The Glade 4.0

"Turn the lights down, the party just got wilder."
It is currently Fri Nov 22, 2024 9:50 am

All times are UTC - 6 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 81 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 8:22 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
Khross wrote:
The law is the law. You either broke it or you did not. There's no grey area. There's also no mitigating circumstances.


Sounds like the same train of thought that brings you disasters like "zero tolerance" policies in school.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 10:23 am 
Offline

Joined: Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:36 am
Posts: 3083
Diamondeye wrote:
If anything, there is not enough individual discretion. New Jersey was trying to prosecute a senior citizen for transporting and unloaded, 1700s-era pistol in his glove compartment prior to a major press outcry. Mandatory sentencing laws are a massive failure. Mandatory arrests in domestic violence cases regularly cause all kinds of legal trouble for people for no good reason - usually just because they are unfortunate enough to have a penis.

Diamondeye wrote:
(I)f you don't like it when a guy gets arrested for selling loose cigarettes, repeal the law against selling them.

These seem like incompatible perspectives, DE. On the one hand, you're advocating in favor of police discretion, but on the other hand, you're arguing that it's illegitimate to criticize or punish police for the way they exercise such discretion. Your position seems to be that cops should have discretion as to whether/when they arrest someone, how much force they use in the process, etc., but if the public doesn't like how they exercise that discretion, then, rather than criticize or punish individual cops for making a bad call in a particular situation, we should just change the law to eliminate the very discretion you favor. Basically, it sounds like you're advocating for individual authority without individual accountability.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:18 pm 
Offline
I got nothin.
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:15 pm
Posts: 11160
Location: Arafys, AKA El Müso Guapo!
Racist Cops are Racist. Go figure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... story.html

_________________
Image
Holy shitsnacks!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 12:35 pm 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
RangerDave wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
If anything, there is not enough individual discretion. New Jersey was trying to prosecute a senior citizen for transporting and unloaded, 1700s-era pistol in his glove compartment prior to a major press outcry. Mandatory sentencing laws are a massive failure. Mandatory arrests in domestic violence cases regularly cause all kinds of legal trouble for people for no good reason - usually just because they are unfortunate enough to have a penis.

Diamondeye wrote:
(I)f you don't like it when a guy gets arrested for selling loose cigarettes, repeal the law against selling them.


Quote:
These seem like incompatible perspectives, DE. On the one hand, you're advocating in favor of police discretion, but on the other hand, you're arguing that it's illegitimate to criticize or punish police for the way they exercise such discretion.


That's because it is, in fact, unfair to tell someone they have discretion then criticize or punish them for exercising it. If they go outside the limits of that discretion, then it's not but that is not an argument against any discretion at all.

Furthermore, your complaint doesn't make a lot of sense. If you don't want a law enforced with discretion either A) repeal the law or B) elevate the law to the level of severity where discretion disappears. I didn't suggest that in the case of loose cigarette selling because I think it goes without saying that no one here thinks selling loose cigarettes ought to be a felony or even high-grade misdemeanor.

If you repeal a law against a particular behavior, you necessarily remove police discretion in regard to it. It can no longer be enforced, period. How you think that's incompatible with allowance of discretion is difficult to imagine.

Quote:
Your position seems to be that cops should have discretion as to whether/when they arrest someone, how much force they use in the process, etc., but if the public doesn't like how they exercise that discretion, then, rather than criticize or punish individual cops for making a bad call in a particular situation, we should just change the law to eliminate the very discretion you favor. Basically, it sounds like you're advocating for individual authority without individual accountability.


First, I have never advocated that the police have unlimited discretion in enforcing the law. Discretion applies mostly to minor crimes, and to odd situations like the 300-year-old unloaded pistol where an application of common sense to a situation that was patently not anticipated when the law was passed. It does not somehow mean that the police can arbitrarily enforce the law when and how they feel like it. Furthermore, that discretion applies to management and to elected officials as well - if the public wants loose cigarette laws enforced they make that demand to the mayor who then orders his chief to enforce it who then tells the officer on the street that his discretion in that regard is more limited; he must make reasonable efforts to enforce that violation.

