Ferguson and the Justice Department Report

[SteelCurtain]

A cop would only do that if he thought it wasn't wasting his time. In my case it would be wasting his time. The reason it would be wasting his time is simply because I know how not to be an asshole to my neighbors and I obey the law. If he didn't have the right to ask for my license, then he did something wrong, not me. I could refuse and make a big deal of it or not, but because I don't break the law, it's only a few moments inconvenience for me.

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The DoJ claims Ferguson police officers often detain suspects without reasonable suspicion to run checks for warrants — a significant source of revenue for the municipality.

At times, the constitutional violations are even more blatant. An African-American man recounted to us an experience he had while sitting at a bus stop near Canfield Drive. According to the man, an FPD patrol car abruptly pulled up in front of him. The officer inside, a patrol lieutenant, rolled down his window and addressed the man:

Lieutenant: Get over here.

Bus Patron: Me?

Lieutenant: Get the f*** over here. Yeah, you.

Bus Patron: Why? What did I do?

The lieutenant ran the man’s name for warrants. Finding none, he returned the ID and said, “get the hell out of my face.” These allegations are consistent with other, independent allegations of misconduct that we heard about this particular lieutenant, and reflect the routinely disrespectful treatment many African Americans say they have come to expect from Ferguson police. That a lieutenant with supervisory responsibilities allegedly engaged in this conduct is further cause for concern

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I find it hard to believe you would be okay with such a blatant infringement on your 4th amendment rights. Someone needs to have probable cause to detain you for any reason.

Also, this was never once reported to have happened to someone who wasn't a minority.

Again, ass-holes behave inconsiderately to the point where they depend on the timidity and fear of a neighbor to be afraid to call the cops on rude loud music. I would not disturb the public with my music because I myself do not wish to be disturbed with obnoxious loud music from someone else.

You don't think the reasonable thing for a police officer to do is to walk over and ask the teens to turn their music down? You think kids (tell me you didn't blast your jam with your boys in the car in high school) shouldn't be able to play music loudly on a street in a car? Even if it's obnoxious, I mean hauling them off to jail?

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A Ferguson police officer jailed several young African-American men for disorderly conduct after he claimed to have smelled marijuana, despite the fact that an investigation of the car did not produce marijuana or any other contraband.

As with its pattern of unconstitutional stops, FPD routinely makes arrests without probable cause. Frequently, officers arrest people for conduct that plainly does not meet the elements of the cited offense. For example, in November 2013, an officer approached five African-American young people listening to music in a car. Claiming to have smelled marijuana, the officer placed them under arrest for disorderly conduct based on their “gathering in a group for the purposes of committing illegal activity.” The young people were detained and charged—some taken to jail, others delivered to their parents—despite the officer finding no marijuana, even after conducting an inventory search of the car. Similarly, in February 2012, an officer wrote an arrest notification ticket for Peace Disturbance for “loud music” coming from a car. The arrest ticket appears unlawful as the officer did not assert, and there is no other indication, that a third party was disturbed by the music—an element of the offense. See Ferguson Mun. Code § 29-82 (prohibiting certain conduct that “unreasonably and knowingly disturbs or alarms another person or persons”). Nonetheless, a supervisor approved it. These warrantless arrests violated the Fourth Amendment because they were not based on probable cause. See Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 173 (2008).

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Of course I would have a problem of being falsely accused. My lawyer would too, but this story is obviously concocted as it does not follow reason. There is obviously so much more to the story if it is not all made up at the start.

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A Ferguson police officer arrested a man for “refusing arrest.” The man had committed no other crime. He claims to have lost his job as a direct result of the arrest.

For example, in the summer of 2012, an officer detained a 32-year-old African-American man who was sitting in his car cooling off after playing basketball. The officer arguably had grounds to stop and question the man, since his windows appeared more deeply tinted than permitted under Ferguson’s code. Without cause, the officer went on to accuse the man of being a pedophile, prohibit the man from using his cell phone, order the man out of his car for a pat-down despite having no reason to believe he was armed, and ask to search his car. When the man refused, citing his constitutional rights, the officer reportedly pointed a gun at his head, and arrested him. The officer charged the man with eight different counts, including making a false declaration for initially providing the short form of his first name (e.g., “Mike” instead of “Michael”) and an address that, although legitimate, differed from the one on his license. The officer also charged the man both with having an expired operator’s license, and with having no operator’s license in possession. The man told us he lost his job as a contractor with the federal government as a result of the charges.

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You are in a position where you have access to a lawyer like that. This is happening in poor black neighborhoods where the cops know they will not have to answer for that kind of behavior.

Again, cops are paid to write citations and perform arrests. They should be pushed to get the taxpayer's monies worth out of their salary. Only when their citations are not true or their arrests not just is that a problem. Your example of a man falsely accused of pedophilia is an example of police misbehavior, but larger quantities of police action do not equate police misbehavior.
As I said in my earlier post, "It doesn't matter one whit if they issued lots of citations as long as the citations were true bills."

First off, police are not paid to write citations and perform arrests. They are paid to keep communities safe and enforce the law. The goal of a police force should not be to be a source of revenue for the courts, as Ferguson's clearly was. The expected revenue from citations in Ferguson for 2015 is nearly double what it was in 2010 with no significant shift in population. Citations and arrests are warranted when citizens are breaking the law, but when you monetize it like that and create a culture where police are encouraged to write as many citations as possible, this leads to cops looking for an excuse to write a citation, which makes it a terrible place to be for an African American.

Secondly, the point is that many of these citations were not "true bills." People were routinely accused of "smelling like marijuana," having their belongings searched only to find nothing. Arrests were made where the only charge was "resisting arrest."

According to the DoJ Report:

90% of citations for an offense literally written as "Manner of Walking Along Roadway" were cited against African Americans.
EVERY SINGLE CASE of police dogs having been recorded biting a citizen was against an African American.
There was evidence of officers competing (sort of the "meow" game) for who can write the most citations in a single stop.
88% of instances of police using force were against African Americans.
85% of traffic stops were against African Americans.
93% of those arrested were African Americans.
Only 67% of Fergurson's population is African American.