St. Louis cops turn forfeiture policy into free car rental service

Cops and their kids get to use confiscated cars in St. Louis for free.

Seems that the city of St. Louis, like many cities, allows the police to confiscate the cars of people suspected (but not necessarily convicted) of certain crimes. They have a contract with a city towing firm, and said firm was allowing police officers and their families to "rent" confiscated cars free of charge, sometimes for months on end. Officers and their families could also sometimes purchase the confiscated cars at a fraction of the cars' value.

All of that is pretty outrageous. But it gets better. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch stumbled onto the story after investigating the daughter of the city's police chief. She had been involved in a number of accidents with different cars. On several occasions she had wrecked a car, then simply gone down to the towing service to get a 60-80 percent discount on a new one. After one accident, her blood-alcohol concentration tested at .17. She wasn't arrested or charged. The department says it has "no idea" why she was let go.

St. Louis Cops Turn Forfeiture Policy Into Free Car Rental Service (Reason Hit & Run)

• [Mikey Likes BoingBoing]

  I googled Joe Mokwa, the STL chief of police. Click “I’m feeling lucky” and you see: http://www.im4mokwa.com/ – “a website in support of Chief Joe Mokwa.”

  It is an online petition of support for Mokwa.

  Why a police chief would need or want this kind of on-your-sleeve “support” (more accurate term: fealty) is very odd and to say the least does not exactly inspire confidence.

  One thing’s for sure, his lush of a daughter should sign that petition, pronto…it’s the least she could do in exchange for playing real-life demolotion derby with Other People’s Cars with a BAL of .17….

• [Brian Carnell]

  @27 wrote:

  “Wait, does not St. Louis have an anti-corruption police? Who’s job is solely to find and persecute corrupt police officials?”

  ROTLFMAO.

• [asfi]

  @ #49: If you wanna see how a city is supposed to operate, go to Toronto or Vancouver. It’s depressing to see how well everything operates there and then have to come back to the states.

  Eeep. Toronto’s been going downhill for over a decade now. I’m not going to lay blame on the cause, but suffice it to say that the city’s boldly going forth and fixing that which doesn’t need it, while ignoring at its peril the slow-moving trainwrecks in progress.

  So it’s charming, albeit a bit quaint, that some people still look up to my adopted hometown.

• [Sean Grimm]

  Corrupt police forces? Scandalous. At least, there used to be a time when it would be. Now we all we muster is a frown and say, “It’s a darned shame.”

  At least they didn’t shoot any unarmed children, and that’s really the best we can hope for anymore.

• [pewma]

  @ #37 SPAZZM:
  In a word. No. St. Louis has no anti-corruption task force. There are laws and regulations but it’s upon the police to enforce these. So good luck getting any police in this city charged with any crime. It makes for a semi-lawless state. Which is in the best interest for many power holders and gangsters in this town.

• [Brian Carnell]

  @39 … laws are for little people, not police.

• [Maddy]

  here’s one — your car gets stolen in LA, and then the cops find it on the street. they have it towed, and notify you at a later date, so that it’s been accruing redonkuless amounts of storage fees. You owe the towing company for this, the tow, and NOW a new charge for them to dispose of your car, which really is only a chassis now. somewhat off point as far as seizure, but just more tales of cops&cars

• [Erik V. Olson]

  Note: St. Louis government is very strange.

  1) The Independent City of St. Louis is *not* part of St. Louis County (though it is surrounded by said county and the Mississippi River.) In areas where a county government would normally function, another office in the City does so — so, St. Louis City has both a Police Department and a Sheriffs Department.

  2) To make things worse, the St. Louis Police Department is, in fact, a *state* department, not a function of the City — created by the state in 1861. So, the City Government has very little real control over SLPD — esp. in terms of management, the Police Chief is chosen by the Governor, not the Mayor.

• [the specialist]

  welcome to the “little easy”.

• [Phikus]

  Gee, SEAN. You really are GRIMM…

  In other news: In Tennessee and other “zero tolerance” states, if they find even a seed or tiniest fiber of cannabis in your vehicle (which I am told they will often vacuum for) then presto: Your vehicle is theirs, even if you still have to make payments on it for the next 7 years! This has led to targeting of newer and larger vehicles for such “drug busts”. Instances of individual corruption aside, clearly there is some very unjust stuff on the books here. It’s not just a darned shame. It’s a travesty.

