Bangkok Herps

So -- because of Holder, Sharpton, obama spewing their racial divisiveness, the crowds of protesters in Ferguson have resorted to anarchy. All because they will not accept a decision by a Grand Jury with testimony from black witnesses that the shooting was justified.

We have an upside down world going on in the USA... people who produce nothing, who think that what they want - cigars or otherwise are there for the taking and trying to wrestle a cops gun away is okay sport. Then the sob sisters and brothers fanned on by the racebaiters shoot two cops...

This kind of craziness will come to a head in America -- but not the way the black racists and liberal/leftist loons think it will be.

And here's another person falsely blaming the crowds of protesters for the shooting. In fact, he seems to know an incredible amount about the motive and identify of the shooter.

Wait, aren't these the same people who claim later on that "we don't know' who did it? Why is it okay for chuckD and JDGruen to jump to conclusions about the shooters so quickly?

BREAKING NEWS

CNN is reporting that demonstrations being held in front of the Ferguson Police Department celebrating the resignation of the Ferguson Police Chief have now led to two Ferguson Police Officers being shot.

More details coming.

UPDATE

The two officers that were shot were not from the Ferguson Police Department. They were in Ferguson helping out with crowd control and are from the St. Louis County Police Department.

According to a police spokesman, they were standing around while the demonstration was winding down when shots were fired from a crowd across the street. They were specifically targeted.

One was shot in the shoulder and one in the face, but are both expected to survive.

Simply put, the shots did not come from the crowd of protesters, so you can stop blaming completely peaceful protesters for an attempt to kill by a man with bad intentions.

The incident was strangly reminescent to me of the attack of the American embassy in Libya, where the Obama administration was lambasted for initially conflating the attacks with the protests, when it in fact turned out that the killers were simply opportunists using the protests as a cover. How is this any different?

After my self-inflicted respite, I want to remember and pray for the police officers again, thanking God that they have both been released from the hospital. I don't remember another time when I have participated in such a heated internet discussion and then had a near-death so closely related to the same discussion occur suddenly in the midst of it. I am grateful for all involved (the police, the protestors, and the deluded shooter) that it was not worse.

I just found out that two St. Louis County policemen were shot today.

This is so sad to me.

Praying for the policemen and their families.

What a hateful, selfish act. My only hope is that it will turn out to be some crazy person and not someone who thinks that something good could ever come out of such violence. May he be caught quickly and come to terms someday with the evil he has done.

Thank God that the policemen appear to both be able to pull through. I pray that no more are touched, at all, by anyone else with a hateful agenda. This is the kind of evil that hurts everyone it touches on all sides.

Out of respect for them, I'm personally not going to participate in these arguments for a couple of days.

I guess there must have been some truth to that report.

Yes, proof of abuse, constitutional violations, and discrimination do not equate to the shooting of a young black man.

So because this thread is about that abuse, constitutional violations, and discrimination, then why are we talking about a shooting that is not even covered in the report?

While you're focused on that case, " the police chief, two police officers, the city manager, a municipal judge and a city court clerk have resigned since the DOJ report’s release last week."


That's reality right there. Ferguson is facing the consequences of their actions. They could just challenge the report if it was false...but everyone's losing their jobs instead. That tells you something about the truth of the accusations, if reading the report wasn't enough by itself already.

The apologists are STILL focused on Officer Wilson. Even after the moderators have told them that this thread is not about Officer Wilson.

Meanwhile, " the police chief, two police officers, the city manager, a municipal judge and a city court clerk have resigned since the DOJ report’s release last week."

But it was a made up report! How could so many people have lost their jobs over a bunch of lies and exaggerations with no legal force? Why doesn't the Police Chief just challenge the report, if it's so obviously untrue...the worst that could happen is he'd lose his job, which has already happened anyway. Draw out the case, and he could even outlast the Obama administration, which only has something more than a year to go anyway.

Unless, of course, the report is true and there's nothing to challenge.

The world goes on, reality is still reality, while you keep your foolish arguments going. Truth is, Ferguson has been exposed, and they are facing the consequences in the real world no matter what little poster fights you keep trying to perpetuate here.

