Hamilton Nolan —
In Bell, California, America's Most Corrupt Little Town, the police department's role was to 1) Help the "disabled" distance-runner police chief as he took all of the city's money; and 2) To find new ways to steal from the poor.
Hey, here's a new one: turn ticketing people and impounding cars into a fun game! A baseball game, and they'd keep score, and the officers could compete to see how they could extort the most money from civilians. What a suitably corrupt way to ensure that the maximum amount of revenue is squeezed from the populace to fund the enormous salaries of the crooks who run the city. And it would be extra awesome if they could put the whole scheme into memo form, to make things easier for the prosecutors who'd later be investigating the whole nasty business... oh, they did? Well then. Carry on.
Read more at gawker.com[LAT]