• [Kyle Armbruster]

  Cops? Crooked? Who’da thunk?

  I hate cops.

• [hlehmann2]

  *vry* St. Ls plc ffcr (nd th chf’s drg ddctd dghtr, jst fr gd msr) shld b lnd p nd sht. Every officer there is either corrupt, or they know plenty of others that are corrupt and yet they do nothing to prevent it. What’s really sad is that St. Louis isn’t the exception; most big cities have police forces that think that the law no longer applies to them.

• [bardfinn]

  This will continue until such time as a rich Republican publicly loses a large amount of money and a federal office due to this occurring; Then, a small fraction of his personal fortune will be spent overturning all such laws.

  Until then, the remainder of the rich Republicans will continue making large amounts of money off of, and winning local public office on the basis of, such policies.

• [FoetusNail]

  World’s best dressed, connected, equipped, and armed gangs. They have yearly fashion shows for Christ’s sake.

  They don’t need to find anything, arrest anyone, or, as is often the case, convict anyone.

• [bjacques]

  One guys *did* do something about sleazy cops. Granted, it was a small, arguably fictional town, but it had been there almost 60 years before he managed to take it down.

  Politically, you might have to wait until next January, when the climate for reform is (possibly) friendlier, but a crowd-sourced investigation in the meantime might turn up something legally actionable.

• [gandalf23]

  Doesn’t surprise me, Maddy #16.

  My first car (11 year old Pontiac Grand Le Mans) was stolen (two weeks after I bought it). Was woken up by the police phoning to tell me they’d recovered my car. I didn’t even know it had been stolen yet, and it kinda freaked me out. I asked them to dust it for fingerprints and such. They said sure, but it’ll take three to four weeks before they could get around to it, and the daily fee for having a car impounded is $75. I was like “It’s evidence, how can you charge for that?” But they would not budge. In 9 days it would’ve cost me more in impound fees than the car did two weeks prior! Still had to pay the towing fee and impound fee for one day (ended up being a little over $200, or roughly 1/3 of the price of my car!), even though it was recovered a few blocks from my house and if they’d just called I would’ve walked over and driven it back home. The cop I spoke to in the auto theft dept. said I should consider myself lucky they didn’t wait three days (or weeks I guess!) to call me to rack up the fee even more. That still pisses me off, and it’s been…almost 20 years. Damn.

• [Anonymous]

  ONCE AGAIN MY PIECE OF SHIT CITY HITS THE NEWS…..
  If you think thats bad check out these other great things st louis police do…..

  They let a random asshole just walk in and say he was a cop from another city there to help them with the drug problem. Then for a few months he rode along and even caused many raids and busts (aka robberies) where he repeatedly broke every rule in the book.

  They excessively check for grass over 8″ in height, then they call the county, they come out and fine you and give you a week to cut it. Let say you are on vacation, I was. Well if you dont comply and get every blade of grass under 8″, you get a court date of course, but the best part? They call their buddies who then immediately mow your grass without your permission for a mere $160! I have a 20×20′ hunk of property front and back. I was told they actually get a kickback from the mowing company… BUT WAIT…. IT DOESNT STOP THERE….

  The sheriff evicts people right? Well guess what happens if they show up and you arent home, they again call their buddies, who immediately show up while the paid company is removing the items and setting them on the curb. The “buddies” of the sheriff, basically show up and pretend the stuff is theres then they haul anything of value away for later dividing amongst themselves.

  What else. Ah a friend of mine had her car hit-and-runned while it was in front of my house being worked on. It broke down a week and a half before but in a parking spot. In the week it took me to fix it, her tags went out, literally it was 2 days out of registration. When we called the police I left her outside to deal with it. She came in balling her eyes out saying, the police checked her plate and informed her if he had to write up the complaint about the hit and run, he would also have to give her a $200 no registration ticket. The fat lazy fuck didnt want to do paperwork.

  What else. Ah ever since St louis hitting #1 worst city last year, the police have been not writing most things up. They will find reasons not to, they will literally lie to you and pretend to make a report, only to find out there was never a report. I have a lawsuit going because I was in an accident (not my fault) and the police didnt even write up the accident report. When my lawyer requested a copy, they delayed/denied/detoured/distracted, then about 4 months later they showed up at my doorstep asking me to remind them about the accident so they could make a report!!! WTF?