Availability of resources plays in here - in a sense, discretion will ALWAYS exist simply because the police cannot possibly detect or deal with every crime. If an officer is faced with 2 situations he must make a decision as to which one takes priority. Sometimes that will be clear based on the information available to him at the time, sometimes not. The unavailability of resources by itself isn't a reason not to have laws against minor crimes - no law can ever be enforced 100% of the time because not all crimes can be detected or solved - but it is a consideration in whether the law is really needed. Leaving aside the NYC incident, as a matter of public policy just how much police effort should be spent on loose cigarettes? The immigration situation is like this, disregarding the present controversy over the President's actions, it is simply not possible to prosecute or deport every single illegal alien in the country and some discretion must be exercised in prioritizing them. Doing otherwise is not physically possible. The sort of person who insists that someone is violating the law by not doing something that is not even remotely possible for them to attempt in the first place does not deserve to be taken seriously in the public arena; they're using legal pedantry for their own purposes while hiding behind their own lack of responsibility for solving the problem.

Second, as to force, discretion necessarily exists - within limits - in that regard. The legal standard for using force is force that is "reasonable under the circumstances as they appeared to the officer at the time." There is no formula you can sit down and plug the situation into and say "these are the actions that the officer should have taken and no other ones." There are innumerable factors that go into a use of force - The age, size, physical fitness, sex, equipment or weapons available, distance apart, time of day and visibility, injuries, and numbers of both officers and subjects. How is the suspect behaving? Does he or she have combat training either know to the officers or apparent from his behavior? Is he making threats? Are there bystanders, hostages, etc? All of these are different for every situation, and can change rapidly and unexpectedly during the situation. Situations can be affected by factors that the officers cannot possibly be aware of but that we find out later.

Therefore, the idea that there can be anything other than discretion in using force is absurd. The courts do not allow, and have never allowed, after-the-fact evaluation of use-of-force based on formulaic approach because the circumstances are highly variable and highly fluid; the "reasonable under the circumstances" standard is used to make sure ALL the circumstances, including the availability of information ABOUT the circumstances to the officer at the time, not what's available in hindsight are used to evaluate the situation. The courts do not permit the news media approach of "white police officer, unarmed black male, RARR POLICE BRUTALITY" while ignoring everything else.

Finally, as to "if the public doesn't like it" - it is not relevant whether the public (which really means "the vocal portions of the public making their displeasure known") "like" the use of discretion or not. The police are held to set standards created in advance, and which they are aware of, not to the standard of the whims of the public after the fact. Police work sometimes involves actions which appear exceedingly unpleasant to the viewer after the fact - but unpleasentness is not related to whether actions were reasonable or necessary under the circumstances.

This has absolutely nothing to do with authority without individual accountability. The police ARE held accountable, but appropriate institutions and procedures under due process of law. That due process is not perfect, but it IS due process. Due process of law does not involve public opinion at any point; when public opinion unduly affects due process we take steps to remove public opinion from the process such as change of venue.

The problem members of the public have is a combination of A) an overblown sense of how well-informed they are on the facts B) and equally overblown sense of how important their personal feelings are as a taxpayer or voter - we intentionally put serious limitations on the influence of the public in all areas of political process, and people tend to forget just how insignificant they personally are in comparison to the total population and C) a very severely limited understanding of how the legal process works. People customarily do not exercise the rights they have, try to exercise rights they don't have, complain about other people or the police violating laws that don't exist, try to invent reasons why their own violations aren't or shouldn't matter, and when all else fails complain that the entire system is corrupt or invalid because it doesn't work the way they think it should, which either would conveniently excuse them or else would conform to whatever implausible ideals they happen to hold.

People are very big on "individual responsibility and accountability" when it's someone else being held responsible and accountable. If they can come up with excuses for why that is that involve whining about authority, badges, guns, higher standards, and blah blah blah to really just invent a standard on the top, they will. On the other hand, when it's THEM being held responsible and accountable, there are all kinds of excuses there too; far too many to sum up here.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re:
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2015 11:09 am 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
Müs wrote:


The actual report Did you read it?

This is the very first line of the report following the introductory thanks to all involved, found on page 2 at the very top:

Quote:
Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs.


