Whatever happened to serve and protect?

Well this about knocked me off my chair this morning. Detroit News reports,

The Detroit City Council on Wednesday delayed a vote on whether to buy "The Commander," a $743,000 urban assault vehicle that is resistant to anti-tank mines. It is unclear when the council will reconsider the issue; the police department intended to buy the tank with cash from its drug forfeiture fund.

You'll note that Detroit wants to pay for the assault vehicle with legalized highway robbery... um, I mean drug forfeiture funds. That's the irony of the forfeiture system. They get to keep the money they extort, ...oops, I mean seize, but they're not allowed to spend it on more cops, only stuff like gyms and assault vehicles, which only encourages them to make more marginal and unneccessary busts in order to get more money, to buy more tanks, with which to terrorize certain citizens of their cities. What a raquet.

[abbrievitated cross post from the Detroit News]