From Matt Pearce at the LA Times: “If you don’t already have a copy, you can read the DOJ’s Ferguson investigation here“:
There’s lots of information in here that confirms what local black residents have been telling reporters for months. I’m (very much) not a journalist, so I don’t have loads of analysis or insight to add here, but I think it’s important for as many people as possible to read this.
It’s unlikely that you’ll find a great deal of information that will surprise you, given everything that’s been coming out of Ferguson since last August, but there’s something particularly astonishing about having everything laid out in a single, exhaustive document. What’s happening in Ferguson isn’t limited to a couple of bad apples; Ferguson itself isn’t an exception among other American police departments. What’s wrong there is wrong everywhere.
It is incredibly disheartening that one of the Department of Justice’s official recommendations is “FPD officers must be trained and required to abide by the law.” But it needs to be said, and it needs to be done.
Tags: department of justice, ferguson, news, racism
I’m at the top of page 5 and already almost moved to tears of rage. The stat about how speeding charges against African-Americans went up when it was based on an officer’s visual assessment — as opposed to radar or laser — and the fact that all canine bite incidents for which racial info was available were inflicted on black people both nearly made me howl.
I will be grinding my teeth so hard they will be gone by page 8.
“Of the 54 sworn officers currently serving in FPD, four are African American.”
I could have suspected as much, but seeing the numbers laid bare like that… wow.
The numbers on the court docket are also staggering. The court only holds 3-4 sessions, 3 hours long, per month? For thousands of offenses? And then they arrest MORE PEOPLE to get the revenue to cover the court costs? It’s an ouroboros of corruption and municipal fuckery.
What’s happening in Ferguson isn’t limited to a couple of bad apples; Ferguson itself isn’t an exception among other American police departments. What’s wrong there is wrong everywhere.
This is so key. My resolution this year was to work on municipal election campaigns for this reason. It’s all over, and it starts with local leaders: in Ferguson, the mayor appoints the police chief who hires and trains the force. Change the mayor, change the chief, change the force.
How did you go about getting involved with municipal elections, and what sort of things are you doing? I think that you and I live in the same city or at least general area, and I always want to get involved but I don’t know what to do (and I don’t want to be the person standing on the corner or knocking on doors – I am very much not good at that.)
I lived in St. Louis County (not Ferguson) for 15 years and my first thought when I read this was “yeah, that sounds about right”. It’s a horribly racist place, and very segregated. If you’re white or Asian and live in West County, it’s easy to pretend that the state/police violence against African-Americans isn’t happening because it isn’t happening near you. I’m thinking about people I went to high school with, who were from the city, and who spent 2+ hours per day as kids on the bus so that they could go to a West County high school, because that’s how much disparity there was (still is) between the city schools and the West County schools. I hope their families are ok. It’s so disheartening-I have no idea how this can be fixed. It’s such a deep hole of injustice and systemic racism I don’t know how it can ever be improved.
Not to be a jerk, but here’s the primary source: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-….
Not jerky at all! Thank you!
The report includes a list of “what he has done to help in the areas of court efficiency and revenue.” The list, drafted by Judge Brockmeyer, approvingly highlights the creation of additional fees, many of which are widely considered abusive and may be unlawful, including several that the City has repealed during the pendency of our investigation. These include a $50 fee charged each time a person has a pending municipal arrest warrant cleared, and a “failure to appear fine,” which the Judge noted is “increased each time the Defendant fails to appear in court or pay a fine.”
I’m only up to pg 14 & have amassed a # of cynical thoughts about how, if the day had gone slightly differently, Darren Wilson would have gone back to the police station and gotten crap over shooting instead of multiple-fining Michael Brown.
Jeeeeeesus, every page a new gem:
FPD fails to adequately supervise officers or review their enforcement actions. While FPD collects vehicle-stop data because it is required to do so by state law, it collects no reliable or consistent data regarding pedestrian stops, even though it has the technology to do so. In Ferguson, officers will sometimes make an arrest without writing a report or even obtaining an incident number, and hundreds of reports can pile up for months without supervisors reviewing them. Officers’ uses of force frequently go unreported, and are reviewed only laxly when reviewed at all. As a result of these deficient practices, stops, arrests, and uses of force that violate the law or FPD policy are rarely detected and often ignored when they are discovered.
Just got to ii. Force Used Against Students so… I’m outta here. All I can deal with tonight.
“…including several that the City has repealed during the pendency of our investigation.” just means “We were just trying to see how long we could get away with these, but now that DOJ is all up in our shit we’ll change it so we don’t look bad.”
Too late.
In a statement, FPD said, “Oopsie.”
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.
the actual fuck
that one actually made me tear up. jesus christ.
the world is pure nightmare fuel. real life is no kind of place to grow up.
It’s mostly just hard to believe the Feds came out and published this stuff. After so many repeats I’d been given to expect something much closer to the usual ‘after investigation, we’ve found no evidence of wrongdoing’; maybe something will change this time around, and if they’re really not going to soft-pedal or excuse away the city’s abuses at all this time maybe the response won’t just be limited to that one town as scapegoat either.