I’ve been reading the Ferguson report. It’s a horror. Every page documents an appalling violation of the whole purpose of having a police force: these people weren’t there to serve and protect, they were there to skim off as much cream from the community as they could. This wasn’t a police department, it was a racist extortion racket, oozing corruption.
Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing,and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community. Further, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes.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. Over time, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular.
At the end of the report, there are several pages of recommendations, all focused on procedural changes. After reading the document, though, while those changes are necessary, they failed to make the obvious suggestion: fire all the police officers, dismiss all municipal court personnel, burn the system to the ground, and rebuild it from the ground up.
And that’s just Ferguson. Does anyone believe other communities in Missouri, or in other states, are free of the same problems plaguing that city? Demolishing the rotten police force in Ferguson would have another purpose, beyond that one town: make an example of Ferguson’s law enforcement system, then send a copy of that Justice Department report to every town in America, with the message that there are consequences to these kinds of violations.
Of course, that’s not what will happen. The outcome of that report: one employee fired.
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles says one police department employee was fired and two others are on administrative leave over racist emails uncovered in a Justice Department investigation into the city’s law enforcement practices.
I’m also seeing that everyone is focusing on the blatantly racist emails — and yes, those officers deserve to be fired. But the big issue, the thing that ought to rip the whole administration wide open, is the money trail. There were people raking in the cash on this operation, and it isn’t just the salaries of the police officers that matter. You know that one of the things that fed this corruption was policy at the state level: starve the civil service, make them scavenge their funding from the people they serve, and let the Republican leadership bask in the glory of cutting taxes.
But they get all the free used military equipment they can ever want. Isn’t that the real Republican dream, armored forces with assault weapons and a tank on every street corner? And we thought they were hating on the old USSR, when in fact they were really jealous. Papers, comrade.
One of the few people named was a magistrate working multiple towns. The ticket fixing ignored borders.
The report illustrates the lie in “Fiscal conservative, social liberal.”
Social liberalism is fucking meaningless if you have cops acting like a protection racket to fund basic civil services because your “fiscal conservatism” means the city is using law enforcement as a revenue stream.
The Governor of Missouri, just in case anyone missed it, is a Democrat. The prosecutor McCullogh is a Democrat.
It was on Twitter: how can you expect these people to vote Democrat after this? (And how can you expect them to vote Republican – that, too.)
So really, Ferguson was a Democrat dream.
As usual, spot-on analysis, esp. the part about GOP cost cutting being a major catalyst. Then there’s this:
“Federal investigators found that the judge, the court clerk, the mayor, police supervisors and officials from Ferguson and other neighboring cities — some of whom, the report pointed out, were quick to assert that black residents of Ferguson lacked a sense of personal responsibility — routinely had tickets dismissed for themselves and their friends, pleading “an honest mistake” or suggesting that having a ticket dismissed “would be a blessing.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/us/us-details-a-persistent-pattern-of-police-discrimination-in-a-small-missouri-city.html
Absolutely disgusting. I hope they get slammed with civil suits.
worth noting: the governor and local prosecutor are Democratic party members, and the mayor of Ferguson has been a member of both wings of the Capitalist Party over time.
I’d say simply dissolve the PD and the local court system, except that’s not nearly enough. The last time that happened, in Jennings, MO, the cops were rehired by surrounding PDs. Ferguson hired, among others, one Mr. Darren Wilson.
I’m still disturbed that he feels no remorse and would shoot Michael Brown all over again. The report makes the case that Wilson was simply doing what his immediate and elected superiors encouraged; keep a boot on the necks of every black person in town, criminalize them, and extort them for money. I don’t even want to guess how much sexual exploitation was also taking place.
Jim Crow never ended; it simply became unwritten law.
Not surprising then, that the residents concluded it was pitchfork time. The whole fucking system is rotten from the inside out. A few good apples don’t unspoil the bunch.
auditorydamage @6
Well, you want a prize with that? And that’s just female officers.
