The tenure of 10th District Drug Task Force director Mike Hall included allegations of improper spending and questions about drug use. Here, Hall makes an arrest.NASHVILLE — Skeptical about cops whose salaries depend on seizing money from motorists, some Tennessee lawmakers think it’s time for more transparency and accountability in the state’s judicial drug task forces.
After a hearing Tuesday in Nashville, members of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee found their statutory authority, their governance and their oversight all lacking, and several said they expect to file legislation in January to impose tighter controls on the task forces.
The subcommittee, headed by Chairman Mike Bell, R-Riceville, was following up on allegations raised in the Times Free Press and elsewhere about problems in some of Tennessee’s 24 drug task forces that amount to “policing for profit.”
The task forces generally must earn their own way, with little to no state or local support. Most depend on interdiction — seizing cash and property from drug dealers or money couriers — and drug fines and forfeitures to pay the bills. But allegations raised by the newspaper, the state comptroller’s office and Nashville television station NewsChannel 5 documented massive problems with a system that gives police a financial stake in crime.
They detailed agents seizing money as drug proceeds but never charging owners with a crime; of misspending of taxpayer money; and of misappropriating for personal use or profit cars, jewels and other big-ticket items seized from motorists by drug agents.