“Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department” (2015) was put out by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 4th. Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis, is where a White police officer last summer killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager. It led to riots and protests that made world news.
The Ferguson Police Department (FPD) was not “just doing its job”:
“This investigation has revealed a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct within the Ferguson Police Department that violates the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and federal statutory law.”
Black people were not “imagining racism”:
“Ferguson’s own data establish clear racial disparities that adversely impact African Americans. The evidence shows that discriminatory intent is part of the reason for these disparities.”
Top people in the FPD and the court sent racist emails, like this one:
“An African-American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.'”
The police and the court stereotype Blacks as lacking “personal responsibility”. The DOJ found that it was, in fact, police officers and court officials who lacked personal responsibility.
Predator, not protector: The main aim of the FPD is not public safety but raising money for the city budget. Officer “productivity” is measured by the number of citations issued. Therefore:
“They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence.”
Little is done to keep the police in line or follow up on citizen complaints.
The court does not hold the police accountable because they are in the same moneymaking business, through court fees and fines. It does little to help the poor pay off their fines, like through community service. Instead it keeps adding fines for those unable to pay on time or make court dates. A $151 parking ticket, for example, can in time turn into $1091, two arrests and six days in jail.
That is not uncommon: in 2013 alone, the court issued 9,000 arrest warrants. Of these, 8,300 were for Blacks. Ferguson has 14,200 Blacks, counting children.
Blacks make up 67% of Ferguson, yet account for:
- 90% of citations,
- 92% of arrest warrants,
- 93% of arrests,
- 94% of Failure to Comply charges,
- 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges,
- 100% of those bit by police dogs.
Their cars are twice as likely to be searched – even though contraband is found 26% less often.
DOJ:
“this disproportionate burden on African Americans cannot be explained by any difference in the rate at which people of different races violate the law.”
Instead it is due, at least in part, to “unlawful bias against and stereotypes about African Americans.”
That undermines the trust of Blacks, which in turn makes it harder for the police to maintain public safety, making policing unnecessarily dangerous.
Reform: The DOJ and Ferguson are working out the needed reforms. The report lists some possible ones.
– Abagond, 2015.
Update (February 12th 2016): The DOJ and Ferguson authorities agreed on the reforms needed to stop the police from regularly violating the 1st, 4th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution. But then the city council rejected the reforms! So now the DOJ is taking Ferguson to court to force the reforms on it.
Sources: Mainly the DOJ report (PDF) itself.
See also:
- Welcome to White History Month 2015
- Ferguson, Ferguson II
- the police
- stereotypes
- racial profiling
- Civil Rights Act of 1964 – part of what allowed the DOJ to investigate the FPD
Ah! Abagond, I was hoping you would cover this!
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“Damning” is the correct word to describe the report, I guess…
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Great summary. I just went looking to find the report for myself and came across this from a conservative Repulican site:
“Even if you read only the parts of the Ferguson DOJ report that come directly from the files of the FPD (which is to say, files that would be most favorable to the Department), the report paints an incredibly damning picture of the Ferguson Police Department. No conservative on earth should feel comfortable with the way the Ferguson PD has been operating for years, even according to their own documents.”
http://www.redstate.com/2015/03/15/many-conservatives-blowing-it-ferguson-doj-report/
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Glad to see the police chief tender his resignation. So much for his vow to “stay here and see this through.” Well at least there’s a job waiting for him in hell.
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Reblogged this on .
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Hmmp! *crosses arms I’ll belive it when i see it with my own eyes. Reform Ferguson that is.
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Why don’t they just dismantle the whole municipality it is corrupt and rotten to the core. They should just clean house.
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“Why don’t they just dismantle the whole municipality it is corrupt and rotten to the core. They should just clean house.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of course that is what should be done, but alas, we are living in a Bizzaro universe where most everything seems azz-backwards.
The problem Mary is that the Feds are just, if not more so, as rotten as Ferguson’s police.
They just have much better IMAGE handlers that know how to make them look better than they are – and a couple of notches better than Ferguson.
Not to mention the weak and compromised media and lack of real investigative reporting. Then there’s the off-balanced overwhelmed (with BS) Amerikans with short attention spans
So how is a dirty federal agency supposed to clean another *off da hook* slave patrol bureaucracy?
By saying they are going to make some changes. But do things really change, and if a few good changes happen, do these changes last?
It won’t truly change until someone’s money flow is messed with… or Blacks begin padding the pockets of their representatives in DC with some big cash,
http://blackagendareport.com/node/14716
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..I won’t hold my breath, but it’s a start in the (hopefully) right direction-now, on to cleaning out the rest of this state and the entire nation’s corrupt other “brothers-in-arms” departments across the board!
