Ferguson's Conspiracy Against Black Citizens

[pixy0stix]

Posting to say I read this. I keep reading. I keep being angry.

[cookiemdough]

I need time to read the whole thing, but based on what I have heard so far, I am furious that no one is going to jail. Will all of these violations be considered civil in nature?

[dirtyred]

All my friends who were pro Officer Wilson and "blacks are just playing the race card" are mysteriously silent after the DOJ statement.  Maybe this will cause them to reexamine some of their beliefs.

[btdt]

I got through about half of it. I have to stop because it makes me want to SCREAM!!!

[summer]

I just want to say I genuinely hate all these mofos and the people who defend this special kind of bullshit

[ijack]

It seems like the DOJ did a good job and I'm glad all of this is coming out. I hope something comes of it. I know there has been talk of the FPD just dissolving and it sickens me to think that these people will just get jobs elsewhere.

[downtoearth]

This is terrible. I am reading this and digesting.

I think the whole ticketing for minor violations for revenue is the place to start in ALL municipalities. Up our taxes and get rid of some of those. That means the police are not there to serve/protect, so much as to produce "clients" who will pay their own salary. They do that here also - every traffic violation in the city HAS to show up at court also, so there is no leeway for someone to pay without missing work time and unpaid fines automatically go to warrants - for tiny things.

[cookiemdough]

Mar 6, 2015 13:07:27 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

This is terrible. I am reading this and digesting.

I think the whole ticketing for minor violations for revenue is the place to start in ALL municipalities. Up our taxes and get rid of some of those. That means the police are not there to serve/protect, so much as to produce "clients" who will pay their own salary. They do that here also - every traffic violation in the city HAS to show up at court also, so there is no leeway for someone to pay without missing work time and unpaid fines automatically go to warrants - for tiny things.

While I agree in principle that we should review the appropriateness of minor violations to provide revenue to municipalities, that is not really what happened here.  This is on a whole different level.  It targeted a specific group of people, they knew the financial reprecussions and knew their actions were abusive and continued them anyway.  

And this:

"Officers routinely conduct stops that have little relation to public safety and a questionable basis in law," the report states. "Issuing three or four charges in one stop is not uncommon. Officers sometimes write six, eight, or, in at least one instance, fourteen citations for a single encounter." Some officers compete to see who can issue the most citations in a single stop.
"

[downtoearth]

Mar 6, 2015 13:16:23 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

Mar 6, 2015 13:07:27 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

This is terrible. I am reading this and digesting.

I think the whole ticketing for minor violations for revenue is the place to start in ALL municipalities. Up our taxes and get rid of some of those. That means the police are not there to serve/protect, so much as to produce "clients" who will pay their own salary. They do that here also - every traffic violation in the city HAS to show up at court also, so there is no leeway for someone to pay without missing work time and unpaid fines automatically go to warrants - for tiny things.

While I agree in principle that we should review the appropriateness of minor violations to provide revenue to municipalities, that is not really what happened here.  This is on a whole different level.  It targeted a specific group of people, they knew the financial reprecussions and knew their actions were abusive and continued them anyway.  

And this:

"Officers routinely conduct stops that have little relation to public safety and a questionable basis in law," the report states. "Issuing three or four charges in one stop is not uncommon. Officers sometimes write six, eight, or, in at least one instance, fourteen citations for a single encounter." Some officers compete to see who can issue the most citations in a single stop.
"

Oh I agree.  The terrible things in that report are so bad that those just seem insurmountable at first glance.

[ESF]

Please note that the basis of the DOJ report is a concept called "disparate impact."

It is a stated goal of the right wing to kill "disparate impact" based approaches to litigating and enforcing civil rights laws. They are working on dismantling it through the courts right now. More info in this thread:

pandce.proboards.com/thread/411208/scotus-decision-protect-dv-survivors

So if you need a reason to be more mad, just know that main tool that the DOJ has to actually go after situations like this is hanging by a thread, and may die any day now.

This is what happens when you let Republicans put judges on the bench.

[cookiemdough]

I am just trying to think about why this is not illegal. Cops and judges falsified information for economic gain. Why is this not theft or embezzlement or something. I know it is not the technical definition, but dammit this is WRONG.

[ESF]

Mar 6, 2015 13:34:08 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

I am just trying to think about why this is not illegal. Cops and judges falsified information for economic gain. Why is this not theft or embezzlement or something. I know it is not the technical definition, but dammit this is WRONG.

As I understand it, DOJ has extremely narrow jurisdiction to bring criminal charges for this kind of stuff.  

