Justice Dept Report on Ferguson MO

[Billybob]

Yes I did read it. Again your totally wrong on the subject. Here is a little of my understanding about the subject and why I said what I did with reason. Study the bolded part at the bottom of the report. There is a little story going on here.......

DOJ pulls a “Lois Lerner” on Ferguson.....

Link?

 

[Shootin 4 Fun]

Did anyone else listen to Holder's press conference? I have to admit, I didn't hate the Justice Departments report on the situation in Ferguson. They did conclude that the police department primary purpose is to generate revenue for the city and the primary targets for revenue generation are blacks. The findings don't justify the post shooting violence and rioting, but it helps to understand that the citizens were mostly standing up to government corruption.

I wonder, is this how far we must go to get the government's attention?



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-report-finds-racial-bias-in-ferguson-police/

I have a great sense of humor. You crossed the line. There are ways to express sarcasm on this site, and you chose to not use them.

This thread is about the DOJ saying there was an injustice against blacks by the police department in Ferguson Mo. I called BS, was called out on it, and replied.
Seems I wasn't bull of BS on the topic.

If you want to add to the topic being discussed please do. Keep it about the DOJ report and produce facts to prove or repudiate it.

If you want to start a general cop bashing about revenue generation, start another thread. It may or may not make it past the first post as determined by the forum rules.

Well, reading the OP, which is mine, it appears that the thread is more about the DOJ's statement that the primary purpose of the Ferguson police department is to generate revenue for the city.

To add to the conversation in the direction that you want it to go....

Ferguson’s law enforcement practices overwhelmingly impact African Americans. Data collected by the Ferguson Police Department from 2012 to 2014 shows that African Americans account for 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of citations, and 93% of arrests made by FPD officers, despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson’s population. African Americans are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops even after controlling for non-race based variables such as the reason the vehicle stop was initiated, but are found in possession of contraband 26% less often than white drivers, suggesting officers are impermissibly considering race as a factor when determining whether to search. African Americans are more likely to be cited and arrested following a stop regardless of why the stop was initiated and are more likely to receive multiple citations during a single incident. From 2012 to 2014, FPD issued four or more citations to African Americans on 73 occasions, but issued four or more citations to non-African Americans only twice. FPD appears to bring certain offenses almost exclusively against African Americans. For example, from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges, and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges. Notably, with 5 respect to speeding charges brought by FPD, the evidence shows not only that African Americans are represented at disproportionately high rates overall, but also that the disparate impact of FPD’s enforcement practices on African Americans is 48% larger when citations are issued not on the basis of radar or laser, but by some other method, such as the officer’s own visual assessment.

These disparities are also present in FPD’s use of force. Nearly 90% of documented force used by FPD officers was used against African Americans. In every canine bite incident for which racial information is available, the person bitten was African American.

Municipal court practices likewise cause disproportionate harm to African Americans. African Americans are 68% less likely than others to have their cases dismissed by the court, and are more likely to have their cases last longer and result in more required court encounters. African Americans are at least 50% more likely to have their cases lead to an arrest warrant, and accounted for 92% of cases in which an arrest warrant was issued by the Ferguson Municipal Court in 2013. Available data show that, of those actually arrested by FPD only because of an outstanding municipal warrant, 96% are African American.

Our investigation indicates that this disproportionate burden on African Americans cannot be explained by any difference in the rate at which people of different races violate the law. Rather, our investigation has revealed that these disparities occur, at least in part, because of unlawful bias against and stereotypes about African Americans. We have found substantial evidence of racial bias among police and court staff in Ferguson. For example, we discovered emails circulated by police supervisors and court staff that stereotype racial minorities as criminals, including one email that joked about an abortion by an African-American woman being a means of crime control. City officials have frequently asserted that the harsh and disparate results of Ferguson’s law enforcement system do not indicate problems with police or court practices, but instead reflect a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.

Our investigation has found that the practices about which area residents have complained are in fact unconstitutional and unduly harsh. But the City’s personal-responsibility refrain is telling: it reflects many of the same racial stereotypes found in the emails between police and court supervisors. This evidence of bias and stereotyping, together with evidence that Ferguson has long recognized but failed to correct the consistent racial disparities caused by its police and court practices, demonstrates that the discriminatory effects of Ferguson’s conduct are driven at least in part by discriminatory intent in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

 

[dennishoddy]

I'm not Lurker and wasn't in that conversation, sorry if I offended by asking.

No problem. You posted valid info.

Missouri Attorney General’s website would be the first place I'd look for confirmation.

 

[jchip123]

Don't know if this is posted yet but here is the link to the DOJ report, https://www.scribd.com/doc/257672584/Ferguson-Police-Department-Report

 

[dennishoddy]

No problem. You posted valid info.

Missouri Attorney General’s website would be the first place I'd look for confirmation.

