By Eric BoehmIn March, Chris Sourovelis’ son was caught selling $40 of heroin to an undercover police officer.Officers from the Philadelphia Police Department responded by raiding the Sourovelis’ north Philadelphia home, with guns drawn — one of them pointed at the head of the family dog — and found small amounts of the drug in the 22-year old’s bedroom. Chris and his wife, Amy, knew nothing of their son’s drug habit and it was the first time he had been busted for possessing narcotics.A few weeks later, the cops were back to tell the Sourovelis family they had to gather their things and leave the property. The home was being confiscated under civil forfeiture rules, leaving the family homeless and forced to sleep on a neighbor’s couch.To get their home back, Chris and Amy Sourovelis had to agree that their son would no longer live with them. Even though they agreed, the family could still lose their home permanently as the case winds through the city’s legal system.Now, the Sourovelis family is one of a group of people bringing a class-action lawsuit against the Philadelphia Police Department and the city’s District Attorney’s Office, alleging that law enforcement in Philadelphia is routinely and repeatedly violating the due process rights of the city’s citizens.“I did not do anything wrong, yet Philadelphia is trying to take my house,” said Chris Sourovelis, in a statement released by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm involved in the case.
Read more about PHILADELPHIA'S "FORFEITURE MACHINE": $64 Million Confiscated From Citizens With No Due Process
No comments:
Post a Comment