To answer your question, the equivalency is thus: You ask: "If I slip and fall on your walkway, I can sue you. Why can't the government, here?" This would imp

To answer your question, the equivalency is thus: You ask: "If I slip and fall on your walkway, I can sue you. Why can't the government, here?" This would imply that there is a single act (slipping and falling on a specific property) and a single remedy for that act (a lawsuit) But here, the government has a choice of causative acts (drug deals and arrests were prevalent throughout that neighborhood -- they had quite a bit of choice as to which property they wished to "sue") and a choice of remedies ... of which seizure is the most extreme of all possible remedies. It would be as if the government was seeking a specific property to slip and fall on, and chose to only pursue the most extreme possible form of response for that action. They chose not to pursue the other properties, which showed equal rates of crime (this is NOT in the docket report you read), and chose not to pursue other remedies (such as other sanctions and means of remedy). And in this case, their own interests and the interests of the police department are particularly served by the extreme remedy, and the choice of party to pursue chosen by the "ease" of achieving this remedy.