Here's how it starts: a cop patrols a low-income neighborhood and stops someone. They have no ID. He could let the licensed driver riding shotgun drive the car home, but, instead, he decides to tow. The driver, who may have needed that car to live, will never see it again. 2/12
A million reasons to tow: parked 1 foot into a no-standing zone? Tow. Parked in Hollywood after 2am? Instant tow. Cops have discretion, but time and again choose to take poor people's cars away. 3/13 lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1185556…
Let's say you left your ID in the car--you can't get it back w/o ID, but the tow yard won't let you into your car to get your ID. You've already been charged $260 for the tow & are racking up $100/day from the tow yard. You can't designate someone else to get your car but... 4/13
It might not matter anyway, bc cops are still doing 30-day holds in CA. What's that you say? It's a probably illegal thing (see Brewster v Beck) where the police basically file a piece of paper saying you can't even try to get your car until you've got over $3k in charges. 5/13
Why, you say? The car isn't evidence. It's not being swabbed for something. You were just badly parked, or didn't have insurance, or something minor. Probably, you were in a low-income neighborhood. 6/13
Often people have a minor issue (lack of insurance or ID) but have a licensed driver with them, and the cops tow instead of letting the licensed driver take the car. 7/13
So a cop could easily resolve the situation, but *chooses to tow* instead to a tow yard and then files a document that has *nothing to do with investigation* and the result is you're charged $3000 instead of $300. 8/13
As you all know, this is much more likely to happen to low-income people, and they're more likely to lose the car because of it: often the car isn't worth the price to get it back. 9/13
wclp.org/wp-content/upl…
The result is that a cop had your car towed for nothing, makes sure you can't get it back for so long that you're priced out, and then...drum roll...the police-chosen tow yard gets to sell your car and keep the profit. Sound corrupt? It has been. 10/13
It actually has been in a multitude of ways---checkpoints are a really easy way to steal people's cars and have them sold off, especially if the people coming through that location are undocumented. 11/13
The fastest-growing type of homelessness in the Bay is living in one's car (often because of a lost job or the hair-raising price of rent). So this is a means of extracting private profit from the most vulnerable people in CA. 12/13
If you read this and are as furious as I am, raise hell. Call your rep. The people feeling the pain the most are often people who are systematically shut out from being heard. It takes you 30 seconds to share this and tag your rep or call them. Let's go. findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov
