Civil Liberties
Operation Rolling Thunder: Government Theft Runs Rampant
By AAF | Aug 14, 2024
After a 21-month fight with the state of South Carolina, the Institute for Justice had the courts turn over the documents related to “Operation Rolling Thunder,” a multi-agency operation focused on property seizures around Spartanburg County. Throughout the operation, 900 vehicles were stopped, and 144 were searched, almost a third of which were public buses.
While there were some arrests made, and some drugs seized, seventy-two percent of vehicles targeted had done nothing wrong, yet any time police found money, they treated it as illegal contraband. Not only seizing the cash but pressuring owners to sign paperwork to relinquish their ownership.
Throughout this whole ordeal, police never documented interactions with law-abiding citizens they pulled over, nor did they give any justification for pulling them over. Of the 144 searches, 102 have no documentation at all, hiding the actions of the police from public scrutiny.
Despite attempts from the Institute for Justice and other watchdog groups, the vast majority of interactions are undocumented, unrecorded, and lack the transparency required by most police agencies.
Instead, all we have is the indication that 900 drivers were harassed only to get 32 arrests. Over one hundred vehicles were stopped and searched, and the owners were detained for hours, in some cases, to face no charges. The police budget was inflated by nearly a million dollars as a result of this intimidation campaign.
These practices aren’t limited to South Carolina. In fact, police all over the country engage in various forms of civil forfeiture. American Action Fund is committed to reigning in this practice that doesn’t require conviction and is apt for corrupt and unconstitutional takings.
On that note, we are happy to support half a dozen Hazlitt Coalition members in New Hampshire who just this past year signed onto Senate Bill 356, which would require the automatic return of seized property after charges are dismissed or a suspect is found not guilty. Such a bill is an excellent first step to reforming the egregious acts, like in Operation Rolling Thunder.
Related Blog Articles