Civil asset forfeiture is one of those things where when you hear about it your first reaction is that it must be some fringe conspiracy theory because there's no way the police could get away with something like that, right? But no, it really is that bad and it's done completely in the open. Cops can just steal your shit out of "suspicion" and the process of getting it back is deliberately labyrinthine and difficult.

Taking all the lemon pound cake

Well if I may be a bit pedantic, that's merely a consequense of their real primary mission. To safeguard the interest of the capitalist elite. It's really just a coincidence that terrorising the populace into submission achieves that mission.