It's money, not "racism" driving the bias. The very first line of the report says so with no equivocation whatsoever.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2015 1:09 pm 
Offline
Evil Bastard™
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:07 am
Posts: 7542
Location: Doomstadt, Latveria
Except revenue driven policy would be an equal opportunity offender, not a racially biased offender.

_________________
Corolinth wrote:
Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2015 1:21 pm 
Offline
Perfect Equilibrium
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:27 pm
Posts: 3127
Location: Coffin Corner
Khross wrote:
Except revenue driven policy would be an equal opportunity offender, not a racially biased offender.


If I ran the City of Ferguson PD and If I decided I was on board with executing this policy of revenue driven policing, I'd target a demographic that had poor access to information about how to best keep from incriminating oneself during police "interviews", poor access to legal representation, and typically committed easily processed convictions for the DA.

Assuming my second If is true about me, I'd probably also be the type to think the black population is exactly the demographic I should target, correct or not.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Thu Mar 05, 2015 4:17 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
Diamondeye wrote:
Müs wrote:


The actual report Did you read it?

This is the very first line of the report following the introductory thanks to all involved, found on page 2 at the very top:

Quote:
Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs.


It's money, not "racism" driving the bias. The very first line of the report says so with no equivocation whatsoever.


For God's sake man. Here's the table of contents:

Quote:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.REPORT SUMMARY ........................................................................................................ 1

II.BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................. 6

III.FERGUSON LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS ARE FOCUSED ON GENERATING REVENUE ............................................................................................... 9

IV.FERGUSON LAW ENFORCEMENT PRACTICES VIOLATE THE LAW AND UNDERMINE COMMUNITY TRUST, ESPECIALLY AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS
.................................................................................................................... 15

A.Ferguson’s Police Practices
............................................................................................ 15

1.FPD Engages in a Pattern of Unconstitutional Stops and Arrests in Violation of the Fourth Amendment ..................................................................................... 16

2.FPD Engages in a Pattern of First Amendment Violations .................................. 24

3.FPD Engages in a Pattern of Excessive Force in Violation of the Fourth Amendment ........................................................................................................... 28

B.Ferguson’s Municipal Court Practices ........................................................................... 42

1.Court Practices Impose Substantial and Unnecessary Barriers to the Challenge or Resolution of Municipal Code Violations ....................................... 43

2.The Court Imposes Unduly Harsh Penalties for Missed Payments or Appearances .......................................................................................................... 54

C.Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Disproportionately Harm Ferguson’s
African-American Residents and Are Driven in Part by Racial Bias ............................ 62

1.Ferguson’s Law Enforcement Actions Impose a Disparate Impact on African
Americans that Violates Federal Law ................................................................... 63

2.Ferguson’s Law Enforcement Practices Are Motivated in Part by
Discriminatory Intent in Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Other Federal Laws ......................................................................................................... 70

D.Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Erode Community Trust, Especially Among
Ferguson’s
African-American Residents, and Make Policing Less Effective, More Difficult, and Less Safe .................................................................................................. 79

1.Ferguson’s
Unlawful Police and Court Practices Have Led to Distrust and Resentment Among Many in Ferguson ................................................................ 79

2.FPD’s Exercise of Discretion, Even When Lawful, Often Undermines
Community Trust and Public Safety ..................................................................... 81

3.FPD’s Failure to Respond to Complaints of Officer Misconduct Further
Erodes Community Trust ...................................................................................... 82

4.FPD’s Lack of Community Engagement Increases
the Likelihood of Discriminatory Policing and Damages Public Trust ............................................. 86


ii 5.Ferguson’s Lack of a Diverse Police Force Further Undermines community
Trust ...................................................................................................................... 88

V.CHANGES NECESSARY TO
REMEDY FERGUSON’S UN
LAWFUL LAW ENFORCEMENT PRACTICES AND REPAIR COMMUNITY TRUST ................. 90

VI.CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 102



entire sections devoted to how they are violating the law, have racial bias, violate the 14th amendment, etc.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 8:01 am 
Offline
Oberon's Playground
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am
Posts: 9449
Location: Your Dreams
Not that I've read the entire article...but do they address the question of cause and effect? i.e. Is the higher crime rate among the black community in Ferguson the result of systemic racism in the police department? Or is the systemic racism in the police department the result of the higher crime rate among the black community? Both situations would need to be addressed, but it'd have to be attacked differently. If the former, you can fix the issues in the black community by changing the police department with personnel and policy changes. If the latter, any attempt to change the police department will be ineffective until you can address the societal problems within the Ferguson black community.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me

█ ♣ █


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:04 pm 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
Müs wrote:


The actual report Did you read it?

