Theft Is a Minor Infraction?

The WSJ inveighs against the City of Madison's settlement with now- former Madison Police officer Denise Markham. Due to her contract penned by a union that Gov. Walker won't try to dismantle, Markham got 18 months of paid leave and even accrued sick time while she was not serving and protecting.

Aside from all the hoopla about the taxpayer money she "earned" while not working, I have to wonder what it is she really did that spurned the whole investigation into her conduct in the first place. According to the editorial and this article Markham, amongst other things, "conducted improper searches" and "improper seizures of private property".

Her attorney, apparently from the police union – the one upon which Gov. Walker has showered his grace, says that "she was singled out for minor infractions." No criminal wrongdoing was found on Markham's part, just simple policy infractions. Here's the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So it would seem to me that the proper way to seize private property would be to get a warrant or to use some other end-around the Fourth Amendment that the Supreme Courts have given to law enforcement. But what the hell is "improper seizures of private property" if not theft? If an agent of the government who is endowed with the legal right to use violence improperly takes something from a private citizen, then has the officer not violated that citizen's Fourth Amendment rights? We're not talking about a jaywalking ordinance here, this is a right enshrined in our founding document. Yet when someone who can legally use coercion and violence on behalf of the state steals from a citizen it is just a policy infraction and not a criminal violation?

I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that, if someone went to the homes of Markham and her lawyer and seized some of their property, they wouldn't be brushing it off as a minor incident.