Israel commits grave, systematic violations of international law; expands beyond its borders; and seriously abuses the human rights of Palestinians terrorised by settlers acting with impunity. The evidence is irrefutable - and the theatrics of apartheid apologists can no longer hide it.

I suppose you are referring to west bank Gaza non-Israelis. But the OP is about actual Arab Israelis. No way can their situation be described as apartheid.

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

If Arabs in the West Bank aren't in Israel, then why have Israelis been settling in the West Bank? Are they immigrating to a new country?

The people in the document I sent you are all working. Not getting a job was not the problem. (Though it is often the problem for poor people in Ferguson with ridiculous warrants from a money-hungry city.)

In the paper, the fact that they have a problem is not just because they are some "minority", just like hispanics.

Either you didn't read the link, or you failed royally to comprehend it.

snarky, have you noticed the multiple statements that this is a thread about THE FERGUSON PD, NOT OFFICER WILSON?

There is a body of posters so ridiculously obsessed about Officer Wilson, they'll do anything to ignore 102 pages of proof that the entire Ferguson system was corrupt and acting illegally as a matter of daily policy.

Liberals and Leftists believe the Department of Justice report ... done under the direction and supervision of the most outrageous white hating racist in American History none other than AG Holder .... whose track record of anti-white racism is there for all to see - except those blinded by cult like adoration of 'The One' -- Dear Leader obama...

You seem to have no idea that AG Holder has a long history of being anti-white ... he even became violent back in the day ... do a little googling to get educated before mouthing off...

The report about the Ferguson Police Department is nothing other than a sham - exaggerations, embellishments and out right fabrications ... a total slanting of the situation. The objective of AG Holder was to send people out on a mission to BLACKEN the name (pardon the pun) of the Ferguson PD... The outcome was already known by the so called investigators before they started.

Notice -- PLEASE notice that the same Justice Department could not find sufficient evidence to file Federal Charges against Officer Wilson -- YET because they cannot find sufficient evidence to prosecute - they fabricate a report to DAMN the whole Ferguson PD ...

Don't you find it a bit odd that insufficient evidence was found to Federally prosecute yet the whole PD is found guilty ?

What are you smoking ? Or drinking ... or toking ?

But I expect little else from those who seem to be nothing more than bowing and curtsying obama Cult Members.

Read the report. Hard to exaggerate, embellish, or outright fabricate when 80% of the report comes from the cops' own reports and emails. Name a single thing in the entire report that the DOJ made up.

Back up your claims. Just one of them. Quote the report.

Funny how I've quoted the report extensively (to mere crickets chirping), yet all these detractors can't quote it once.

p.s. - Your faulty logic is incredible that you somehow are saying that the failure to file Federal Charges against Officer Wilson somehow makes the Ferguson PD report suspicious. If they DOJ clearly REFUSED to fake evidence against Officer Wilson, if they gave him a completely honest and upright report, then doesn't that make their Ferguson PD report even more believable?

What kind of strange world do you live in where the fact that a cop is exonerated in one case therefore means that every cop should be exonerated in every case?

There is no logic to your claim, "If Officer Wilson was innocent, then the entire Ferguson PD has always been innocent". There's no connection between one thing and the other at all.

p.p.s. - Since I turned against Obama by 2010, actively petitioned people not to vote for him in 2012, and am a registered Independent, exactly how can you characterize me as an "Obama cult member"?

Beechguy, not only is your statement nonsensical, why did you quote me if you weren't even going to read what I said?

The link I referred to right there shows quite clearly why the majority of the Black population has not had the freedom to live wherever they like. I suggest you read it, or don't respond to me.

snarky, have you noticed the multiple statements that this is a thread about THE FERGUSON PD, NOT OFFICER WILSON?

There is a body of posters so ridiculously obsessed about Officer Wilson, they'll do anything to ignore 102 pages of proof that the entire Ferguson system was corrupt and acting illegally as a matter of daily policy.

GOP haters may curse them for doing this but let's be frank here, no other president, Republican or Democrat has been so weak as to let this happen to him. Shows what a clown Obama is and how much respect they have for him.

