Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

In my day, never was longer.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

This fight is for everything.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

This blog will pay for itself.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Justice Department and Ferguson

Reader Interactions

20Comments

  1. 1.

    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.

  2. 2.

    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.

  3. 3.

    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.

  5. 5.

    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.

  6. 6.

    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.

  7. 7.

    Tommy

    These are the stats from the report that Democracy Now is reporting. They are stunning in a very sad way.

    Here are the stats the DOJ found. African Americans make up 70% of the population in Ferguson. But 85% of traffic stops were African Americans. 90% of tickets. 93% of arrests. 88% of where police used force. Twice as likely to be searched, but less likely than whites to have drugs or a gun. I am sorry, but they are not even trying to “pretend” they are not overtly racist.

    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.

  8. 8.

    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.

  9. 9.

    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?

  10. 10.

    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.

  11. 11.

    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?

  12. 12.

    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.

  13. 13.

    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.

  14. 14.

    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…

  15. 15.

    Downpuppy

    For those who claim it’s just numbers, Page 70 of the Police practice report

    We have uncovered significant evidence showing that racial bias has impermissibly played a role in shaping the actions of police and court officials in Ferguson. That evidence, detailed below, includes: 1) the consistency and magnitude of the racial disparities found throughout police and court enforcement actions; 2) direct communications by police supervisors and court officials that exhibit racial bias, particularly against African Americans; 3) a number of
    other communications by police and court officials that reflect harmful racial stereotypes; 4) the background and historic context surrounding FPD’s racially disparate enforcement practices; 5) the fact that City, police, and court officials failed to take any meaningful steps to evaluate or address the race-based impact of its law enforcement practices despite longstanding and widely reported racial disparities, and instead consistently reapplied police and court practices known to disparately impact African Americans.

    & the next 10 pages document the bejezzus out of this

  16. 16.

    sharl

    OT: NOOOOOOOOOoooo!!!

    Kennedy Townsend considering run for U.S. Senate seat in 2016

    Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is the latest in a long list of possible contenders to consider a run for U.S. Senate after longtime Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) announced her retirement this week.

    The former Maryland lieutenant governor said she has made inquiries and is talking to friends — including Mikulski — and supporters, but has not made a final decision about her candidacy.

    “I am thinking about it,” Kennedy Townsend said. “I have always wanted to serve the people of Maryland.”

    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.

  17. 17.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @The Moar You Know:

    With a 70% AA population, this should not be that hard.

    Isn’t the point of pulling them over and charging them with something to ultimately stop them from being able to vote?

  18. 18.

    sharl

    Via AdamSerwer’s twitter:

    How “routine misconduct” by Ferguson police can ruin someone’s life.

    here’s just one adorable story from the DoJ report (pdf, 106pp) on practices of the Ferguson PD:

    Even relatively routine misconduct by Ferguson police officers can have significant consequences for the people whose rights are violated. For example, in the summer of 2012, a 32-year-old African-American man sat in his car cooling off after playing basketball in a Ferguson public park. An officer pulled up behind the man’s car, blocking him in, and demanded the man’s Social Security number and identification. Without any cause, the officer accused the man of being a pedophile, referring to the presence of children in the park, and ordered the man out of his car for a pat-down, although the officer had no reason to believe the man was armed. The officer also asked to search the man’s car. The man objected, citing his constitutional rights. In response, the officer arrested the man, reportedly at gunpoint, charging him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code. One charge, Making a False Declaration, was for initially providing the short form of his first name (e.g., “Mike” instead of “Michael”), and an address which, although legitimate, was different from the one on his driver’s license. Another charge was for not wearing a seat belt, even though he was seated in a parked car. The officer also charged the man both with having an expired operator’s license, and with having no operator’s license in his possession. The man told us that, because of these charges, he lost his job as a contractor with the federal government that he had held for years.

    ETA: excerpt from page 6 of the report

  19. 19.

    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.

  20. 20.

    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:

    CDS ‏@Ptsk

    Any word from the Bundy Ranch supporters on the blatant government excess and abuse in the #FergusonReport? They must be outraged. #tcot

    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.

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