Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household

[babylonsister]

Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household
In the chamber where Officer Darren Wilson received a commendation six months before killing Michael Brown, a minor court generates major money from the city’s poor and working people.


snip//

But there is another, unnoticed irony in the venue itself. Three times a month—one day and two nights—the City Council chamber also serves as home to the incredibly busy and extremely profitable Ferguson municipal court.

A report issued just last week by the nonprofit lawyer’s group ArchCity Defenders notes that in the court’s 36 three-hour sessions in 2013, it handled 12,108 cases and 24,532 warrants. That is an average of 1.5 cases and three warrants per Ferguson household. Fines and court fees for the year in this city of just 21,000 people totaled $2,635,400.

The sum made the municipal court the city’s second-biggest source of revenue. It is also almost certainly was a major factor in the antagonism between the police and the citizenry preceding the tragedy that resulted when Wilson had another encounter with a subject six months after he got his commendation.

And any complete investigation into how Michael Brown came to be sprawled dead in the street with a half-dozen bullet wounds must consider not just the cop but the system he served, a system whose primary components include a minor court that generates major money, much of it from poor and working people.

Five of the six City Council members who meet in this chamber are white, even though the city itself is more than 70 percent black. The City Council appoints the municipal judge, currently Ron Brockmeyer, who is also white.

But when this same chamber serves as Ferguson Municipal Court, a disproportionate number of the defendants are black.

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/22/ferguson-s-shameful-legal-shakedown-three-warrants-a-year-per-household.html

[gordianot]

1. And their officers are required to tally in arrests. Just wait!

This is common knowledge in Law Enforcement Community in Missouri Ferguson is a big and nasty speed trap. It is only good for entry level employment get experience then get out. The old guys are the only ones who get paid. Michael Brown was gunned down in death by quota. Now with falling profits Ferguson Police must be really on edge.

[bigtree]

2. ArchCity Defenders

. . . great local lawyer group.

Thanks for posting.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Pay Day Loan Sharks with a gun.

[JEB]

4. Plantation.

[Fred Sanders]

5. A grand jury into the murder of Kaj Powell is even more warranted....the evidence is on video.

At least all those warrants help keep them away from the voting booth.....?Jim Crow lives in many forms.

[EC]

6. No wonder those in the white neighbor hoods

just heart Ferguson. Their infrastructure up keep is on the backs of the poor neighbors being bilked.

[IsItJustMe]

7. Insane. Truly the perfect storm.

A white police force conducting a revenue generating police state over a black neighborhood. I will say it again,

"Gee, what could go wrong?".

[woo me with science]

8. It always comes down to money and corruption. With armies supplied bipartisanly by politicians

to defend the corruption.

I have added this link to this post:

Stopping police militarization: Once again, the solution requires confronting corporate politicians.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025416709

[ReRe]

9. K&R

I've read this before, but am kicking for exposure. No telling how many didn't see it the first time.

[ColesCountyDem]

10. This problem is more than simply black vs. white-- it's poor vs. everyone else. n/t

[Orrex]

11. We've all heard the joke about end-of-the-month speeding ticket quotas

These have been denied by law enforcement agencies for decades, but it's clear that this other revenue stream is going strong.

[gordianot]

15. Year round quotas like the Bourbon MO speed trap that got shut down on I-44.

The residents did not like it when one of their own got gunned down and then Police walked away an audit finally shut them down.
All within the last year.

[tea and oranges]

12. Read this important article a week ago. Kick

Another bit I've noticed is that the mayor was a Ferguson cop 3 years ago until he was elected.

In another article about The Case of the Bloodied Uniforms, there was mention of the officer responsible for that brainchild is now a city councilman.

Is there a reward (higher office, more chances for graft) if you do an especially good job of oppressing black Ferguson into fees, fines, & losing the right to vote?

[daleanime]

13. K&R....

[SwankyXomb]

14. Talk about rubber stamp justice

12,108 cases in 108 hours of court time is almost 2 a minute.

[Demeter]

16. I think Ferguson's power brokers are really going to be sorry

their little shell game is coming to an abrupt and public close.

I just hope some of them do significant time in jail, and get asset-stripped, to boot.

RICO charges would be appropriate, I would think.