This mentality blows my mind. Republicans act disrespectfully...and that's Obama's fault?

Tell that bullshit to my black classmate that is on an airport commission, or to another that is in an upper level education administration department job, or to the lady that is a bank branch manager, all from a very modest background.

I understand anyone can have difficulties, and that's good that we help them. But, before you had the child, did it not occur to you, that it was going to cost money? How about a little self responsibility.

Blaming whitey isn't the answer, well except for Al Sharpton, he's made a good living at it.

Al Sharpton is a fool, but that has nothing to do with anything.

I am not surprised that you used the "self-responsibility" line, quite close to the "personal responsibility" line that the city officials used against Black people in Ferguson...at the same time that they were fixing tickets for each other's White friends.

If you read the report, there's quite a bit about how Black people often tried to take responsibility, but how the city made it as difficult as possible for them to do so. I'll give you some quotes soon.

And I didn't realize it was against the law, for them to pack up and move, if they didn't like it.

I have no doubt some things have gone on in Ferguson, and hundreds of other little towns scattered across the U.S. that aren't right. But, in the Ferguson case, I don't recall ever being there, or even having passed through there. Give the whining and bitching to some one else.

Because it's really easy for poor people to just move wherever they want and pick up a new life, new home, new job, just like that. Right.

Especially if those people are Black. This paper should be required reading for people who say things like that:

Can you read that paper and still believe that it has been the least bit easy for Black people in America to live wherever they like?

One white individual who has lived in Ferguson for 48 years told us that it feels like Ferguson’s police and court system is “designed to bring a black man down . . . [there are] no second chances.”

Even Ferguson's own City Councilmembers are saying that the system is abusive and just creates a revolving door of arrests and fines for poor people who can't pay their tickets right away. Even Ferguson's own City Councilmembers are saying that the Municipal Court Judge fails to treat defendants justly. Even the City Manager and other city officials acknowledge that the purpose of the court is to be a money-maker for the city, not to deal out justice for the citizens.

How can you keep calling the ordinary people of Ferguson a bunch of criminals, when you know nothing about them and the documents laid out in front of you paint quite a different story?

You appear obsessed by this flawed report you keep posting over and over and over again, OMG. If you had been unfortunate enough to have grown up neighborhoods like Ferguson, you would be more supportive of law enforcement that have to police these areas.

http://nypost.com/20...s-bogus-report/

Did you really just repost the John Lott diatribe after it had already been debunked just a few comments ago?

John Lott was a proven fraud who made-up data to support his ridiculous right-wing theories and was dismissed as dishonest even by extreme right-wing commentators. The fact that he can still publish opinion pieces for the NY Post is simply a reflection on how well the content of the NY Post matches its appearance - it's a tabloid. Read my earlier comment for a rebuttal of Lott's nonsense.

I like how neither you, nor Lott, were able to debunk a single actual fact from the entire report.

And I lived for 6 years in Inglewood and South Los Angeles, and worked in those communities for longer than that, so unlike you I DO know what it's like for people who don't feel like the police are there to serve and protect them. Look up the LAPD Rampart Scandal, or the Donovan Jackson beating (which occurred just down the street from me), the Jule Dexter shooting, Rodney King beating, Wayne Calvin Byrd II beating, Javier Ovando shooting, Richard Ray Tyson shooting, the "Taser Twins" in the Inglewood PD, etc. Try and figure out why dozens of LAPD anti-gang officers quit their assignments when a new policy started requiring officers to disclose their personal finances in order to check for corruption, or why they keep being investigated for use of excessive force. As I mentioned in a previous thread, I've had some run-ins with these officers myself, and I know other people who have as well.

Will you apologize after making a false statement about me yet again? Or just move the goalposts?

So what do you actually know about the things Black communities go through when they have to face a corrupt and hostile police force that isn't out for their own good?

I doubt that anyone would argue that the treatment of aboriginals in the past was something to be proud of but for gods sake it was more than 50 decades ago children were taken and cannot be changed. Many nations persecuted their aboriginal peoples in times past and a few still do today.

