Ferguson and the Justice Department Report

[JesusHChrist]

The report was released yesterday and while the news has been filled with details of the racist emails within the police department, the worst is how the citizenry were used as though the town government were Mafia bosses. Constantly getting shaken down for "revenue". Tony Soprano would be proud. And then jealous wondering how he could cut in on the government's action.

http://news.yahoo.com/fergusons-conspira...00799.html

Ferguson officials leeched off the black community as shamelessly as would mafia bosses.
Police officers were judged not only on the number of stops they made, but on the number of citations they issued. "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.

In one email, the police chief, who also oversees the municipal court, brags to the city manager about how much revenue it is generating. Ignoring that conflict of interest is a recipe for a justice system that bleeds the powerless of their meager resources.

Ferguson's municipal court judge, Ronald Brockmeyer, who is appointed by the city council, is well aware that his job performance is evaluated partly based on how much revenue he generates from the bench. One 2011 internal report in Ferguson notes that Judge Brockmeyer made a list of “what he has done to help in the areas of court efficiency and revenue.” The next year, a city council member suggested that he should not be reappointed, arguing that he "does not listen to the testimony, does not review the reports or the criminal history of defendants, and doesn’t let all the pertinent witnesses testify before rendering a verdict.”

Police state? More like a mafia state. I doubt this problem is localized to Ferguson. No wonder the cops want military surplus hardware to keep milking the sheep. They like them defenseless. Easier that way.

Government as an evil force, in action.

[Minimalist]

The problem is far deeper than one shithole town in Missouri.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whi...14467.html

[Brakeman]

Personally, I don't find it all that hard to obey the law.
It doesn't matter one whit if they issued lots of citations as long as the citations were true bills.
Break the law - Pay the fine. If you don't like the law, get it changed though political action.
You don't get to go through life giving society's rules the finger..

[Faith No More]

If only this had anything to do with obeying the law.

Also, that's the kind of justification that leads to totalitarianism. It's right up there with not caring about NSA spying because you feel you have nothing to hide.

[SteelCurtain]

Personally, I don't find it all that hard to obey the law.
It doesn't matter one whit if they issued lots of citations as long as the citations were true bills.
Break the law - Pay the fine. If you don't like the law, get it changed though political action.
You don't get to go through life giving society's rules the finger..

Okay. So, say you're sitting at the bus stop, doing nothing, and a cop pulls up in his car. He tells you to come over, takes your license, and runs your license for warrants. Okay with that?

How about you and your 3 black friends in a car with the music up loud, and a cop drives up and gives you a citation for public disturbance. No one has complained, which is a pre-requisite for that charge.

How about you finish playing basketball at the park one summer, and you're cooling off in your car, and a cop pulls up, blocks you in, and accuses you of being a pedophile because there are children in the park. He pulls you out of your car and performs a pat down. The officer points his gun at your head and asks to search your car. You refuse, because, you know, constitution. Now the officer arrests you, charges you with resisting arrest, making a false declaration for saying your name is "Mike" instead of "Michael," and 8 other charges including both having and expired driver's license and having no driver's license at the same time.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/15-mo...-ferguson/

We're talking about more than just cops writing tickets. They were actively encouraged to write as many citations as possible.

[JesusHChrist]

And many of those citations are criminal citations that will follow a person for the rest of their lives.

The only thing bureacracies understand is $$. I hope a cadre of lawyers swoop in on Ferguson and sues the city, police department and culpable individuals for large sums of cash.

Maybe then, they will get it through their money-grubbing hands that they are criminals.

[SteelCurtain]

I hope a cadre of lawyers swoop in on Ferguson and sues the city, police department and culpable individuals for large sums of cash.

Except that who do you think pays for all that? Double whammy on the taxpayers.

[JesusHChrist]

Except that who do you think pays for all that? Double whammy on the taxpayers.

Unfortunately true, but how else should it be addressed? Those involved in the criminal conspiracy to deprive people of their rights should be individually sued and lose their jobs. Let their lives be ruined. Police have a measure of qualified immunity, but I don't think that holds where there is criminal activity.

Apparently, the report also indicates the problems are not confined just to Ferguson. Where there is one cockroach, more are surely in hiding:

It was billed as an investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. But a hard-hitting report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice also reads as an indictment of cities and towns across the St. Louis region.

The report implicates at least four other municipalities in alleged misconduct or questionable behavior. And as the Justice Department itself acknowledged, many of the conditions described in the report could have been written about any number of the 90 municipalities in St. Louis County.

"What's listed in the report about Ferguson is a widespread practice," said Thomas Harvey, executive director for the Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that has brought attention to the municipal courts in St. Louis County over the past several months. "I don't think anyone who takes these issues seriously … can limit their work to Ferguson."

[Brakeman]

Personally, I don't find it all that hard to obey the law. ..

Okay. So, say you're sitting at the bus stop, doing nothing, and a cop pulls up in his car. He tells you to come over, takes your license, and runs your license for warrants. Okay with that?

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.

How about you and your 3 black friends in a car with the music up loud, and a cop drives up and gives you a citation for public disturbance. No one has complained, which is a pre-requisite for that charge.

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.

How about you finish playing basketball at the park one summer, and you're cooling off in your car, and a cop pulls up, blocks you in, and accuses you of being a pedophile because there are children in the park. He pulls you out of your car and performs a pat down. The officer points his gun at your head and asks to search your car. You refuse, because, you know, constitution. Now the officer arrests you, charges you with resisting arrest, making a false declaration for saying your name is "Mike" instead of "Michael," and 8 other charges including both having and expired driver's license and having no driver's license at the same time.

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.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/15-mo...-ferguson/

We're talking about more than just cops writing tickets. They were actively encouraged to write as many citations as possible.

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."

[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.

---

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?

---

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).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.