  Dont even get me started on police brutality in this city. My first year living here I bought myself a new mustang and was installing the alarm which kept going off. Police came and I was tackled and handcuffed, during that process I managed to get a hand free and I whistled for help from my friends/neighbors. About ten of them came out and started yelling at the police. Because of this the cop deliberately handcuffed me incorrectly causing partial loss of the use of that hand for over a year. In fact it still bothers me when carrying heavy objects. Basically a handcuff is designed to have the hinge on the side of your wrist, he had the hinge on the bottom and the clasping part on top of my wrist. Clamped so tightly my wrist literally seperated, hand turned purple and went numb, a numbness that lasted for a month or two steady. When the white shirt got there I screamed at him to look at my hand, he did and instantly released me. Then the cops all left. The next day the same asshole pulled me over and again arrested me for nothing. This time he said they had a report that my brand new(used) car was stolen, even though I had fresh temp tags. Again he manhandled me, and purposefully hit my head on the door frame, at least he didnt wrongly cuff my already sore and bruised wrist. I was released on all (bullshit) charges.

  What else…. In regards to the towing thing. HAHAHA Its been a long time coming for them to get caught. There is also a kickback on towing. The police use a specific towing company, when they call the price for a tow and storage go up astronomically, what they dont tell you in this post above is that they actually confiscate valuable cars in less than a month because the towing/storage fees get out of control in no time. Put it this way, I have lost 2 cars to the city. One wasnt worth the $640 they wanted for 3 nights of storage and towing, the other was towed from my driveway/yard while I was out of town. I lost a $5000 car to them because I wasnt going to pay just under $2000 to get it back. A close friend had the exact same thing happen to him. So basically if you live in st louis, misery(missouri), than good fucking luck being an honest citizen and keeping the pigs off your ass. Its getting so that you can no longer avoid legal issues by simply not doing anything wrong.

  If you were planning on moving to st louis, please reconsider. I would leave in a heartbeat if I had the chance.

• [bjacques]

  A US Attorney sniffing around and a policemen’s association expressing its outright embarrassment suggest bad news for Mr. Mokwa. He sounds like a real horror show. Someone like that would have strong views on who’s good enough his daughter–a cop like dear old dad.

• [CS Loser]

  “The police department hired a law firm, which concluded that the towing arrangement broke no rules or laws.”

  Aha. The John Yoo defense, where you get your own lawyer to say you are not a criminal. If this is valid, it’s sort of surprising that *anyone* is in prison.

• [Anonymous]

  @ # 44″The (mostly) white people who live in St Louis County (the suburbs) don’t let their families go “past Hanley Rd” which is even outside of the city limits because they don’t want their kids in the city itself.”

  Just plain false. I used to live in St. Louis county. I moved about 5 years ago. The U-city loop, Forest Park, the Central West End, Downtown, Soulard, etc. are all “past” (i.e., east of) Hanley Rd. I frequented all those locations even before I could drive. So did all my friends. Do white residents of the county forbid their children from attending Cardinals games?
  ____

  I remember one bad thing about the cops in STL county. I worked at an ice cream shop. It always bothered me that the cops got free ice cream anytime they wanted (even when off duty) just by showing their badges. The abused this so much that they would bring in groups of people and expect us to make free ice cream for the whole bunch. What jerks.

• [Thorzdad]

  Still, in this day and age of tax-cutting and budget-slashing, you have to admire their ingenuity in creating a new revenue stream.

• [Webbie]

  I googled Aimie Mowka and found an alarming photograph of her.

  Ms Mowka, as featured in the original St Louis Dispatch story seems to be a bit of a problem child.

• [knodi]

  I once had my bicycle stolen. The cop said “Well, they usually never turn up. But why don’t you keep an eye out for it, maybe the culprit lives around here?”

  Thanks.

  As it turns out, I DID find it- in the back of a pickup, in a parking lot, miles from my dorm. One-in-a-million chance. I deflated the truck’s tires and then went off to find a cop. They showed up and gave me my bike, but they wouldn’t get the seat out of the (unlocked) cab of the truck. That required a warrant, and then after it was confiscated, it spend over a week in an evidence locker.

  The thief had my bike for two days- the cops kept the seat for three weeks. And the thief didn’t even have to replace the lock he cut.