Read more at http://theblacksphere.net/2015/03/americas-racist-doj-targets-ferguson/

The Attorney generals report is within the link.

 

[Billybob]

No problem. You posted valid info.

Missouri Attorney General’s website would be the first place I'd look for confirmation.

Thanks.

 

[Hobbes]

It gets even worse...


The judge in Ferguson, Missouri, who is accused of fixing traffic tickets for himself and colleagues while inflicting a punishing regime of fines and fees on the city’s residents, also owes more than $170,000 in unpaid taxes.

Ronald J Brockmeyer, whose court allegedly jailed impoverished defendants unable to pay fines of a few hundred dollars, has a string of outstanding debts to the US government dating back to 2007, according to tax filings obtained by the Guardian from authorities in Missouri.

Brockmeyer, 70, was this week singled out by Department of Justice investigators as being a driving force behind Ferguson’s strategy of using its municipal court to aggressively generate revenues. The policy has been blamed for a breakdown in relations between the city’s overwhelmingly white authorities and residents, two-thirds of whom are African American.

Investigators found Brockmeyer had boasted of creating a range of new court fees, “many of which are widely considered abusive and may be unlawful”. A city councilman opposing the judge’s reappointment was warned “switching judges would/could lead to loss of revenue”.

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. Legal experts said his potentially conflicting interests illustrate a serious problem in the region’s judicial system. Brockmeyer, who reportedly earns $600 per shift as a prosecutor, said last year his dual role benefited defendants. “I see both sides of it,” he said. “I think it’s even better.”

While Brockmeyer owes the US government $172,646 in taxes, his court in Ferguson is at the centre of a class-action federal lawsuit that alleges Ferguson repeatedly “imprisoned a human being solely because the person could not afford to make a monetary payment”.

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“Judge Brockmeyer not being incarcerated is a perfect illustration of how we should go about collecting debt from people who owe it,” said Thomas Harvey, the director of Arch City Defenders, one of the legal non-profits representing plaintiffs who were jailed in Ferguson.

Brockmeyer did not respond to multiple emails and telephone calls requesting comment. Federal tax liens filed against Brockmeyer by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) state that he has tens of thousands of dollars in overdue personal income taxes from joint filings with his wife, Amy. He also owes tens of thousands in employer taxes for his law firm and an annual tax paid by employers to fund benefits for the unemployed. Since November 2013, Brockmeyer has paid off another three overdue tax bills totalling $64,599.

He owns three properties in the St Louis area and accompanied his family on a vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida in 2013.

The judge was also named among a group of white Ferguson officials found by Department of Justice investigators to be writing off citations for themselves and friends while punishing residents for similar offences. Another of these officials, court clerk Mary Ann Twitty, was fired by the city in connection with racist emails also uncovered by the inquiry.

The report said Brockmeyer agreed to “take care” of a speeding ticket for a senior Ferguson police officer in August 2014, and had a red light camera ticket he received himself from the nearby city of Hazelwood dismissed in October 2013.

“Even as Ferguson city officials maintain the harmful stereotype that black individuals lack personal responsibility – and continue to cite this lack of personal responsibility as the cause of the disparate impact of Ferguson’s practices – white city officials condone a striking lack of personal responsibility among themselves and their friends,” the Justice Department investigators said, in a scathing report on the city’s administration.

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The class action lawsuit filed against Ferguson earlier this year alleges that the city violates the constitutional rights of defendants imprisoned over outstanding tickets and minor offences. It seeks compensation and asks a federal judge to force Ferguson to halt the practices.

“Once locked in the Ferguson jail, impoverished people owing debts to the city endure grotesque treatment. They are kept in overcrowded cells; they are denied toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap; they are subjected to the constant stench of excrement and refuse in their congested cells [and] they are surrounded by walls smeared with mucus and blood,” said one passage of the lawsuit, which went on to name several more hardships.

One of the plaintiffs – Roelif Carter, a 62-year-old disabled military veteran – alleges he was arrested and jailed for three days in Ferguson in 2010 after trying to pay the $100 monthly instalment for his outstanding traffic fines on the second day of the month rather than the first, when it was due. While living in “constant fear” he was arrested and jailed three more times in the following years when he was unable to pay the monthly charge, the lawsuit alleges.

“Most debtors in this country are not rounded up and jailed in brutal conditions,” said Alec Karakatsanis, a co-founder of Equal Justice Under Law and a lead attorney on the lawsuit. “But if you happen to owe your debts to a municipality in St Louis County, they are willing to let you languish there on a ransom.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/06/ferguson-judge-owes-unpaid-taxes-ronald-brockmeyer

 

[Lurker66]

Dayum, Who scrubbed the hide off this thread?
I thought we di'int do that no mo.

I saved the thread thru post 69.

 

[Hobbes]

Where's Biggsly?
Why didn't he tell us about this?

 

[ignerntbend]

Who says he didn't?