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^^^ in total agreement
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@resw77
That same police chief was a top candidate for the FBI. He chose the route of Police Chief for obvious financial reasons. So you can imagine what kind of racists nutjobs, as long as they are white, reside within the Federal Bureau of Investigation within the Department of Justice.
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Good link lifelearner
Thanks
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It’s good that some of the bozos in the municipal hierarchy lost their positions but how meaningful is that if they can retire with a typically generous pension and other benefits paid for by tax revenues and quasi-legal forfeitures to some extent, by the very people they mistreated?
Okay, some of the culprits lose their job, but compared to the marginalized and oppressed in Ferguson, the city manager, chief of police and municipal judge still get to retire in relative luxury.
A year or two from now their minor embarrassment and shame of forced retirement their names and issues will be forgotten by most of the people.
Losing their jobs isn’t enough. It’s like a little crumb fell off their banquet table.
This crumb with some “reforms” should not be enough to appease the people.
It is something and better than nothing, but they still win by being penalized in their favor, not ours.
After maintaining hard core racist policies they are getting off too easy!
Let the hard core racists lose their retirement packages and watch how quickly passing racist email jokes and other nonsense come to a halt.
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I think there were 25? recommendations in the report…?…they did not seem to tackle the core issues of the power imbalance and corruption (shake-down for budget). If they were going to come up with temporary solutions anyway—they should have come up with ones that empowered the community and blocked state corruption—by allowing the community to appoint some residents to tackle law enforcement problems and to have community arbitration courts….at least until a systemic change/solution could be found and implemented.
A systemic solution would have to tackle the issues of imbalance in state budgets that is causing corruption and an imbalance in power that is entrenching racism……
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To give an idea of the power disparity…
In Atlanta Georgia…residents called the police because a garbage collector came too early to collect the garbage and disturbed their sleep…the garbage collector was put in jail!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/09/trash-collector-jailed-30-days-early_n_6831766.html
Meanwhile, in the U.S. territories..Americans do not have the right to vote…in some cases, no representation in the U.S. governement and in one case are not even considered citizens—only “American nationals”…(don’t know what the difference is though?)
In two instances, the American territories such as Guam and another one (American Samoa?) host U.S. bases and most of the residents of those territories are U.S. vets…but have inadequate access to Vet services or healthcare….
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE)
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OK, this is one municipality.
What of the thousands of others that have similar problems?
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You guys still don’t get it! Ferguson was a psyop about disenfranchising local blacks! It had elements of the Trayvon episode and Katrina: “what’s known is that the plan for Ferguson’s urban renewal was unveiled the previous year. The plan called for reducing the value of the existing businesses,obviously to encourage selling.
2 months to the unrest,in a fit of hubris the developers produced this brochure unwisely detailing their intent.” http://karanjazplace.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-truth-about-mike-browns-shooting.html
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..PS. The parallel of the pix of the Black folkz on the left side of this article, vs. the one of the black-in-white one during the height of the Civil Rights is not lost on me, good (and sad) comparison Abagond!
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..black n’ white, typo..
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I say we start policing ourselves and fuck the police. I think the black panthers had it right. Might not be a popular idea but…..
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Kay,
According to the link you provided the fox that’s guarding the hen-house is even more complicit/corrupt than I had originally considered. The author lays it all out quite well.
Thanks for the link.
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@TeddyBearSniffer
I don’t doubt it.
SMH @ “as long as they are white”
@Mary Burrell
That’d be my choice, and Ferguson isn’t the only corrupt municipality. It’s all a racket.
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Whites have the POWER TO CREATE THEIR REALITIES AND OURS TOO. There were 8300 arrest warrants issued for Blacks in that year and there are only 14200 Black people in Ferguson. That means almost every adult is a criminal now. Then Whites can continue to claim they fear Blacks and have to police them because of their “criminal natures”.
Its a cycle, THAT WHITES CREATE, in order to justify their fear and loathing of Blacks. So, we have to be criminals so that they can justify their rabid hate of us? Can anyone RATIONALLY explain this? Does it make sense to anyone in the world? Why don’t they just leave us alone? They don’t want us around them, but they keep crippling us so that we can’t build our own communities and stay away from them.
It makes no sense…it makes NO sense….
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@Jadapoo1 “It makes no sense…it makes NO sense….”
True, it doesn’t make any Sense-but it certainly makes a lot o’ Cents (as in cash flow) for their ilk, ranging from extended (and often unfair) jail time to disenfranchising them to vote i.e. get and maintain political power, etc. this bullshi# is the Bread n’ Butter that this plantation/nation was founded upon and they are extremely loathe to give it uP!
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“Ferguson and the Criminalization of American Life”
http://gawker.com/ferguson-and-the-criminalization-of-american-life-1692392051
“As a result of such practices, over three quarters of the population had warrants out for the arrest at any given time. The entire population was criminalized.
