SHARE Tim Helldorfer

By Tim Helldorfer

Every day we see more violence, more drug dealing and more crimes causing death. Just last week, gunmen robbed two pharmacies in Shelby County and stole addictive drugs.

Yet, every day we are told by some that drugs should be legalized, criminals should not be kept in jail, police cannot be trusted and that there isn't enough money to increase funding to law enforcement and prosecutors. If we are not yet at war with crime, we should be. Now is the time to increase funding to law enforcement.

It is alarming that a small number of lawmakers in Nashville are trying to do the opposite with anti-forfeiture legislation.

The West Tennessee Violent Crime and Drug Task Force consists of officers and agencies from Memphis and across West Tennessee. Our task force receives no funding from state or local governments.

We exist because we are funded by the criminals, not the taxpayers. This funding comes from a decades-old law that says the criminals' money should be used to fund law enforcement through a court process called forfeiture.

Criminal drug money that judges have ordered forfeited to the task force has allowed us to hire officers and buy vehicles, body cameras and bulletproof vests to keep our officers safe. Thanks to the criminals, we do this without having to beg government for a dime of taxpayer money.

Remarkably, there are several legislative proposals in Nashville this term that would eliminate criminal proceeds forfeiture funding to law enforcement across the state.

This anti-forfeiture legislation, if successful, would be an incredible win for criminals. It would certainly mean the end of the West Tennessee Violent Crime and Drug Task Force and law enforcement as we know it because it would eliminate the only funding most drug task forces receive.

Our officers have arrested murderers, rescued a sexually exploited child and victims of human trafficking, busted identity-theft rings, rescued children from houses used as meth labs, seized countless pounds of poisonous drugs and taken multiple firearms off our streets.

In the last few months, we have seized 6 kilograms of cocaine; 243 pounds of marijuana, 33 pounds methamphetamine, and seized $1,621,378 of drug-dealer money.

All of these and future West Tennessee gains will be lost if the anti-forfeiture agenda succeeds.

Those who contend that current forfeiture law is unfair are mistaken. Under existing law, no forfeiture case can even start without a judge first determining grounds exist to pursue a forfeiture. This is the same safeguard the law uses to ensure there is just cause to arrest a person and put that person in jail, or to enter and search a person's home.

No forfeiture can ultimately occur unless the seizing agency proves the case to a judge using the same burden of proof used in state and federal civil courts across the nation.

The anti-forfeiture legislation being proposed seeks to require a criminal conviction of "the owner" before the illegal money can be forfeited. This reflects another tragically flawed concern.

The flawed premise of this concern is that property has a presumption of innocence. This concept is found nowhere in the law. People have rights, property does not. And a person's right to property includes the right to abandon or give up that ownership interest.

Drug dealers intentionally use others to do their dirty work to conceal their participation in crimes. When $1.5 million is found in vacuum-sealed bundles hidden in a truckload of vegetables, that money can be forfeited to law enforcement — but only after the owner is given the opportunity to claim the property in court and make us prove the money should be forfeited.

It is not surprising that drug dealers don't step forward to claim their drug money.

It is worth repeating that the legislature provides no funding to our drug task force. So these anti-forfeiture efforts are not an attempt to save the state taxpayer money by spending less.

Rather, the anti-forfeiture legislators are looking to eliminate funding that comes from the criminal, not the taxpayer. The only effect is to critically diminish, if not eliminate entirely, drug task forces like ours across the state.

Tim Helldorfer is director of the West Tennessee Violent Crime and Drug Task Force.