• [variablizer]

  BITCHIN CAMARO, BITCHIN CAMARO
  I ran over my neighbors
  BITCHIN CAMARO, BITCHIN CAMARO
  Now it’s in all the papers.
  My folks bought me a BITCHIN CAMARO with no insurance to match;
  So if I happen to run you down, please don’t leave a scratch.
  I ran over some old lady one night at the county fair;
  And I didn’t get arrested, because my dad’s the mayor.

  - Bitchin Camaro The Dead Milkmen

• [thorn]

  i am so tired of people saying ‘ho-hum’ to corruption among those in power. will they still say that when a cop trumps up a reason to jack their ride? this isn’t a situation where you don’t have to worry if you’re not doing anything wrong. it’s a situation where you *might* not have to worry, as long as no cop sees your vehicle and decides it should be his.

  icy slope. these guys should do time.

• [Antinous]

  You do realize that the logical next stage of this is for the RIAA to take your house and let the executives’ crackhead relatives live there.

• [danielorf]

  #44 ALEXX, It’s just amazing how many people inside the WashU “bubble” have no idea the South Side even exists. I went to school there as well (on merit mind you, I couldn’t afford the $40,000/year most of the parents shell out) and found that nearly the entire university shuts itself off from anyting east of McCausland/Skinker Ave. Much of West County is the same way. The North Side of the city is basically a 3rd world country, but the South Side is very nice and very safe with the exception of a few pockets mentioned by PEWMA. You will not find a safer place than St Louis Hills. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in STL outside of the South Side.

  Granted, St Louis has many problems, but they are no different than nearly any other large city in the US. The corruption of cops and neglect of school officials is everywhere in this country. If you wanna see how a city is supposed to operate, go to Toronto or Vancouver. It’s depressing to see how well everything operates there and then have to come back to the states.

  #46, you seem to attact all kinds of attention. Either you’re drawing it on yourself somehow, or you are the unluckiest man in the room. I must point out that most of the problems you mentioned occured outside of St Louis City. Oh, and if you are dying to leave so badly, what’s keeping you here?

• [pewma]

  @ #7 KURTMAC:
  Pretty much. From what I gather it’s essentially a trial period to see if the added cost to the budget for this “program” is worth it. You know. The whole putting a price tag on lives game.

  @ #9 BUDDY66:
  The “initiative” has had no sort of publicity other than a low profile article on local news websites. I live just five blocks away from what is arguably the worst neighborhood in south St. Louis. I haven’t noticed any change in the police activity in the area. And I regularly drive through this area during the “golden hours” of 1-3AM.
  Conversely, I did talk to someone the other day who lives in the heart of the minno-mob territory (being minnesota ave. between miami and gravois) saying they witnessed a shooting last friday night just one house up from hers and she called the police and they arrived in about five minutes. Which is very impressive for around here. So I think they are simply increasing the number of officers patrolling these trouble areas. But when asked for a description of the shooter she was kind of stuck. Most of the thug kids (usually ages 12-20) in the area have all conformed to a sort of uniform of a white tall tee and jeans or khakis. However another close friend of mine who lives just ten blocks south of this area witnessed a kid shoot six rounds into a crowd of other kids sitting on their porch (drinking and smoking. which is a practice I regularly partake in at various places around the south side) and called the police and no officers showed up at all. Probably since no one was killed and/or it wasn’t in their focus area.

  AND

  @ #13 DOUG NELSON:
  For the degradation of our neighborhoods we can blame our aldermen and I guess ourselves. My alderman Craig Schmitt, who has his heart in the right place, has done nothing but hurt our ward. With various sanctions and requirements for opening late night businesses. Granted you open a bar and you will get a few drunken stragglers on the street but you also get people on the street after 9 PM!!! And a mass amount people on the street at night is more eyes and less crime. Just some of his imposed requirements for opening a bar/club in the ward is having 30-40 percent of your income come from food sales as well as requiring to offer in upwards of 70% off street parking based upon your occupancy rating. For this to happen most of the existing properties would have to buy the adjacent property and tear it down for a parking lot. Oh, and don’t get me started on how he tried to get all businesses serving alcohol to put up cameras with direct web access granted solely to Mr. Schmitt. Things like this simply cause anyone wanting to open a business in this area to look elsewhere.
  Oh, and I agree about the A.B. buyout. Granted they won’t immediately shut down the iconic south city factory, but it is a 156 year old complex and per area capita I would assume the most costly to run. After a buyout by InBev, I’d give it at most 10-15 years before the close it down.