For a heck of a lot more on the report from all over, try reading here. That should start at comment 184.
And one more thing I want to note is how utterly shocked everyone is – and by ‘everyone’ I mostly mean mainstream media and the like. But almost none of this information is new – the residents of Ferguson have known all of this, and protestors have been protesting this kind of treatment since August.
But no one believed them until the DOJ came along and really, finally, once-and-for-all confirmed their truth.
No, I’m not wondering why no one ever listened to them. But honestly, we shouldn’t be this shocked.
Of course not! There’s an election coming up next year. The Democratic Party is a big tent and the Obama administration can’t afford to alienate moderate, centrist bigots.
Norman Rockwell re-imagined:
https://twitter.com/ni_chrome/status/573504652160987136
If anyone needs further argument for getting rid of the entire FPD, recall what happened last summer. The Ferguson Fascists were on edge, looking for any excuse to start shooting civilians, then the state police came in and calmed everything down.
Let the state take over in the short term, and completely replace the entire FPD. Hire ONLY from the local community, and ALL the existing idiots are forcibly retired, and not allowed to work in law enforcement there or elsewhere.
What the report reveals is a well orchestrated campaign of widespread robbery. If ordinary citizens did this, they would go to prison.
I’ve been on the “fire them all” side for a while now.
Even if the officers get hired by other departments, the message a mass firing sends might at least slightly moderate their future behavior. It won’t fix things on its own, but it might mitigate the problems a little. And that’s probably the best we could hope for in the short term.
Canadians warned about police shakedowns in the US:
U.S. police are operating a co-ordinated scheme to seize as much of the public’s cash as they can
Chris Hayes reported on the “direct evidence of racial bias.”
http://www.msnbc.com/all
Rachel Maddow’s coverage:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/searing-doj-report-condemns-ferguson-police-408504387574
Rev. Sharpton talks to the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart about the latest developments in the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Ferguson police department:
http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation (select video from playlist)
I heard a BBC Radio Documentary the morning about how this is typical for the whole county. There is a huge patchwork of small to tiny municipalities, each with its own police force, court etc. As a result of small tax bases, they rely on fines for a s significant portion of their revenue.
Here is CBC Radio’s The Current on Ferguson’s Debtor Prison
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/current_20150216_92072.mp3
Sorry, the ‘try reading this’ link @ my 8 should start here at comment 176.
Annie @13
Remember Darren Wilson? He was fired from one of those disbanded police forces. Or from a disbanded police force – I’m not sure how that related to firing.
But I doubt it would have changed much, esp. if we look at Cleveland, where an officer was repeatedly considered unfit for duty elsewhere, yet he became the man who killed Tamir Rice. Somebody hired him anyway.
left0ver1under @11
This is what happened when state troopers were put in charge. They were put in charge on August 14, FYI. You really think that will help?
It’s tempting to snark on this, but really, seriously: isn’t that what many if not most police departments in the US are, regardless of what they ideally should be?
I’ve read some of the individual cases on Twitter and holy fuck, those people simply behaved like however the fuck they wanted.
They acted like police in a bloody dictatorship, who can always find fault with you and expect complete and unquestioned obedience.
I’m not saying that German police are the pinacle of policing, but if they tried to pull that shit they’d be into deeeeeeeep trouble.
You cannot simply arrest people here until you have veeeeeeery specific reasons and even then courts are going to look really close whether you were justified or not.
I remember being utterly consternated when I read of MLK’s assassination and the ensuing riots and killings. Since then I have watched the ongoing parade of racism in the US from my perch here in Canada with neverending shock and horror.
And every time I think the tide has turned a bit, a few more unarmed black men are murdered . . .
And then there’s pile of steaming shit . . . .