That didn't smell right, so I did a little bit of internet research.

Australia didn't even recognize Aboriginals as people under the law until 48 years ago.

Only 44 years ago, Justice Blackburn declared that Aboriginals had no land rights in the "terra nullius" case.

As recently as the 1970s, Aboriginal children were still being taken from their homes.

Only 23 years ago, "terra nullius" was declared invalid.

I mean, that's all stuff that would affect people living RIGHT NOW. If kids were still being taken from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s, wouldn't those children be alive today? Even the mothers and families they were taken from would still be alive today in many cases. If people's basic land rights and inherent humanity were still being denied just 25 years ago, wouldn't that have an affect on their stability and community that would still be affecting them today? How can you pretend like that's just something in the past that isn't going to have an effect?

All that was from a quick scan of the Wikipedia article.

There are certainly many who think that the poor treatment continues to this day.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/98

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/28/australia-boom-aboriginal-story-despair

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10335584/Australian-education-minister-admits-Aboriginal-children-treated-like-rubbish.html

I don't think "doing nothing" is the answer. But I am certain that there are community health initiatives and community schools that are doing community engagement well, and the claim is ridiculous that my position is, "So you think sending aboriginals back to the bush, withdrawing health services, the rule of law and education opportunities is what aboriginals of today want?"

I won't respond to any of the attempts to just further prove one's own racism - I'll just let those sit where they are.

White Democrats were mostly segregationists until the Civil Rights Movement.

Then they became Republicans.

That's what the whole "Southern Strategy" was all about. Robert Byrd was one of the tiny percentage of "Dixiecrats" who stayed on, most of whom were not even in the South (Byrd is a West Virginia Senator - West Virginia seceded from Virginia to join the North).

Although I see you completely ignored Strom Thurmond, the long-time South Carolina Republican Senator who ran for president on a strictly pro-segregation platform and was praised for it by Republican leadership as recently as 2005.

If you're talking about Republicans in the 1800s, you're talking about champions of Civil Rights. However, those Republicans didn't even exist in the South for the most part, which is why Republican President Abraham Lincoln couldn't even run in the South.

If you're talking about Southern Republicans post-1980, you're just talking about former Southern Democrats.

Please, if you really are ignorant on this topic and aren't just pretending, look up the Southern Strategy. Republican leaders and strategists openly admitted race-baiting in order to get as many anti-Black votes from the Southern White population as they possibly could.

Now, getting the ticket is just the beginning. Once you get the ticket, the City of Ferguson does everything possible through a confusing, aggressive, and demanding court system to try to get as much additional money out of you as possible...usually by making it difficult for you to pay up your fines (especially if you are poor), overloading the original fine with multitudes of late fees and additional fines, and then putting warrants out for your arrest. It's clear that the court system, through an unjust and corrupt judge and ridiculous, unnecessary requirements, is designed to make money for the city rather than enforce meaningful laws.

Ferguson has allowed its focus on revenue generation to fundamentally compromise the role of Ferguson’s municipal court. The municipal court does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law or a check on unlawful police conduct. Instead, the court primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the City’s financial interests. This has led to court practices that violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection requirements. The court’s practices also impose unnecessary harm, overwhelmingly on African-American individuals, and run counter to public safety.

It is often difficult for an individual who receives a municipal citation or summons in Ferguson to know how much is owed, where and how to pay the ticket, what the options for payment are, what rights the individual has, and what the consequences are for various actions or oversights. The initial information provided to people who are cited for violating Ferguson’s municipal code is often incomplete or inconsistent. Communication with municipal court defendants is haphazard and known by the court to be unreliable. And the court’s procedures and operations are ambiguous, are not written down, and are not transparent or even available to the public on the court’s website or elsewhere.

The rules and procedures of the court are difficult for the public to discern. Aside from a small number of exceptions, the Municipal Judge issues rules of practice and procedure verbally and on an ad hoc basis. Until recently, on the rare occasion that the Judge issued a written order that altered court practices, those orders were not distributed broadly to court and other FPD officials whose actions they affect and were not readily accessible to the public. Further, Ferguson, unlike other courts in the region, does not include any information about its operations on its website other than inaccurate instructions about how to make payment. Court staff acknowledged during our investigation that the public would benefit from increased information about how to resolve cases and about court practices and procedures. Yet neither the court nor other City officials have undertaken efforts to make court operations more transparent in order to ensure that litigants understand their rights or court procedures, or to enable the public to assess whether the court is operating in a fair manner.