[gordianot]

19. They do not call them quotas but nice names such as "Peformance Goals", "Performance Initiatives".

You get bonus pay for meeting your "Performance Goals" that way it is difficult to say you are pocketing proceeds. Officer Wilson did get an award for "Extraordinary Effort in the Line Of Duty" ever vigilant media has not asked anyone what that means. Maybe DOJ will ask about that.

[Enthusiast]

17. Kicked and recommended!

It's a racket, an actual racket.

[PeoViejo]

18. Homegrown Slave Trade for the Prison-Industrial Complex.

No more boats to Africa, these days.

[Jack Rabbit]

20. Ferguson is 70% black, the city council is all white except one latino

Ferguson black police officers can be counted on the fingers of one's hands.

This sounds like a classic case of taxation without representation, but a GOP executive says a voter registration drive in Ferguson is "disgusting" and "inappropriate." Nevermind whether today's GOP would fight to abolish slavery; we should ask if today's GOP would have sided with King George.

[gordianot]

23. 1/3 nuetral, 1/3 Torry, 1/3 Revolutionary historians commonly use that breakdown for American R.

Some claim similar demographics hold true today.

[happyslug]

30. That is the Numbers for the South in the Revolution

Last edited Sun Aug 24, 2014, 04:41 AM - Edit history (1)

The British themselves came up with those figures, but only for the South and only for Free white males (The British ended up promising freedom to any slave that agreed to fight with them, and thus undermined the support they had in the South among white slave owners).

New England was 90% for the Revolution, the Middle Colonies (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and sometimes Maryland) was more 2/3 for the revolution, 1/3 against.

The Frontier was overwhelming for the Revolution. Quakers and Episcopals tend to be pro-British, Presbyterians, Congregationalists tend to be more for the Revolution. Lutherans, being mostly German Speaking (along with Catholics) tend to support whatever was the religion that dominated in their area, and given the greatest number of Lutherans lived in Pennsylvania, tend to support the revolution. Yes the Revolution had a religious aspect to it, for religion reflects one's political views (and thus why Religion and Freedom of Assembly, and Freedom of Speech are all in the First Amendment to the Constitution).

Baptists and Methodists tend to support the Revolution, mostly for the Lutherans did, they follow the Presbyterians who tend to be the main English Speaking Church in their area. i.e. They dealt with Presbyterians all the time and thus supported them.

Side Note: In Pennsylvania the Long Walk of the early 1700s was a major factor,. In that "Walk" William Penn's children brought in professional speed walkers to walk the one day distance stated in the treaty William Penn had signed with the Delaware Indians in 1689. The Delaware and Shawnee objected to the distance walked, but they were both subject tribes of the Iroquois at the time of the Long Walk and the Iroquois agreed to the results. This lead to hard feeling among the Delaware and Shawnees with the Government of Pennsylvania. When the "Old French War" (Name used in the late 1700s, now called "King George's War) in 1745 and later when the French and Indian War broke out in 1754, both tribes supported the French and attacked settlements on the Frontier. When those Settlements ask for assistance, the Quakers that controlled Pennsylvania refused. In 1758 an election was held and for the first time the Quakers lost control of Pennsylvania and a proper militia was formed by Pennsylvania to curtail the problems on the Frontier. In that elections Presbyterians replaced Quakers in the control of Government and given the problems on the frontier, all the other religions supported the Presbyterians. This support continued through the Revolution and was the main region for 2/3rds of Pennsylvanians supporting the Revolution.

More on the Long Walk of 1737:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/documents_from_1681_-_1776,_colonial_days/20421/the_walking_purchase/998175

More on Pennsylvania "Associations" and Militia during the Revolution:

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/revolutionary_war_militia_overview/

The following site mentions Ben Franklin's raising of a "Militia" in 1745, but Ben Franklin called it an "Association" for it was NOT authorized by the Colonial Government. That same year Ben Franklin advised people on the frontier to do the same, thus till the Militia was reformed in 1758, the only fighting force that was NOT British Regulars in Pennsylvania were these Associations that form themselves. After Quebec fell in 1759 and Montreal in 1760, Pennsylvania disestablished its Militia and went back to the Associations till 1777 when the Militia was again authorized. The name "Associations", like the similar term that came out of North Carolina in the early 1700s, "Regulators", were used for decades afterward for Military formations NOT authorized by Congress OR any State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Mifflin