It seems more and more that there are two populations in the US: a bare majority of people who just want to get along and respond to and ride out the challenges the world throws at us; and about 25% of the population, which seems to be a bunch of violent, racist, homophobic, theocratic, ignorant shitbags determined to revive the worst parts of the Middle Ages, the Religious Wars, and Slavery.
I can’t help thinking this doesn’t bode well.
Frankly, I’ve been trying to get to know the Canadian version of the von Trapp family, for when the Freedom Enhancement for Canadian Erstwhile Socialists bill is passed, and the drones come rolling in. Maybe I’ll be able to escape to St.Pierre or Miquelon with them. Nuns will be involved, and an earnest member of the Bush Youth, all kinds of wacky fun.
Caitie, you realize that St. Pierre and Miquelon, being French Overseas Territories, will oppress you with their superior healthcare, excellent cheese, and pompous historical pageants? And maybe no poutine!
O acronyms! FECES! Good one, Caitie!
Sadly, in much of the midwest, this report is seen as evidence of racism….only in the minds of those writing the report.
@25:
Ah, the old he-who-smelt-it-dealt-it of racism.
But, but, if we raised taxes on those who could afford it, and used that money to pay for government services, that would be extortion at the point of a gun and a boot on the neck of freedom. Do I have that right?
And therein lies the problem with the “fire the whole PD” solution: who are you going to hire to replace them?
No cop wants to work a black ghetto. Everyone in the community hates them, will never assist them in anything, and sometimes some folks will just walk up to your squad car, punch you in the face and try to grab your gun. And if the hostile community isn’t enough, you constantly have to deal with real police work: murders, assaults, armed robery fill your schedule instead of dumbass kid antics, small time theft, and measuring skid marks from car accidents.
As such, the only people they can hire are the dregs of the police force: people who have been kicked out of other jurisdictions or never hired because they are obviously unsuited for the job. They also tend to be mostly white since minority cops, even mediocre ones, can land a nicer job because that agency can get a better diversity score.
So now you have a bunch of probably racist cracker cops who shouldn’t be cops thrown into a highly violent neighborhood full of people that hate them. The end results are unsuprising.
The only solution I can think of would be to some sort of cadet club in the local high schools where you can get local kids to pre-train for being a cop, then pay for them to go through the full training provided they came back to their community for work and stayed there for at least five years. But that takes time and money, neither of which is in a very great supply.
… Seriously? Because the community is hostile out of the blue? Maybe the racism had something to do with their mistrust (not even going to address what comes after). Ferguson had 0 murders until Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown. ZERO.
And probably racist cracker cops? Dude, read the report. There’s no ‘probably’ about it.
Oh, and fuck you and your diversity scores.
Christopher @ 28
Its nice to know you believe the racist shitstain for a cop that is Darren Wilson’s account of what happened. Makes it easier to dismiss the rest of your post as the racist shit it is.
Stupid evidencless assertions/questions. What a loser. Dismissed as a fuckwitted idjit.
In the case I know of of a city PD being shut down for inefficiency and corruption the state police took over duties
Goddamn it. There goes Christopher, making me ashamed of my name again.
Fucking douchebag.
Christopher the gun fetishist is also a racist police apologist? Who woulda thunk
Let’s not forget Ferguson isn’t even a “ghetto,” unless you define “ghetto” as a place where a large amount of black people live, I guess.
Funny how some people don’t ever wonder how these terrifying “ghettos” came about. Do they just think they naturally occur when black people gather? Nobody’s ever heard of blockbusting, redlining, legalized housing discrimination, white flight, I guess?
giliell
Much the same here. I wouldn’t say that our state, and especially our federal Australian cops, are super duper wonderful, But they rarely reach these depths – and we’d hear about it if they pulled any stupid stunts like these emails or the harassment. And, more to the point, we’d hear about it and it’d be all over the news services. They’d be disgraced. I suppose that’s the advantage of statewide, professionally trained police forces.
This Ferguson crowd seem both graceless and shameless, as well as grossly incompetent.