In certain cases, states could go after these people, but they don't.  With the case of the officers, it is my understanding that often, officers can't be held personally liable for certain types of conduct on the job, particularly if they were following orders.  As I understand it, this is often due to the union contracts.

[ESF]

Mar 6, 2015 13:34:08 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

I am just trying to think about why this is not illegal. Cops and judges falsified information for economic gain. Why is this not theft or embezzlement or something. I know it is not the technical definition, but dammit this is WRONG.

As I understand it, DOJ has extremely narrow jurisdiction to bring criminal charges for this kind of stuff.  

In certain cases, states could go after these people, but they don't.  With the case of the officers, it is my understanding that often, officers can't be held personally liable for certain types of conduct on the job, particularly if they were following orders.  As I understand it, this is often due to the union contracts.

[NitaX]

Color me not shocked. This is the reason I kept saying that people don't riot for the fun of it. You have citizens who felt that they were being treated unfairly, and lo there is the data that backs those feelings.

So, what else is going on in The Sky is Blue and Water is Wet news?

[WOT?*]

I love every post ESF has re: the court system. You are my font of knowledge on the subject. This is one more reason to keep a Democrat in the White House for at least the next 2-3 elections. I don't care who it is (well, actually I do) but to put another conservative in a place where he can seat to give a clear majority to deny women's rights, individual rights and other personal rights in subrogation to corporate and collective rights for decades is a scary thought.

[IIOY]

Mar 6, 2015 15:33:59 GMT -5 @soudesafinado said:

Dang. Twitter didn't have to drag folks, other publications are doing it!

Ferguson judge behind aggressive fines policy owes $170,000 in unpaid taxes

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/06/ferguson-judge-owes-unpaid-taxes-ronald-brockmeyer?CMP=share_btn_tw

"Brockmeyer, who has been Ferguson’s municipal court judge for 12 years, serves simultaneously as a prosecutor in two nearby cities and as a private attorney."


What the shit?

[andrealynn]

Can someone answer this? What happens to all these cases the DOJ report mentions being based on illegal premises or containing contradictory information?

I have read about the potential for FPD to be shut down and other things, but it seems like all facets of the local judicial system have left the population there powerless to properly fight their cases. I hope there will be some recourse for these people to get fair resolution of their cases.

[NitaX]

Mar 6, 2015 15:48:10 GMT -5 andrealynn said:

Can someone answer this? What happens to all these cases the DOJ report mentions being based on illegal premises or containing contradictory information?

I have read about the potential for FPD to be shut down and other things, but it seems like all facets of the local judicial system have left the population there powerless to properly fight their cases. I hope there will be some recourse for these people to get fair resolution of their cases.

We had a similar finding for our Juvenile system. The result was that there was someone placed over the court to make sure that the appropriate changes were implemented. There is a lot of additional data and tracking that goes into it. The link I included gives you an idea of what the court needed to do here.

[NewOrleans]

Any questions on why the protestors wanted to burn it all to the ground back in the fall?

How many more Fergusons are there? How many more towns are setting up the next Mike Brown? How many more systems are shaping the players into who they'll be during some meeting two years from now, five years from now?

[NewOrleans]

Also, I love ESF going in on the R's lately.

[nsl]

My head is just spinning from reading all of this. How do you even start to unravel this kind of corruption without taking the whole city government apart?

This detail just floors me: "It's worth briefly pausing, amid this parade of official misconduct, ignorance of the law, and Constitutional violations to reflect on the fact that all of them are coming out of a municipality of just 21,000 residents. You can fit 41,000 at Wrigley Field. "Between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2014," the report states, "the City of Ferguson issued approximately 90,000 citations and summonses for municipal violations."

[secretlyevil]

Mar 6, 2015 12:41:58 GMT -5 dirtyred said:

All my friends who were pro Officer Wilson and "blacks are just playing the race card" are mysteriously silent after the DOJ statement.  Maybe this will cause them to reexamine some of their beliefs.

One would like to think that, sadly I'm not feeling too optimistic these days.

[anodyne]

Mar 7, 2015 10:18:12 GMT -5 secretlyevil said:

Mar 6, 2015 12:41:58 GMT -5 dirtyred said:

All my friends who were pro Officer Wilson and "blacks are just playing the race card" are mysteriously silent after the DOJ statement.  Maybe this will cause them to reexamine some of their beliefs.

One would like to think that, sadly I'm not feeling too optimistic these days.