Bedford County historical documents, including it call for people to form Associations for Defense of Bedford County:

http://www.motherbedford.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Regulation

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/bassett95/bassett95.html

Thus support for the Revolution was weakest in the South. The supporters of the Revolution controlled the colonial Governments and thus were able to get the South to Support the Revolution. Virginia and North Carolina were easy, both had claims that extended to the Revolution that had been cut back to the Eastern Continental Divided in the Intolerable Acts of 1774. All the land Speculators (including George Washington) supported the Revolution for this alone. South Carolina and Georgia were a little harder, but South Carolina was Charleston, the best harbor South of the Chesapeake, and that took South Carolina to the Revolution. Georgia was still a marginal colony at that time period (Founded in 1732, only 43 years before 1775) and thus went with the rest of the South (Georgia would be the only colony where a Colonial Assembly would be sit at at any time after 1775 and then only after the British took Savannah and later Charleston).

Just a comment that the 1/3 for the Revolution, 1/3 against it and 1/3 Neutral was a British Point of view and applied only to the South, and even in the South NOT on the Frontier which was overwhelmingly Presbyterian and thus for the Revolution.

[bbgrunt]

21. k and r. perfect biosphere of corruption.

[logosoco]

22. A neigboring city incorporated several years back and it has been a joke.

The police force serves to pay for itself. There have been no improvements to the city at all. (Byrnes Mill for anyone familiar with Jefferson County, MO.).
A group formed a few years ago to do this to my unincorporated city and I stood up with the republicans here and we said NO WAY.

If Micheal Brown had not had the encounter with Wilson, and was charged with felony shop lifting he would not have been able to vote until his probation was over.

A win win situation for the white people in power, as they see it, a major loss for those in the community, which many refuse to see.

[WillyT]

24. K & R !!!

[Trillo]

25. Kinda puts a crimp in the 'progressive income tax' theory. NT

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. damn

Damn

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. Several states have shut down speed traps.

By passing legislation that the ticket money must go to the state, not the municipality.

The Bellaire City cops were stopping people for speeding on the frontage road of Loop 610 in Houston. A court ruled that Bellaire cops could not stop people for speeding on an Interstate Highway or its frontage road.

Between San Antonio and Austin, there was a speed trap called Selma on I-35.

[gtar100]

28. I wonder how much this has to do with keeping likely Democratic voters off the roles.

I don't know the laws there but my understanding is that if you are convicted of a felony, you lose the right to vote. If that's true, what an incentive for conservative tyrants to arrest minorities.

[IrishAyes]

29. Would this be a good time also to remind folks that the ACLU

has a smartphone app that lets what you record go straight to their secure servers, so the cops can't destroy whatever evidence you might gather.

That said, with all due consideration to Ferguson MO, the remote tiny town where I retired has a pretty awful PD also. A practical civil war still rages just under the surface between the two main factions here. People related to those in power can get away with almost anything while their victims have no hope of legal justice. I was horrified to learn recently that a friend's daughter had been hailed by a neighbor who owed her $ to walk over to his house and he'd pay her. When she stepped on his porch, he smashed her in the face and did succeed in dragging her halfway into his living room for further attention. Her screams drew attention, however, and she was rescued.

But that guy's related to those who hold power here, so even though the woman brought assault charges, he spent less than 3 hours in jail and got probation! Ordered to pay restitution for her severe physical damage, but you can guess how likely she is to collect. So essentially he got off scott free for assault and battery and likely attempted rape. What it does is convince people that if anyone tries to hurt them, they'd better take care of matters themselves. I'm actually surprised there haven't been pitched gun battles here. During the Civil War they did have to close all the churches for that very reason.

[Cha]

31. Disgusting vultures.

[tooeyeten]

32. Big business leaves Ferguson behind irony

Interestingly enough, Emerson Electric a huge manufacturer near Ferguson with more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs employ only 1300 St. Louisians, while the 100,000 plus manufacturing employees are offshore, Mexico, China etc.

And as the article points out Michael Brown was headed to a technical school where Emeson Electric won't be employing anyone.


http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/kevin-horrigan/horrigan-ferguson-s-global-giant-and-those-left-behind/article_54cf78a2-c735-5488-8fcd-c366ee36e132.html