• [FoetusNail]

  #26 Webbie – Yikes! As a father I’m caught between sympathy for the guy and you reap what you sow. Though from these reports, Joe Mokwa is at the very least an incompetent bureaucrat hired to look the other way or at worst one f’d up corrupt cop.

• [Mikey Likes BoingBoing]

  “So long, screwy! See ya in Saint Louie!”
  - Bugs Bunny

• [betterthansunshine]

  Cops in and around St. Louis think they can get away with anything by using the terribly high crime rate as a reason, and they really don’t care about violating civil rights – I’ve had friends searched, everything taken out of their cars (and left on the side of the road for the searched to put back into place), stuff broken “accidently,” stuff goes missing, etc, and yet the cops are always claiming they need more authority and more money to fight crime. They aren’t interested in fighting crime, they’re interested in getting everything for free. It’s no secret that they use Cardinals tickets they confiscate from scalpers.

• [Pyros]

  There is nothing shocking about this story–just part of the American criminal industrial complex. The cop-tow truck racket is something common to just about every major American city even if it happens to be more outrageous in some places like St. Louis. Let’s face it, by and large police can kill and rob citizens with relative impunity in the good ol’ U.S. of A. I’ve seen stories like this more times than I care to remember.

  Unfortunately, most people accept the status quo. When there is sufficient documentation to make a case against the cops such as there was in this story, it might, at most, rate a mention on a site like Boing Boing, or maybe the local news but that is about it.

  Private tragedy in American is essentially only a resource for public delectation. In our otherwise desensitized, bleak lives we afforded the luxury of feeling grossed out, offended, incensed, etc along with the panoply of other feelings we’ve that we’re offered to feel.

  That’s all that matters. Feelings are an end to themselves and there is hardly any expectation that they should ever resolve to action of any sort.

  Will the citizens of St. Louis ever march on their policy for what they might rightly feel as a violation of their rights? Will anyone ever hold up a sign? Will anything ever be done?

  Unlikely, I’d say. If citizens respond at all it is similar to the way a moose might respond to an attacking pack of wolves: no sooner than it can defend its hind quarters against one or two of them does it find at least that number lunging for its throat. The outrageous against freedom in this country on a community, state and federal level come to fast and furiously.

  They make the news. When they do, these stories are replaced easily enough in an hour, in a day, in a week by fresh tragedies which we are allowed to gawk at.

  Only a true masochist or the lunatic could endure sustained moral outrage. Given the general state of powerlessness in which the citizen exists in, these extraordinary assaults can only be received as a form of perverse entertainment. IF you cannot prevent Christians being thrown to the lions, may as well enjoy the spectacle.

• [chromal]

  Clrly, f thy hv bdg, t mst b K. f thy cn smsh n cr wndws t rsc dlls, why s ths npprprt? Th plc r mplctly nfllbl, ccrdng t bngbng grpthnk.

• [Santa’s Knee]

  Weak, chromal, very weak…

• [Thebes]

  As a side note, Police Chiefs across the nation have NO IDEA why shootings of police officers have increased. Some have suggested it is due to an increased availability of so called “assault weapons”, thought these firearms are used in less than 1% of violent firearm crimes. Could it instead be that the thugs know the cops are just a legally sanctioned group of thugs themselves???

• [pewma]

  Being a St. Louis resident, I’m not surprised by this. The cops here do what they want and get away with a lot more. If they actually did their job I would be less pissed by this. In other STL police news, the police chief launched an anti-homicide initiative last tuesday. And on thursday stated that there had been no homicides since the launch. WHOO! Two whole days!
  http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=150105

• [tresser]

  The department says it has “no idea” why she was let go.

  how hard is it to understand what “crooked” means?

• [Anonymous]

  So when you’re playing GTA St Louis, you have to worry about the cops stealing the cars BACK? cool. Oh, this ISN’T a game? poo.

• [Doug Nelson]

  A friend of mine’s dad was a St. Louis cop. He’d tell us about shoving ammonia capsules up a drunk’s nostrils and then punching them in the nose. And then he’d laugh and laugh…

• [DeuceMojo]

  I… am… _shocked_. Please distribute WWJD bracelets to the entire force immediately.