Nope.  I have a few friends who don't understand the difference between the DOJ investgation into Wilson vs McCullough's.  They think because there are no DOJ charges that the feds agreed that Wilson had no fault in shooting MB.  They have slight feelings on the corruption, but since it doesn't effect them, they are not all that bothered by it.  

[josieposy]

5 citations in one single traffic stop??

[5thofjuly]

Anyone who reads this and still wonders why the protesters were/are angry is just being willfully ignorant at this point.

[mx27]

Mar 7, 2015 10:36:58 GMT -5 anodyne said:

Mar 7, 2015 10:18:12 GMT -5 secretlyevil said:

One would like to think that, sadly I'm not feeling too optimistic these days.

Nope.  I have a few friends who don't understand the difference between the DOJ investgation into Wilson vs McCullough's.  They think because there are no DOJ charges that the feds agreed that Wilson had no fault in shooting MB.  They have slight feelings on the corruption, but since it doesn't effect them, they are not all that bothered by it.  

I think it's time to unfriend these people.

[MrsAxilla]

Mar 7, 2015 10:09:20 GMT -5 nsl said:

My head is just spinning from reading all of this. How do you even start to unravel this kind of corruption without taking the whole city government apart?

This detail just floors me: "It's worth briefly pausing, amid this parade of official misconduct, ignorance of the law, and Constitutional violations to reflect on the fact that all of them are coming out of a municipality of just 21,000 residents. You can fit 41,000 at Wrigley Field. "Between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2014," the report states, "the City of Ferguson issued approximately 90,000 citations and summonses for municipal violations."

This one is even worse:  Recall that the population of Ferguson is about 21,000 people. "According to the court’s own figures, as of December 2014, over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court," the report notes. That is staggering.

That's more than 76% of the population with arrest warrants!  

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/426570/fergusons-conspiracy-black-citizens#ixzz3TjanKNcI

[tinfoilhat]

This is pushing my blood pressure into stroke zone.

How can any reasonable person read what is happening in Ferguson, and not see how racial profiling/ harassment started this chain of events that ended with Mike Browns murder. It wasn't any damn theft of cigerellos for shit sake. It was 2 black men walking down the middle of the street, who wouldn't move out of the cops way.

Here we are 50 years after Selma. Makes me wonder how much has really changed at all......

[nsl]

Mar 7, 2015 15:43:01 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Mar 7, 2015 10:09:20 GMT -5 nsl said:

My head is just spinning from reading all of this. How do you even start to unravel this kind of corruption without taking the whole city government apart?

This detail just floors me: "It's worth briefly pausing, amid this parade of official misconduct, ignorance of the law, and Constitutional violations to reflect on the fact that all of them are coming out of a municipality of just 21,000 residents. You can fit 41,000 at Wrigley Field. "Between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2014," the report states, "the City of Ferguson issued approximately 90,000 citations and summonses for municipal violations."

This one is even worse:  Recall that the population of Ferguson is about 21,000 people. "According to the court’s own figures, as of December 2014, over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court," the report notes. That is staggering.

That's more than 76% of the population with arrest warrants!  

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/426570/fergusons-conspiracy-black-citizens#ixzz3TjanKNcI

The truly frightening thing, which I think someone already mentioned upthread, is that Ferguson has gotten all of this attention due to the Michael Brown case.  If he hadn't been killed, and if the protests hadn't happened, we wouldn't know any of this was going on.  How many more places like Ferguson exist that aren't getting DOJ scrutiny, and that aren't going to be under pressure to change?  As daunting as it is to consider just how corrupt the police and government culture is in Ferguson, I can't begin to wrap my head around how many more cities like this must exist all over the country.

[summer]

Mar 7, 2015 16:25:49 GMT -5 nsl said:

Mar 7, 2015 15:43:01 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

This one is even worse:  Recall that the population of Ferguson is about 21,000 people. "According to the court’s own figures, as of December 2014, over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court," the report notes. That is staggering.

That's more than 76% of the population with arrest warrants!  

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/426570/fergusons-conspiracy-black-citizens#ixzz3TjanKNcI

The truly frightening thing, which I think someone already mentioned upthread, is that Ferguson has gotten all of this attention due to the Michael Brown case.  If he hadn't been killed, and if the protests hadn't happened, we wouldn't know any of this was going on.  How many more places like Ferguson exist that aren't getting DOJ scrutiny, and that aren't going to be under pressure to change?  As daunting as it is to consider just how corrupt the police and government culture is in Ferguson, I can't begin to wrap my head around how many more cities like this must exist all over the country.

I would put money on there being hundreds.