Word: extort
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...confined to the Central Highlands and the borders of the DMZ, the Viet Cong methodically conquered all but one of the many fortified outposts that guarded the canal. Boatmen quit using the passage because they knew that the V.C. would either confiscate their cargoes or extort huge safe-passage fees. Towns along the water became dilapidated and poor as rice growers diverted their shipments to the Bassac River, a route that added 21 days to the trip to Saigon. Many found it more profitable to smuggle their produce into Cambodia...
...from a less "enlightened" frame of reference than downtown bureaucrats. The Ranger's slogan--"We the people of Blackstone, in what we do we do the best"--evokes the following comment from a local youth officer: "Their slogan makes sense. What they do best is shoot, stab, fight, intimidate, extort money from businesses, and threaten little kids into paying them dues." Bullets do not discriminate, and when the policeman puts his life in dangers every day he has little use for the "sociological nonsense" taught at school...
Three boys coming from the Garden Street graveyard. Young men of slight stature, who might, given sufficient provocation, carry a fork from the school cafeteria and extort dimes in the bathroom. A girl glides by and three heads snap with the comic suddenness of recalcitrant window shades. "Fine bod," they say behind their hands and pass on to higher conquest. They stop to dispute, and not knowing the civilized use of velleities, fall to pushing. "Hic Rhodus, hic salta," cries one. They just shove him again, which is clearly what he deserves...
Ample Reason. But what about Schmerber's contention that the whole procedure abridged his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure? The Fifth, answered Brennan, only prohibits "the use of physical or moral compulsion to extort communications" from a person. It does not exclude the "body as evidence when it may be material." Lie-detector tests, Brennan went on, might very well be improper because they involve questioning and verbal testimony...
...Postponements for "further hearings," says Specter, give magistrates "an opportunity to extort money from defendants prior to disposition at the preliminary hearing." While tending a friend's bar in 1963, Juan Martinez was arrested for letting in a minor. Magistrate Harry J. Ellick reportedly commented: "Big people pay $500 and little people pay $200." To pressure Martinez, says Specter, Ellick granted two postponements, demanded $75 from the actual bar owner, finally sent the man before a grand jury, which refused to indict him. Magistrate Ellick himself was indicted last March for extortion, bribery and blackmail...