This is the very first line of the report following the introductory thanks to all involved, found on page 2 at the very top:

Quote:
Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs.


It's money, not "racism" driving the bias. The very first line of the report says so with no equivocation whatsoever.


For God's sake man. Here's the table of contents:

<snip big long table of contents>

entire sections devoted to how they are violating the law, have racial bias, violate the 14th amendment, etc.


I did not say they were not violating the law, did not say they did not have bias, and did not say they weren't violating the 14th amendment. I've also read the first 2/3 of the report and intend to finish the rest shortly, not just the table of contents. The sentence I quoted clearly states that their practices are **** "shaped by" revenue - in other words, that underlying motivation is what drives the bias, Constitutional violations, etc, not "hurf durf cops are racist because reasons". The report itself even says so in the very next sentence after the one I quoted - which you might have realized if you had bothered to go past the table of contents in your search for an excuse to act exasperated at what I have to say:

Quote:
This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community.


That really should not be surprising, shocking, or controversial - when you are constantly telling your police to generate more citations, more revenue, and making it clear that's the measure of performance, that's what they're going to do. You can replace every officer, and even all the sergeants and lieutenants and if you don't fix the revenue focus at the top you will end up with more or less the same problem no matter who you replace them with. You can replace them with 100% black officers and you will find the same "bias" in a year or so.

The report, read with a critical eye, starts off indicating severe, underlying structural problems in how Ferguson's police department is set up, with an overwhelming focus on revenue generation and a structure that reinforces this behavior - and the report reveals plans to move the Municipal Court from being under the Chief of Police (which is a bad idea in the first place) to putting it under the City Finance Manager (which is not only an even worse idea, but doesn't even make any sense - except when you see your court as a means of generating revenue. It also indicates that this behavior is not reflective of neighboring departments - Ferguson consistently ranks extremely high in terms of percentage of municipal revenue taken from fines compared to other nearby cities.

This sort of problem extends, evidently, to all aspects of the police department to the point that it essentially ignores its own policies through neglect and does not engage in fundamental supervisory practices, neglects training.. the problems are extremely extensive, hence the length of the report.

There is a reason, however, that money is the very first thing mentioned in the line I quoted, and is presented before any of the other issues - it's the driver. It's the fundamental, underlying problem.

As to bias specifically, the report has its own problem in that regard - Ferguson is 67% black. It makes references to larger percentages than that being arrested, issued citations, etc. but then states in a single sentence that the investigation indicates this disparity cannot be accounted for by the different rates at which different races violate the law - but it has not, so far at least, actually provided any reason why this cannot be the case.

In particular, it states that Blacks receive 95% of all Manner of Walking in Roadway (a charge which basically says you have to walk on the sidewalk, or else walk against traffic on the side of the road, not down the **** middle of it, but which Eric Holder attempted to imply on TV was something more nefarious based on the ordinance's name alone) and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges.

Both charges are significant because both such behaviors pertain to the Michael Brown shooting. Michael Brown was violating the Walking in Roadway ordinance and proceeded to violate the Failure to Comply ordinance when Darren Wilson told him and his friend to utilize the sidewalk, right before assaulting Wilson. There is nothing unreasonable about a law saying you can't walk down the middle of the street, nor anything unreasonable about a law that allows an officer to instruct you to comply with the law (although the way the Ferguson PD has used Failure to Comply in general is definitely unreasonable).

The evidence indicates that black people living in Ferguson regularly do things like walk down the middle of the street, and take exception when their behavior is called into question. Michael Brown is not the only example of this; merely the most outrageous. Coro pointed this out earlier in the thread:

Quote:
When white people aren't looking, the black community has the same opinion of black teenagers as thugs who need to pull their pants up. The reputation for violent thuggish behavior is not undeserved. This needs to be addressed as well.