Most strikingly, the court issues municipal arrest warrants not on the basis of public safety needs, but rather as a routine response to missed court appearances and required fine payments. In 2013 alone, the court issued over 9,000 warrants on cases stemming in large part from minor violations such as parking infractions, traffic tickets, or housing code violations. Jail time would be considered far too harsh a penalty for the great majority of these code violations, yet Ferguson’s municipal court routinely issues warrants for people to be arrested and incarcerated for failing to timely pay related fines and fees. Under state law, a failure to appear in municipal court on a traffic charge involving a moving violation also results in a license suspension. Ferguson has made this penalty even more onerous by only allowing the suspension to be lifted after payment of an owed fine is made in full. Further, until recently, Ferguson also added charges, fines, and fees for each missed appearance and payment. Many pending cases still include such charges that were imposed before the court recently eliminated them, making it as difficult as before for people to resolve these cases.

The report goes on to spend extensive time detailing how Ferguson makes it difficult to fully resolve one's ticket. Some ways they make it especially difficult:

* Ticket often fail to describe the exact charge or process necessary to rectify the charge.

* Police fail to adequately explain how to resolve the charge

* Police give the soonest possible court date and frequently tell people the wrong date

* In-person court appearances are required for most municipal charges, even simple ones
(Poor people who can't miss work or don't have transportation often find it difficult to make these appearances. The fact that Ferguson automatically suspends you license if you miss a traffic court date and refuses to reinstate it until you've paid off all your fines in full makes it that much harder for them to resolve, especially since public transportation in Ferguson is inadequate.)

* Fine assessment methods don't evauate ability to pay and community service or other alternatives for those who cannot pay their fines is not available.

* The court typically refuses to accept partial payments unless you have already set up a payment plan, and won't set up payment plans that pay less than $100 at a time. Any partial payment outside of a payment plan is counted as a missed payment, so additional fines are added and a warrant is issued for their arrest.

* Every missed appearance results in increasingly mounted fines and a warrant for arrest. Every missed payment results in increasingly mounted fines and a warrant for arrest.

* Warrants for arrest are often sent out even when the person has not been notified that they missed a court date or missed a payment.

* Rumors in the community (at times proved legitimate) are that if you can't pay off your fines, the city will arrest you on the spot when you show up at court, so people are scared to show up at their court appearance if they don't have the money to pay the fine.


Really, how do you think a system like that is supposed to work? If you get one ticket for not wearing a seatbelt, but you can't afford to pay the fine or can't afford to miss work to show up at court (perhaps you'll even be fired for missing work, which has happened to poor people I know), a warrant is put out for your arrest and your license is automatically suspended. It's possible that you didn't even know about the court date because the ticket was sent to the wrong address, especially if you're poor and have to move homes frequently. If your license is suspended, it makes it that much harder to get to court or to get to work. If you have warrants, it's that much harder to find work. If you can't find work, can't get to work, can't drive to court, how are you going to pay your fines? You miss fines, they mount up, they catch you driving with a suspended license, through you in jail and even more mounted fines. The system is just designed to keep people struggling and struggling.

For all these reasons, the fines keep building and building, and in many many cases people who have paid well over the initial fine amount still owe even more money to the court due to the mounting fees, so the court then orders the arrest of those people and throws them in jail, releasing them afterwards with even greater fines left to pay. Unsurprisingly, 96% of the people who are arrested on warrants for missing payments for municipal code violations are African-American. These aren't “criminals”, they're just people who weren't able to make it to the courthouse or make a payment.

Further, an evaluation of dismissal rates throughout the life of a case shows that, on average, an African-American defendant is 68% less likely than other defendants to have a case dismissed. In addition to cases that are “Dismissed,” court records also show cases that are “Voided” altogether. There are only roughly 400 cases listed as Voided from 2011-2013, but the data that is available for that relatively small number of Voided cases shows that African Americans are three times less likely to receive the Voided outcome than others.

