the police to report the incident. The men who stopped him were the police.

Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges — but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.

…

Now Daniels and other motorists who have been stopped by Tenaha police are part of a lawsuit seeking to end what plaintiff’s lawyer David Guillory calls a systematic fleecing of drivers passing through the town of about 1,000.

I encourage you to watch the video, or read the complete story at CNN.com. This is good watchdog reporting, and I really appreciate the media working to uncover this kind of corruption in local government.

For advocates of big government programs out there, remember this story the next time you think you’d like to see a new government program. The Government makes mistakes just like the rest of us, but when it does we are often left with little recourse, and the battle to set things right can take generations.

I hope the courts sort this out and serves justice where it is due.