Thread: Government Steals Little Girl’s $2,000 Lost-And-Found Mone

Our police, our governments, they are fast becoming an intractable problem

Government Steals Little Girl’s $2,000 of Lost-And-Found Money

- Warner Todd Huston
Thursday, May 12, 2011

There is an ages old American tradition where it concerns found money. We are all familiar with the concept that if one finds a pile of money lying on the ground and it is taken it to the authorities, if the actual owners cannot be found, then that money becomes the property of the person that found the money and dutifully turned it it. If the owner does turn up, of course, a reward is usually the result. This practice is meant to encourage honesty among the populace. But the city of Dallas, Texas is destroying that honesty-is-the-best-policy ideal with its greed.

As the story goes, in February teenager Ashley Donaldson found an envelope stuffed with $2,000 in the parking lot of shopping center in North Dallas. Like a good citizen she took the envelope to the local police and they began the process of trying to find the owner. Now, in May, the police have given up the search and have decided that the owner of the money cannot be found.

At this point, the American tradition holds that good citizen Ashley Donaldson would be awarded the found money as a reward for her honesty. But the city of Dallas is turning this American tradition on its head http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Dallas-d ... 09364.html and has decided that the government will keep the cash leaving Ashley out in the cold.

Not only is this an abrogation of American tradition, but it will add one more stroke to coarsen, and impersonalize our society and make it more selfish.

You see, one of the things that will happen if this sort of un-American practice becomes more wide spread is that people will no longer turn infound money . This means that people who lost a substantial amount of money will be assured they’ll never find it because the finders will reason that they may as well keep it since government will just steal it anyway.

Rapacious government stealing everything that isn’t nailed down. Government, police, politicians, they are long past the time when they were on our side. Government is now in it for itself. Not we the people.

After a day of being berated, the city police announced that maybe they would give the cash to miss Ashley after all. http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/dallas-p ... 66329.html

This is all well and good and a good decision of face saving. But that they had to make this about face at all is still a major problem.

Our police, our governments, they are fast becoming an intractable problem. This is just one more, small example of that

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/36414

you are No good it should go the girl you will have no luck at all
at all
you SB
she found that money . if you found that money I know for sure
you would never turn it in

If it was an aka imigrant or illegal, hispanic or latino they would have had a parade to hand over the money in front of news....I am assuming that the girl is an american by her name...Slap me if she isn't.

If You're Unhappy the City Kept $2,000 Girl Turned In, You're Not Alone. Right, Mr. Mayor?

Video at the link


http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairp ... y_kept.php

the shit they pulled is what goes on in third world countries .... I guess we are already there

If You're Unhappy the City Kept $2,000 Girl Turned In, You're Not Alone. Right, Mr. Mayor?

By Robert Wilonsky, Wed., May 11 2011 @ 1:00PM
38 Comments
WFAA-Channel 8
Video at the link

Ashley Donaldson discovered that it doesn't always pay to be honest. Will the city make it right?
​Speaking of getting city officials' responses to WFAA-Channel 8 stories ...

Maybe you saw the story last night about 15-year-old Ashley Donaldson, who found $2,000 stuffed into an envelope and, though her family sure could use the bread, did the right thing and turned it in. According to Ashley, she took it to a nearby Chase branch and was told she'd get the money back if no one showed up to claim it. Three months later, despite the best efforts of Chase and the Dallas Police Department, no one did.

So Ashley thought she'd get the money. Unh-unh. Right now, at least, it's going to the city of Dallas's general fund, per a recently put-in-place policy, according to Dallas PD spokesman Senior Corporal Kevin Janse, who told Craig Civale, "It's not going to be wasted, but put to good use for the city of Dallas."

So I called City Hall to see what policy that might be -- especially since Ashley's story is this close to going national. Turns out, city officials are trying to see what policy Janse's referring to.

City Manager Mary Suhm tells Unfair Park, "We're working on seeing what our responsibilities in the matter are and trying to resolve it." She says to check back later today, when she hopes to have a better explanation and, just maybe, a resolution.

And Chris Heinbaugh in Mayor Dwaine Caraway's office just sent a lengthy statement from the mayor, who says, in part, "I saw the story and like everyone else, I was very proud of her and very sympathetic as well. This young lady could have kept her mouth shut and kept this money, but instead she did the right thing."

He wants the money to go back to Ashley. But can it? Should it? Will it? He explains why on the other side, where you'll also find the full account from Channel 8. Updates forthcoming. Now jump, but leave the money where you found it.

Here's Mayor Dwaine Caraway's full statement:

I saw the story and like everyone else, I was very proud of her and very sympathetic as well. This young lady could have kept her mouth shut and kept this money, but instead she did the right thing.

Clearly, there are policies in place on how to handle money like this, and the City Manager is looking into those policies to see exactly what they are, where they come from and if they allow us other options on how to handle lost and found money. I also think once we get those answers, we need to take a closer look to make sure that the policy makes sense.

When someone finds money we recognize that whoever lost it may really need that money, and it's important we make every effort to find the rightful owner. If we aren't able to do that, we should put those funds back in the hands of the person who was honest enough to turn it in to begin with.

But we also may have a situation where the amount of money is really large and could likely be drug money. Should that be handled the same way? Those are some of the things I think we need to know more about and understand.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairp ... y_kept.php

Poll: Should Ashley Donaldson be allowed to keep the cash that she found?

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Dallas-d ... 3#comments

Poll: Should Ashley Donaldson be allowed to keep the cash that she found?

Yes 99% 12955

No 1% 179

Total Votes: 13134

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Dallas-d ... 3#comments