In large part, of course, this is likely due to the corruption of the court clerks, judge, and mayor, who internal emails prove have been fixing tickets for their predominantly White friends.

Many people have gone to court ten times or more to try to resolve their cases but are unable to do so, and only have greater and greater mounting fines and warrants as a result.

We spoke, for example, with an African-American woman who has a still-pending case stemming from 2007, when, on a single occasion, she parked her car illegally. She received two citations and a $151 fine, plus fees. The woman, who experienced financial difficulties and periods of homelessness over several years, was charged with seven Failure to Appear offenses for missing court dates or fine payments on her parking tickets between 2007 and 2010. For each Failure to Appear, the court issued an arrest warrant and imposed new fines and fees. From 2007 to 2014, the woman was arrested twice, spent six days in jail, and paid $550 to the court for the events stemming from this single instance of illegal parking. Court records show that she twice attempted to make partial payments of $25 and $50, but the court returned those payments, refusing to accept anything less than payment in full. One of those payments was later accepted, but only after the court’s letter rejecting payment by money order was returned as undeliverable. This woman is now making regular payments on the fine. As of December 2014, over seven years later, despite initially owing a $151 fine and having already paid $550, she still owed $541.

Another woman told us that when she went to court to try to pay $100 on a $600 outstanding balance, the Court Clerk refused to take the partial payment, even though the woman explained that she was a single mother and could not afford to pay more that month. A 90-year-old man had a warrant issued for his arrest after he failed to timely pay the five citations FPD issued to him during a single traffic stop in 2013. An 83-year-old man had a warrant issued against him when he failed to timely resolve his Derelict Auto violation. A 67-year-old woman told us she was stopped and arrested by a Ferguson police officer for an outstanding warrant for failure to pay a trash-removal citation. She did not know about the warrant until her arrest, and the court ultimately charged her $1,000 in fines, which she continues to pay off in $100 monthly increments despite being on a limited, fixed income. We have heard similar stories from dozens of other individuals and have reviewed court records documenting many additional instances of similarly harsh penalties, often for relatively minor violations.

The court imposes these severe penalties for missed appearances and payments even as several of the court’s practices create unnecessary barriers to resolving a municipal violation. The court often fails to provide clear and accurate information regarding a person’s charges or court obligations. And the court’s fine assessment procedures do not adequately provide for a defendant to seek a fine reduction on account of financial incapacity or to seek alternatives to payment such as community service. City and court officials have adhered to these court practices despite acknowledging their needlessly harmful consequences. In August 2013, for example, one City Councilmember wrote to the City Manager, the Mayor, and other City officials lamenting the lack of a community service option and noted the benefits of such a program, including that it would “keep those people that simply don’t have the money to pay their fines from constantly being arrested and going to jail, only to be released and do it all over again.”

The Finance Director’s February 2011 report to the City Council notes that “Judge Brockmeyer was first appointed in 2003, and during this time has been successful in significantly increasing court collections over the years.” 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.” The Judge also noted increasing fines for repeat offenders, “especially in regard to housing violations, [which] have increased substantially and will continue to be increased upon subsequent violations.” The February 2011 report notes Judge Brockmeyer’s statement that “none of these changes could have taken place without the cooperation of the Court Clerk, the Chief of Police, and the Prosecutor’s Office.” Indeed, the acting prosecutor noted in the report that “I have denied defendants’ needless requests for continuance from the payment docket in an effort to aid in the court’s efficient collection of its fines.”

Of course, the city ignored clear calls being made that the whole system was unjust.

