Keep hearing drips and drabs of info, most recently that Darren Wilson will not be charged, but the full report does not yet seem to be available.
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by John Cole| 20 Comments
This post is in: Post-racial America, Shitty Cops
Keep hearing drips and drabs of info, most recently that Darren Wilson will not be charged, but the full report does not yet seem to be available.
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Keith G
The burden of proof threshold for charging someone with civil rights violations in a case like this seems to be high enough to preclude charges in this case. That’s a shame, but that’s the way it is.
scav
To an extent, it might likely be better in the long to take large chunks out of the whole toxic lot of them, Ferguson, PD, city government and supporting infrastructure, putting some fear of god into their neighboring ilk in St. Louis and elsewhere, if still not entirely satisfying. It is a systemic issue. Tossing that one apple so hard he’s turned into mush leaves the one bad argument as cover.
The Moar You Know
Ferguson voters need to get off their asses, toss their all-white city council and get themselves some folks representing them that don’t hate them all, and more to the point will disband their totally fucked police department and start over from scratch.
With a 70% AA population, this should not be that hard.
sharl
Here is the DoJ press release that must have just been posted, with a bunch of links to specific reports (PDFs) toward the bottom of that page.
ETA: h/t Patricia Bynes, Democratic Committeewoman of Ferguson Township in St Louis County in MO.
sharl
@sharl: Minor correction – not “a bunch” of reports, just two, one on the Michael Brown killing, the other on practices of the Ferguson Police Dept. Other two links appear to go to supporting information (data & methods, I’m guessing).
Obviously I haven’t read any of them myself at this point. Just letting y’all know where to find them.
Starfish
@The Moar You Know: That is easier said than done in a lot of places where government ends up like that due to gerrymandering where all the blacks are put in one voting district, and all of the other districts are white enough for white people to win.
Tommy
These are the stats from the report that Democracy Now is reporting. They are stunning in a very sad way.
I posted this in another thread but I think it bears repeating. In what world do you get 90% of anything. As I noted I only live a few miles from Ferguson and knew it was not good. But honestly I had no idea.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
From what I understood from the radio yesterday, the DOJ report starts the ball rolling on forcing Ferguson into a federal consent decree to reform both the police and the municipal court. In the long run, that may be better than putting one guy on trial, but in the short run, it sucks.
Melissa
If Ferguson can’t raise funds through taxes, etc. (& it is a poor city), why not have it absorbed into St Louis or another municipality? It seems to me that could addressed a number of issues, including reforming a larger police service. Has anyone thought of this?
Melissa
@Tommy: I’ve been waiting for the television news to report that figure about white crime. It sheds an important light on the situation.
Amir Khalid
@Melissa:
I ask as a foreigner: If Ferguson were absorbed onto St Louis or some other nearby larger city, what would be the likely effect on its mostly black and not well served population? Would they be better or worse off?
sharl
@Melissa: Somewhat related to your question, Ferguson pol Patricia Bynes and STL-area resident Sarah Kendzior – among other STL locals and legal rights orgs – have been writing/tweeting and speaking out in general about STL County’s area wide problem. Specifically, they have said that not only is Ferguson not the only small STL-county community doing crap like this, but they aren’t even the worst case in that region.
Bottom line appears to be that a county-wide solution is called for – with corresponding changes in state laws where necessary – and also that some of the issues should be evaluated from a nationwide perspective, given that some of the most significant findings are applicable to other U.S. communities outside of Missouri.
Tommy
@Melissa: It is really complex as a dude that lives outside of St. Louis. I don’t know if other places do it like this but you have the city of St. Louis but all the towns operate on their own via St. Louis County. Ferguson is just that.
They are St. Louis County. Not the city. Long ago the burbs moved away from St. Louis the city and to the county. A never ending fight. It would take me like ten pages to explain, but it is safe to say they have no tax base. Ticketing everybody is how they keep the city running.
Tenar Darell
@The Moar You Know: Just writing aloud, I’d guess we’d have to answer at least some of these questions: Voter ID state/misinformation out there? Felon disenfranchisement? Business hours only polls? Difficulty obtaining absentee ballots or even registering easily? Off year and really odd times of the year elections? Problems finding candidates who can afford the time, support and money to run? What would be necessary to gain a controlling majority? I’m sure I’m missing more questions…
Downpuppy
For those who claim it’s just numbers, Page 70 of the Police practice report
& the next 10 pages document the bejezzus out of this
sharl
OT: NOOOOOOOOOoooo!!!
I wonder if she actually learned one g*d-d*mn thing from her disastrous 2002 run for governor. I’ll wager a lot of older Maryland AAs have not forgotten – nor forgiven – being totally and thoroughly dissed by her campaign back then. They stayed home, and we got a Republican governor.
Just Some Fuckhead
@The Moar You Know:
Isn’t the point of pulling them over and charging them with something to ultimately stop them from being able to vote?
sharl
Via AdamSerwer’s twitter:
here’s just one adorable story from the DoJ report (pdf, 106pp) on practices of the Ferguson PD:
ETA: excerpt from page 6 of the report
Glidwrith
@Tenar Darell: @The Moar You Know: I think I can answer both of your questions as to why, with a 70% black population it is all white ruling class. Mind you, I might be getting it wrong because it is so egregious that I can barely comprehend it.
Here it is: the surrounding areas are white majority and when it comes time to vote, Ferguson isn’t a separate district but it lumped in with the surrounding areas. In effect, since it is majority white over a larger area, the people elected to represent the smaller area are elected by the majority white area.
This same crap was pulled down in Texas, where two council seats were eliminated that represented Hispanic-dominated districts and thrown open as ‘general’ seats. The reasoning was that the council should have people that are interested in governing the entire region and not just their specific piece. Of course, those districts now lose their reps and I think it means a loss of majority, but it’s just one of those things /spit.
sharl
There are several Twitter hashtags in response to release of the DoJ Ferguson reports. One of them that seems most active is #FergusonReport.
If any of you are social media data visualization/presentation geeks, someone took the aforementioned hashtag and did some kind of activity trend map thingie at reverb.guru – whatever that is – that highlights the five tweets that got the most responses (click on the circles at bottom to see those). Not sure I’m a fan of this, but YMMV.
Of the small sample of tweets I’ve seen from this hashtag, this is one of my favorites:
And in fact some (presumably) Bundy Ranch fans did respond, in about the way you might expect if you’ve seen output from that hypocritical, ignorant, and racist bunch of yahoos before.
Not all people suck, but a lot of them sure do.