I could be wrong here, but I'm thinking frail 82-year-old woman with brittle bones who's afraid of her 6-foot son...
punish the bad guys, not the people they force themselves upon.. this woman couldn't stop the guy if she wanted to, without shooting him.
Thanks to Rick Lazio I might add.
WE TIP Hotline
"Fink on the kid, grannie, or we take your house. Oh, and thank you for your kind cooperation."
That's how it works these days.
The same way that the Unabomber's brother stopped the Unabomber from blowing up any more victims. Pick up the phone, call the Police and report the crime.
From the 4th ammendment to "Zero Tollerance" to property confication without due process, it is definatly a tangled web. Where will it end...INDEED.
Delta 21
Let's see: She can't
These confiscation laws are really un-American! They can't convict the guy of anything so they go after his mother!
The first thing you want to do, in a case like this, is pull out the race card and hold it up for everyone to see.
How much longer??? before you DRUG WAR FANATICS!! win this war?
so my taxes can be reduced, so I can get back my freedoms, so we have room for violent felons in prison, and so I can get the government to stop snooping on me??
(Things were so much simpler back when all drugs were legal, back when there was no drug-related crime, and the mafia was actually poor)
While I am no WOD crusader and I feel that convictionless seizures are an abomination of justice, it should be mentioned that this woman had many chances to do something about her son's behavior.
You can bet that if this was a white family in the suburbs who's kid was busted selling pot out of the house, that home would have been seized after incident numero uno.
Police have long had the right under state and federal law to seize property if they can show it's linked to the illegal drug trade.
Athens-Clarke police have rarely moved to commandeer a house. Thursday, they seized a west Athens house owned by an 82-year-old widow neighbors call ''Ma,'' claiming she was knowingly letting her son use the property as a staging site for drug sales.
Police predicted more home forfeitures, as they look for fresh ways to end open drug dealing that still troubles some Athens neighborhoods.
''This community is why we're here today -- it's part of our problem-solving approach to policing the community,'' said Mike Hunsinger of the Athens-Clarke Police Drug and Vice Squad. ''I think we're going to see more of it.''
Fannie Gresham's attorney, Jim Smith, likened the police action to the widespread illegal theft of African-American real estate that tarnishes America's past.
''What they're doing is taking property from black folks,'' he said. ''They don't attack white folks.''
Under the watchful eyes of neighbors, officers entered the tiny Julius Drive home of Gresham and changed the locks. Police on Thursday also arrested Gresham's son, Tommie ''Top Dollar'' Gresham, 50, on a cocaine possession charge after he allegedly dropped several rocks of crack cocaine and fled the scene, returning later while police were still there.
His mother was at the hospital visiting a sick relative during the police operation, according to her attorney, who accused police of confiscating the home of an innocent old woman. Neighbors described her as a kindly lady who walked to a nearby church every Sunday for services.
''Right here is a good example of the state taking property'' without evidence, Smith said, videotaping the operation from the street. ''There's not any drugs in this house. They have never seized any drugs in this house. This lady is not accused of a single thing.''
The police complaint alleged the senior Gresham facilitated her son's alleged operation by allowing the house to become a hub of drug activity.
Some 29 incidents of drug activity have been noted at the address there since 1992, records show.
Police were armed with a court order issued by Superior Court Judge Stephen Boswell, who heard evidence in December of alleged drug activity at the property. Police say drug dealers were caught numerous times by police fetching drugs from the house for street-side sales, and running after cars to sell drugs to motorists. Boswell gave Gresham 14 days to move her belongings.
A hearing on the seizure is scheduled for February in Clarke Superior Court. Boswell signed the order as a visiting judge after the Western Judicial Circuit's three Superior Court judges recused themselves in the case.
Seized by the state government was a Jim Walter home that Gresham and her husband erected in the 1950s, paying for it partly with money from a job she held at a local poultry plant. Her husband Tom died in June.
The sudden lockdown at the address surprised at least one visitor, dropping off a package for Gresham, who she described as a lovely person and a good customer. The visitor found only an empty locked house.
''All I know is what I bring them,'' Mary Brake said.''It's prescription drugs.''
The same way we expect any other law abiding citizen to stop criminals from dealing drugs: drop a dime on them.