The City has been aware for years of concerns about the impact its focus on revenue has had on lawful police action and the fair administration of justice in Ferguson. It has disregarded those concerns—even concerns raised from within the City government—to avoid disturbing the court’s ability to optimize revenue generation. In 2012, a Ferguson City Councilmember wrote to other City officials in opposition to Judge Brockmeyer’s reappointment, stating that “[the Judge] does not listen to the testimony, does not review the reports or the criminal history of defendants, and doesn’t let all the pertinent witnesses testify before rendering a verdict.” The Councilmember then addressed the concern that “switching judges would/could lead to loss of revenue,” arguing that even if such a switch did “lead to a slight loss, I think it’s more important that cases are being handled properly and fairly.” The City Manager acknowledged mixed reviews of the Judge’s work but urged that the Judge be reappointed, noting that “t goes without saying the City cannot afford to lose any efficiency in our Courts, nor experience any decrease in our Fines and Forfeitures.”

One white individual who has lived in Ferguson for 48 years told us that it feels like Ferguson’s police and court system is “designed to bring a black man down . . . [there are] no second chances.”

Even Ferguson's own City Councilmembers are saying that the system is abusive and just creates a revolving door of arrests and fines for poor people who can't pay their tickets right away. Even Ferguson's own City Councilmembers are saying that the Municipal Court Judge fails to treat defendants justly. Even the City Manager and other city officials acknowledge that the purpose of the court is to be a money-maker for the city, not to deal out justice for the citizens.

How can you keep calling the ordinary people of Ferguson a bunch of criminals, when you know nothing about them and the documents laid out in front of you paint quite a different story?

This helps to show how ridiculously silly it was when that poster tried to claim that a pro-ISIS message posted only on Twitter was a real and accurate poll result.

Here is a response to beechguy's post, and to the others who don't understand how difficult the City of Ferguson made life for its residents, especially the poor and Black ones. And also for CMNightRider and his friends, who keep referring to anyone abused by Ferguson's system as "criminals".

It was obvious from the report that the City of Ferguson worked to get as many people as they possibly could into the court system, whether they were “criminals” or not. Most of the adult population of Ferguson had a warrant out for their arrest as some time or another, and it was for things as ridiculous as having their grass too long, parking tickets, traffic tickets, jaywalking, etc. It is made clear over and over again in the City's own documentation that they weren't going after these people because of any public safety issue, but in order to try to raise funds to make as much money as possible off of their own citizens.

Here are a few more quotes from the report (in addition to the excessive use of force quotes I posted earlier, and some more clear constitutional violation quotes that I'll post soon). They are out-of-order compared to how they were listed in the report. I could have included a LOT more - I believe there was around 20 pages on this topic alone in the report.

The City budgets for sizeable increases in municipal fines and fees each year, exhorts police and court staff to deliver those revenue increases, and closely monitors whether those increases are achieved. City officials routinely urge Chief Jackson to generate more revenue through enforcement. In March 2010, for instance, the City Finance Director wrote to Chief Jackson that “unless ticket writing ramps up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly raise collections next year. . . . Given that we are looking at a substantial sales tax shortfall, it’s not an insignificant issue.” Similarly, in March 2013, the Finance Director wrote to the City Manager: “Court fees are anticipated to rise about 7.5%. I did ask the Chief if he thought the PD could deliver 10% increase. He indicated they could try.” The importance of focusing on revenue generation is communicated to FPD officers. Ferguson police officers from all ranks told us that revenue generation is stressed heavily within the police department, and that the message comes from City leadership. The evidence we reviewed supports this perception.

The City’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on FPD’s approach to law enforcement. Patrol assignments and schedules are geared toward aggressive enforcement of Ferguson’s municipal code, with insufficient thought given to whether enforcement strategies promote public safety or unnecessarily undermine community trust and cooperation. Officer evaluations and promotions depend to an inordinate degree on “productivity,” meaning the number of citations issued. Partly as a consequence of City and FPD priorities, many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.

As directed, FPD supervisors and line officers have undertaken the aggressive code enforcement required to meet the City’s revenue generation expectations. As discussed below in Part III.A., FPD officers routinely conduct stops that have little relation to public safety and a questionable basis in law. FPD officers routinely issue multiple citations during a single stop, often for the same violation. Issuing three or four charges in one stop is not uncommon in Ferguson. Officers sometimes write six, eight, or, in at least one instance, fourteen citations for a single encounter. Indeed, officers told us that some compete to see who can issue the largest number of citations during a single stop.