Everything being said about the police having to re-evaluate their behavior and their policies applies equally to blacks. There are a lot of black people who are unfairly harassed. That is true. There is also a reason why blacks are viewed with suspicion, and that can't be ignored.
[/quote]

Michael Brown is not some bizarre departure from the norm of a peaceful black community being preyed upon by racist police. While ALL of the discrimination and bias cannot be accounted for by racial behavior patterns (the internal e-mails of the department indicate this unequivocally; there is an unquestionable lack of concern with racial issues) , a great deal of it certainly can be, and not just because of Brown's behavior. The behavior of the "witnesses" claiming Wilson shot him with his hands up reveal this pretty clearly too, ranging from merely lacking credibility in view of the physical evidence to the positively outrageously unbelievable. The most absurd example was one witness who admitted not seeing the shooting at all but claiming that he had because "it was just common sense" that Wilson must have shot Brown while he was trying to surrender.

As Taly points out there is a legitimate question as to which one is driving the other, and the answer is most likely "both" - each one feeds the other. The underlying problem in Ferguson, however, is money - the focus on citations, citations, citations and fines, fines, fines, means police are not being trained on or expected to interact with the community in a positive way. The issuance of citations on the slimmest excuse and the actions taken to enforce those unnecessary citations mean the police are not taken seriously in cases like Brown's where there really IS a meaningful violation going on - but by the same token, if the Ferguson police completely reform tomorrow, there is little reason to think we will see any actual change in the behavior of the local black community a year or 5 years from now. Indeed, if we were to revisit the community in 5 years and discover an impeccably reformed PD, we will still find blacks insisting they are being "harassed" because of the Mike Brown incident as if that incident and the patterns of behavior at that time mean any action taken towards a black person at all must be harassment of some sort.

Jesse Jackson said in 1993 ""There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." This problem of black behavior is not unknown. Juan Williams made a similar point right after the Brown shooting.

Simply replying on a news article about the report to say "hurf durf see cops racist like beating the black peepulz" isn't about actual concerns with the police in Ferguson or problems with the police at all - at the very least it totally ignores the fact that the court in Ferguson is as bad as the police department. It's about people needing to have their own attitudes towards the police confirmed.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:42 pm 
Offline
Oberon's Playground
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am
Posts: 9449
Location: Your Dreams
Diamondeye wrote:
As Taly points out there is a legitimate question as to which one is driving the other, and the answer is most likely "both" - each one feeds the other.


This is a feedback loop, then. But it also presents a catch-22 -- you can't fix either problem without fixing both at once.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me

█ ♣ █


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 1:15 pm 
Offline
Peanut Gallery
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:40 pm
Posts: 2289
Location: Bat Country
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/c ... 57716.html

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 1:32 pm 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
Talya wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
As Taly points out there is a legitimate question as to which one is driving the other, and the answer is most likely "both" - each one feeds the other.


This is a feedback loop, then. But it also presents a catch-22 -- you can't fix either problem without fixing both at once.


Well, you can go a long way towards reducing the feedback loop by fixing the outside problem of not using the police department and the courts to generate revenue - which, incidentally is never addressed. Why does the city need so much fine revenue?

Also, you can say that it's the responsibility of the police to do their job in a professional, legal manner regardless of the behavior of the citizens, which is true, but it is unrealistic and impractical to expect that the police won't have a certain view of their community based on its norms - you can't simply demand that the police ignore their own environment because the realities of that environment have unfortunate implications.

The real problem is, even if we say "Okay, we cannot fix both problems at once, but the police represent th egovernment and it has a responsibility to fix itself even if the community doesn't because we can't just say it's a catch-22 and ignore it" we run into a new problem - basically the same one as discussed in the anti-vaxxer thread. There are a large number of people in that community - and a few here on this board - that will not accept any fix to the police as sufficient and will not acknowledge any problems with the community at large because that means calling their own assumptions - ones they are very, very attached to - into question.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:05 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
Diamondeye wrote:
The sentence I quoted clearly states that their practices are **** "shaped by" revenue - in other words, that underlying motivation is what drives the bias, Constitutional violations, etc, not "hurf durf cops are racist because reasons". The report itself even says so in the very next sentence after the one I quoted - which you might have realized if you had bothered to go past the table of contents in your search for an excuse to act exasperated at what I have to say


Yeah, no kidding. It's shaped by revenue, and executed by racists. The report (keep reading) details consistent bias that results in the "get more revenue" approach leading directly to abuse of the black population.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:06 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
Diamondeye wrote:
Well, you can go a long way towards reducing the feedback loop by fixing the outside problem of not using the police department and the courts to generate revenue - which, incidentally is never addressed. Why does the city need so much fine revenue?


