The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[derspiess]

Or it's our self-proclaimed Activist Attorney General's parting gift to "his people".

[Admiral Yi]

Blacks accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops in 2013 but make up 63 percent of the population, according to the most recent data published by the Missouri attorney general. And once they were stopped, black drivers were twice as likely to be searched, even though searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband.

This would be really damning if they only pulled over Ferguson residents, and if whites and blacks committed exactly the same number of traffic infractions.

[DontSayBanana]

This would be really damning if they only pulled over Ferguson residents, and if whites and blacks committed exactly the same number of traffic infractions.

Actually, that wide a statistical gap is a problem in and of itself.  Which is exactly what has been reported about Ferguson, and one of the factors discussed by DOJ personnel even before the release of this report.

[Admiral Yi]

Actually, that wide a statistical gap is a problem in and of itself.  Which is exactly what has been reported about Ferguson, and one of the factors discussed by DOJ personnel even before the release of this report.

It is not proof in and of itself of discriminatory policing.

[Barrister]

So no comments on the report itself?

It's pretty damning against the Ferguson PD.

[Razgovory]

Yi said there is insufficient proof.  That's good enough for me.

[Capetan Mihali]

Would love to know how you can tell whose a resident of a town at the time you pull them over.

[CountDeMoney]

Would love to know how you can tell whose a resident of a town at the time you pull them over.

Running the tags via mobile data terminal, license plates readers or just calling it in to dispatch.  The traffic stop begins before the traffic stop is ever initiated.

[Capetan Mihali]

Shows where the car's registered, not where the driver actually lives (per Yi's one-liner).

[CountDeMoney]

Shows where the car's registered, not where the driver actually lives (per Yi's one-liner).

Statistical variance between driver and registered owner isn't that great, particularly in the 'hood, and you know that.  If it's a car registered in Ferguson, and there's one of those uppity negroes behind the wheel, chances are said uppity negro is a Ferguson resident.

Besides, the study isn't about the drivers--it's the PD's approaches to those drivers they pull over.  But, focusing on the drivers is a convenient fallacy.

[dps]

Would love to know how you can tell whose a resident of a town at the time you pull them over.

Running the tags via mobile data terminal, license plates readers or just calling it in to dispatch.  The traffic stop begins before the traffic stop is ever initiated.

.

In a small enough town, the local cops know whose car is whose, anyway.  Wouldn't apply to Ferguson, though, but places maybe a quarter that size or smaller.

[11B4V]

Shows where the car's registered, not where the driver actually lives (per Yi's one-liner).

Statistical variance between driver and registered owner isn't that great, particularly in the 'hood, and you know that.  If it's a car registered in Ferguson, and there's one of those uppity negroes behind the wheel, chances are said uppity negro is a Ferguson resident.

Besides, the study isn't about the drivers--it's the PD's approaches to those drivers they pull over.  But, focusing on the drivers is a convenient fallacy.

Nice when they have a pic attached too.  :ph34r

[Razgovory]

Shows where the car's registered, not where the driver actually lives (per Yi's one-liner).

Doesn't the court have to serve notice to someone who got a ticket, by sending a letter to their home?

[CountDeMoney]

For the Languish "Meh, they're only niggers" crowd : an article where you can read excepts of the DOJ report, so you're not bothered with having to read the whole thing, what with it not being "proof in and of itself of discriminatory policing".

Ferguson's Conspiracy Against Black Citizens
How the city's leadership harassed and brutalized their way to multiple civil-rights violations

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/03/ferguson-as-a-criminal-conspiracy-against-its-black-residents-michael-brown-department-of-justice-report/386887/

One passage describes the way that Ferguson officials have criminalized being too poor to pay a ticket:

    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 results in a license suspension. Ferguson has made this penalty more onerous by only allowing the suspension to be lifted after payment of an owed fine is made in full.

Here's how Ferguson officials wreak havoc on people's lives over the tiniest of infractions:

    We spoke... 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.

....

Some officers from the Ferguson police department are so poorly trained and ignorant of the law that they openly related their unconstitutional behavior to DOJ investigators:

In our conversations with FPD officers, one officer admitted that when he conducts a traffic stop, he asks for identification from all passengers as a matter of course. If any refuses, he considers that to be "furtive and aggressive" conduct and cites—and typically arrests—the person for Failure to Comply. The officer thus acknowledged that he regularly exceeds his authority under the Fourth Amendment by arresting passengers who refuse, as is their right, to provide identification ... Further, the officer told us that he was trained to arrest for this violation.

[Martinus]

Wow, this case is as clear cut as it can be yet Languish racists are still downplaying it. Just wow.