The City closely monitors whether FPD’s enforcement efforts are bringing in revenue at the desired rate. Consistently over the last several years, the Police Chief has directly reported to City officials FPD’s successful efforts at raising revenue through policing, and City officials have continued to encourage those efforts and request regular updates. For example, in June 2010, at the request of the City, the Chief prepared a report comparing court revenues in Ferguson to court revenues for cities of similar sizes. The Chief’s email sending the report to the City Manager notes that, “of the 80 St. Louis County Municipal Courts reporting revenue, only 8, including Ferguson, have collections greater than one million dollars.” (Ferguson's revenue is now well over $2 million/year.)

Similarly, in March 2011, the Chief reported to the City Manager that court revenue in February was $179,862.50, and that the total “beat our next biggest month in the last four years by over $17,000,” to which the City Manager responded: “Wonderful!” In a June 2011 email from Chief Jackson to the Finance Director and City Manager, the Chief reported that “May is the 6th straight month in which court revenue (gross) has exceeded the previous year.” The City Manager again applauded the Chief’s efforts, and the Finance Director added praise, noting that the Chief is “substantially in control of the outcome.” The Finance Director further recommended in this email greater police and judicial enforcement to “have a profound effect on collections.” Similarly, in a January 2013 email from Chief Jackson to the City Manager, the Chief reported: “Municipal Court gross revenue for calendar year 2012 passed the $2,000,000 mark for the first time in history, reaching $2,066,050 (not including red light photo enforcement).” The City Manager responded: “Awesome! Thanks!” In one March 2012 email, the Captain of the Patrol Division reported directly to the City Manager that court collections in February 2012 reached $235,000, and that this was the first month collections ever exceeded $200,000. The Captain noted that “[t]he [court clerk] girls have been swamped all day with a line of people paying off fines today. Since 9:30 this morning there hasn’t been less than 5 people waiting in line and for the last three hours 10 to 15 people at all times.” The City Manager enthusiastically reported the Captain’s email to the City Council and congratulated both police department and court staff on their “great work.”

In an April 2014 communication from the Finance Director to Chief Jackson and the City Manager, the Finance Director recommended immediate implementation of an “I-270 traffic enforcement initiative” in order to “begin to fill the revenue pipeline.” The Finance Director’s email attached a computation of the net revenues that would be generated by the initiative, which required paying five officers overtime for highway traffic enforcement for a four-hour shift. The Finance Director stated that “there is nothing to keep us from running this initiative 1,2,3,4,5,6, or even 7 days a week. Admittedly at 7 days per week[] we would see diminishing returns.” Indeed, in a separate email to FPD supervisors, the Patrol Captain explained that “[t]he plan behind this [initiative] is to PRODUCE traffic tickets, not provide easy OT.” There is no indication that anyone considered whether community policing and public safety would be better served by devoting five overtime officers to neighborhood policing instead of a “revenue pipeline” of highway traffic enforcement. Rather, the only downsides to the program that City officials appear to have considered are that “this initiative requires 60 to 90 [days] of lead time to turn citations into cash,” and that Missouri law caps the proportion of revenue that can come from municipal fines at 30%, which limits the extent to which the program can be used. See Mo. Rev. Stat. § 302.341.2. With regard to the statewide-cap issue, the Finance Director advised: “As the RLCs [Red Light Cameras] net revenues ramp up to whatever we believe its annualized rate will be, then we can figure out how to balance the two programs to get their total revenues as close as possible to the statutory limit of 30%.”

Not all officers within FPD agree with this approach. Several officers commented on the futility of imposing mounting penalties on people who will never be able to afford them. One member of FPD’s command staff quoted an old adage, asking: “How can you get blood from a turnip?” Another questioned why FPD did not allow residents to use their limited resources to fix equipment violations, such as broken headlights, rather than paying that money to the City, as fixing the equipment violation would more directly benefit public safety.

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.

This also shows how laughable it was that Hawker9000 claims to have read the report and yet couldn't understand what the Court and the PD had to do with each other. It was clear that they were hand-in-hand with everything that occurred.