Yep, just plain fooking stupid. Here in the US, if the offense warranted such, the car would have been seized and auctioned off.
Even if it was no longer fit/legal for use on US roadways, it would just carry an "export only" stipulation at auction. Crushing the car benefits no-one.

Tax police brought down Al Capone when Elliot Ness couldn't....

All of the college-educated LEOs I know would probably disagree with you there. At the federal level, a 4-year degree is typically the MINIMUM qualification, and if that's all you have, you will likely not be competitive.
Even at the city/state level, higher education is usually a requirement for anything other than patrol/grunt work (or for promotion/advancement up the ladder).

Actually, its what happens when you have a standard practice.

Most cars that get scrapped probably aren't worth the bother of selling. A policy is in place. The policy doesn't have special situations for an item of abnormal value. It takes time and resources to sell such a car, and the department is not in the car selling business.

I can understand what and why, and I can also understand wishing for a different result.

Crushing it has value if it wa part of a compliance awareness campaign.

I'll bet that event gathered more eyeballs than crushing a skoda or lada would have

I think the article was written witch sarcasm but..


The two children scarred for life? When I was that age, seeing that would have been the coolest thing. Too bad about the car, but... Now if they would have used explosives, they could have sold tickets!

Compliance awareness? Somehow I don't think that was a concern here...
If that was the intended goal, the proceeds from auctioning the car off could have paid for a much better "campaign" I would think.
Further, just the knowledge/awareness of asset seizure as a consequence for such offenses would suffice IMO. No need to destroy viable, revenue-generating goods.
So yep, still dumb...

Yes, the article was sarcastic and the photo and video were from a staged demolition at an impound yard. The "guests" were all invited. I'm sure the kid was just covering his ears from the noise and thoroughly enjoyed seeing such a cool thing, too.

"Standard practice" is the refuge of unintelligent stooges. It's like "zero tolerance" policies - specifically designed to remove actual thought and accountability from process. It also nicely fits in with my earlier statement regarding many LEOs.

In a world of "standard practice" why exactly do we need so many overpaid and over-qualified bureaucrats then? The "standard practices" should streamline the system and allow it to run with much less hands-on management, no?

Also regarding LEOs (we have a couple in the family, federal, not local) there's a HUGE difference between honest-to-goodness professional LEO types and the run-of-the-mill street guys. The latter group outnumber the first about 100-to-1 and are unfortunately who the public typically encounters / deals with. They are all too often the sorts of bully / "hoo-rah" paramilitary wanna-be types that watched too much "Rambo" as kids or washed out of the service (or both).

"Now that there is a great chomper," mused Bob, casually lighting a cigarette.