"California: Police Raid Car Enthusiast Gathering, Generate Revenue
the newspaper
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Using $503,000 in federal and state gas tax revenue to pay for overtime, nine police agencies in Riverside, California sent more than one hundred police officers to surround a gathering of automotive enthusiasts. Owners of imported sport compact cars had gathered at the Canyon Crossing shopping center on Friday night to swap stories, talk about their passion for cars and show off the latest enhancements to their rides. At around 11pm police surprised participants by blocking all exits with fifty police cruisers. Officers then began a warrantless search and interrogation operation of the 150 vehicles that were present.
"If you're not into street racing, why would you need that?" Riverside Police Traffic Sergeant Skip Showalter asked an enthusiast during a similar crackdown last year. "Why would you want more power going to your car?"
Police issued a total of forty-eight tickets for "engine modifications" with police accusing the owners of the parked vehicles of being street racers. Another fifty tickets were issued for paperwork violations, dark window tinting and lack of a front license plate. The most revenue, however, will be generated from the fees imposed on twenty vehicles that were confiscated. Despite labeling the parking lot raid as taking place at a "street racing venue," Riverside Police offered no evidence that any street racing actually took place.
Across the state, gas tax funds are regularly used to fund similar crackdowns that generate big revenue. In 2004, the California Highway Patrol issued a total of 101,553 "modified car" citations worth $10.5 million according to CHP data obtained by TheNewspaper.
Other law enforcement agencies participating in Friday night's raid included the California Highway Patrol, Riverside County Sheriff's Department, and police from Baldwin Park, Fontana, Irwindale, Moreno Valley, Ontario and Mount San Jacinto Community College.
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Printed from: http://prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/030408Police.htm"
With blogger commentary:
"Don't you cops have, like, REAL crimes to deal with? You know, robbery, rape, murder, lying the country into a war; THAT kind of crap?
And that last part about "generating": revenue. That is a laugh. They are not generating revenue, they are pillaging it from the people! and if we sit silently and allow this, just because we ourselves are not into playing with our cars, what will be next? Fines for the wrong color on our houses? Fines for too many antennas on our roof? Fines because we have brown spots on our lawn, thereby denying the Earth that extra bit of oxygen?
I agree street racing is a problem, but none actually occurred in this case. The police simply declared a parking lot a "street racing venue" and started to slap fines on everything with chrome on it." -- Mike Rivero of whatreallyhappened.com