It’s important to remember though that these were not criminal warrants. The inhabitants were not even being accused of actual crimes (that is, felonies or misdemeanors.) Parking tickets, or tickets for unmoved lawns or improperly placed trash receptacles, are not criminal matters, they are violations of administrative codes having the same legal standing as, say, a supermarket’s failure to take a loaf of bread past the due date off their shelves. They were simply being treated as if they were criminals.
Obviously, this picture has almost nothing to do with anything we normally consider “justice.” Still, if the image of police terrorizing and manhandling citizens over parking fines seems bizarre, it’s partly because we tend to forget who and what the police actually are. The police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminals—indeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officer’s time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t do exactly what they tell you.
The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical force—even, death—into situations where it would never have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.
Almost every institution in America—from our corporations to our schools, hospitals, and civic authorities—now seems to operate largely as an engine for extracting revenue, by imposing ever more complex sets of rules that are designed to be broken. And these rules are almost invariably enforced on a sliding scale: ever-so-gently on the rich and powerful (think of what happens to those banks when they themselves break the law), but with absolute Draconian harshness on the poorest and most vulnerable. As a result, the wealthiest Americans gain their wealth, increasingly, not from making or selling anything, but from coming up with ever-more creative ways to make us feel like criminals.
In a very real sense, the “middle class” is not an economic category, it’s a social one. To be middle class is to feel that the fundamental institutional structures of society are, or should be, on your side. If you see a policeman and you feel more safe, rather than less, then you can be pretty sure you’re middle class. Yet for the first time since polling began, most Americans in 2012 indicated they do not, in fact, consider themselves middle class.”
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Why do I feel like this is just a moment to pacify blacks again? How hard was it for them to find this same “alarming” information when doing research on Darren whatever the heck his last name is. IF the system is this rotten then I have no doubt the rotten nature of it effected that trial and the collection of evidence.
It just seems like they are throwing out these people as a means to say…”Hey! We are fair and just!” *rolls eyes*
@Lifelearner
Great link!
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“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Municipal Violations (HBO)”
Published on Mar 22, 2015
“If you have money, committing a municipal violation may pose you a minor inconvenience. If you don’t, it can ruin your life.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto)
The only problem I have with this vid is when he criticizes the woman at the beginning who wants the cop to shut up and just give her the ticket.
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Petition: “Demand Gov. Andrew Cuomo immediately sign an executive order authorizing Attorney General Schneiderman to investigate and prosecute police killings of unarmed civilians.”
http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/nys_special_prosecutor/?sp_ref=110723323.176.11881.o.1.2&referring_akid=.2267999.Vp-BiS&source=c2c
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The Economist article on this was nearly twice as long as my post and yet did not mention FPD’s racism:
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21646252-step-one-stop-using-cops-tax-collectors-lessons-ferguson
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It is amazing that the Economist article made several references to the DOJ probe but never once mention its finding of racial bias.
They said police forces are corrupt because they try to raise revenues by charging people who can’t pay anyway. They mention nothing about it as a technique to get black people off the streets and in jail and invoking terror over the whole community.
As if putting people in jail saves the government money.
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It’s been a year since the death of Michael Brown and it is my daily ritual of the weekend to watch MSNBC Melissa Harris-Perry and today the panel discussion talked about Darren Wilson and how the city of Ferguson and especially the police department grew the economy of the city by how it policed and terrorized it’s citizens. The way the police are trained to be like soldiers and how they are trained to shot to kill and view it’s citizens like they are not humans and black lives in that city do not matter.
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@Mary. I’ve heard that some in Ferguson also remain frustrated that local politicians keep stalling legislation that would include body cams on police officers and other laws that would protect citizens from the FPD’s current practices…
One thing that always bothered me about Michael Brown’s coverage was an article from Jonathon Capehart who wrote that the Hands Up, Don’t Shoot movement was based on a lie. Seems that the DOJ report was open to interpretation. Below is an interesting read that offers an insightful counter-perspective to Capehart’s.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/27/1371761/-No-Jonathon-Capehart-Hands-Up-Don-t-Shoot-is-not-a-Lie#
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@bygodsloveandgrace: I read that too and Capeheart kind of struck me as a sell out and a house negro.
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@bygodsloveandgrace: There are many things in Ferguson to clean up and set right just like in Baltimore and all over the United States that is keeping us in a divided states of America. All of this social injustice is polarizing the country.
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Then they go and have a GoFund Me and raise money for these miscreants. It makes me so angry.
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@ Mary.. Agree 100%. On a more optimistic note, I’m glad to see the conversation back in the forefront and hopefully we will see some evolving structural changes.
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@bygodsloveandgrace: We can only hope.
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Update: The DOJ and Ferguson authorities agreed on the reforms needed to stop the police from regularly violating the 1st, 4th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution. But then the city council rejected the reforms! So now the DOJ is taking Ferguson to court to force the reforms on it.
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