• [KurtMac]

  @#3 PEWMA: I found the last line of the article to be similarly disheartening: “He [Metro Police Chief Joe Mokwa] added that the [Homicide Deterrence] initiative would continue for at least the next two weeks. ”

  So… after these two weeks pass its okay for St. Louis criminals to start planning their homicides again?

• [angusm]

  “The department says it has ‘no idea’ why she was let go.”

  If I can come up with a theory, will they make me a detective? Because I think I can probably crack that particular case …

• [buddy66]

  ”In other STL police news, the police chief launched an anti-homicide initiative last tuesday.”

  What the hell is an anti-homicide initiative, and how does it work? Do they cruise high-homicide areas, looking for people with guns? I thought they did that anyway. Do they put up signs, distribute fliers, and run radio and TV ads?

  ”If you murder someone we will confiscate your guns, just like we did your cars. You have been warned.”

• [Nathan_Hall]

  Has anyone challenged this in court yet? Seems like a fairly clear case of taking property without due process of law.

• [Anonymous]

  what a bunch of scofflaws

• [alexx]

  I go to school in STL (well, campus bumps up again the city itself, so I’m out of SLPD’s jurisdiction) and it doesn’t stop there. STL needs a ton of help and investment. We’ve learned the cops are crooked.

  The St Louis Public School district lost control over their schools because they performed so poorly. This time it’s not a silly failure of NCLB.

  There are huge food deserts in the north side of the city. The only places to buy food (besides a very new and very small farmer’s market) are convenience stores.

  The (mostly) white people who live in St Louis County (the suburbs) don’t let their families go “past Hanley Rd” which is even outside of the city limits because they don’t want their kids in the city itself.

  It’s a vacuum there. Racism and poverty. Right next to the city of Clayton – median house price of half a million plus.

• [FoetusNail]

  Most of the time there is little to challenge.

  Forfeiture laws pretty much work outside of due process. The burden of proof falls to the claimant.

  From a paper posted at the Cate Institute.

  Federal courts have largely accepted, without scrutiny, the probable cause standard for civil forfeitures. Recently, however, a federal judge, writing in dissent, carefully examined whether a probable cause standard for civil forfeiture violated due process by not providing sufficient protection for property owners. In United States v. $12,390.00, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed what has become commonplace–the seizure and forfeiture of money based solely on the inadmissible hearsay of informants that the money was related to drugs after a search that netted neither drugs nor arrests.(68) In his well-reasoned dissent, Judge Arlen Beam wrote:

  [T]he current allocation of burdens and standards of proof requires that the claimant [owner] prove a negative, that the property was not used in or to facilitate illegal activity, while the government must prove almost nothing. This cre ates a great risk of an erroneous, irreversible deprivation [of property]. . . . The allocation of burdens and standards of proof . . . is of greater importance since it decides who must go forward with evidence and who bears the risk of loss should proof not rise to the standard set. In civil forfeiture cases, where claimants are required to go forward with evidence and exculpate their property by a preponderance of the evidence, all risks are squarely on the claimant. The government, under the current approach, need not produce any admissible evidence and may deprive citizens of property based on the rankest of hearsay and the flimsiest evidence. This result clearly does not reflect the value of private property in our society, and makes the risk of an erroneous deprivation intolerable.(69)

  Judge Beam is clearly right. Although a probable cause standard may be adequate to justify making allegations, it is hardly adequate to justify seizing and forfeiting property to the government.

  http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-179.html

• [KeithIrwin]

  Police abuse of civil forfeiture laws are an inevitable consequence of easy civil forfeiture. Police officers are human beings, and like all human beings, if you wave enough free stuff under their noses for long enough, some of them will eventually take it.

  Our civil forfeiture system is fundamentally broken. Innocent until proven guilty should apply in civil forfeiture proceedings just as it does in criminal cases. Until that change is made, these sort of abuses will inevitably keep showing up.

• [spazzm]

  Wait, does not St. Louis have an anti-corruption police? Who’s job is solely to find and persecute corrupt police officials?

  If so; why aren’t they all over this like Michael More on an armed cheeseburger?
  If not; Why, oh why?

• [Doug Nelson]

  I live in the St. Louis area, and corruption is the only growth industry we have left. Expect a boom in corruption as soon as Anheiser Busch leaves.