To pay for more cops, so they can get more revenue. Oh, and military equipment.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 6:54 pm 
Offline
Peanut Gallery
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:40 pm
Posts: 2289
Location: Bat Country
http://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attor ... n-missouri

Quote:
Remarks as prepared for delivery

Good afternoon.

I would like to take the next few moments to address the two investigations that the Justice Department has been conducting in Ferguson, Missouri, these last several months. The matter that we are here to discuss is significant not only because of the conclusions the Department of Justice is announcing today, but also because of the broader conversations and the initiatives that those conversations have inspired across the country on the local and national level. Those initiatives have included extensive and vital efforts to examine the causes of misunderstanding and mistrust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve; to support and strengthen our public safety institutions as a whole; and to rebuild confidence wherever it has eroded.

Nearly seven months have passed since the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. That tragic incident provoked widespread demonstrations and stirred strong emotions from those in the Ferguson area and around our nation. It also prompted a federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, with the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Missouri and the FBI seeking to determine whether this shooting violated federal civil rights law.

The promise I made when I went to Ferguson and at the time that we launched our investigation was not that we would arrive at a particular outcome, but rather that we would pursue the facts, wherever they led. Our investigation has been both fair and rigorous from the start. It has proceeded independently of the local investigation that concluded in November. And it has been thorough: as part of a wide-ranging examination of the evidence, federal investigators interviewed and re-interviewed eyewitnesses and other individuals claiming to have relevant information and independently canvassed more than 300 residences to locate and interview additional witnesses.

This morning, the Justice Department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive, 87-page report documenting our findings and conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case. Michael Brown’s death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson.

This conclusion represents the sound, considered, and independent judgment of the expert career prosecutors within the Department of Justice. I have been personally briefed on multiple occasions about these findings. I concur with the investigative team’s judgment and the determination about our inability to meet the required federal standard.

This outcome is supported by the facts we have found – but I also know these findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations. To all those who have closely followed this case, and who have engaged in the important national dialogue it has inspired, I urge you to read this report in full.

I recognize that the findings in our report may leave some to wonder how the department’s findings can differ so sharply from some of the initial, widely reported accounts of what transpired. I want to emphasize that the strength and integrity of America’s justice system has always rested on its ability to deliver impartial results in precisely these types of difficult circumstances – adhering strictly to the facts and the law, regardless of assumptions. Yet it remains not only valid – but essential – to question how such a strong alternative version of events was able to take hold so swiftly, and be accepted so readily.

A possible explanation for this discrepancy was uncovered during the course of our second federal investigation, conducted by the Civil Rights Division to determine whether Ferguson Police officials have engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of violations of the U.S. Constitution or federal law.

As detailed in our searing report – also released by the Justice Department today – this investigation found a community that was deeply polarized; a community where deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between police and area residents.

A community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety, but as a way to generate revenue. A community where both policing and municipal court practices were found to disproportionately harm African American residents. A community where this harm frequently appears to stem, at least in part, from racial bias – both implicit and explicit. And a community where all of these conditions, unlawful practices, and constitutional violations have not only severely undermined the public trust, eroded police legitimacy, and made local residents less safe – but created an intensely charged atmosphere where people feel under assault and under siege by those charged to serve and protect them.

Of course, violence is never justified. But seen in this context – amid a highly toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment, stoked by years of bad feelings, and spurred by illegal and misguided practices – it is not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg. In a sense, members of the community may not have been responding only to a single isolated confrontation, but also to a pervasive, corrosive, and deeply unfortunate lack of trust – attributable to numerous constitutional violations by their law enforcement officials including First Amendment abuses, unreasonable searches and seizures, and excessive and dangerous use of force; exacerbated by severely disproportionate use of these tactics against African Americans; and driven by overriding pressure from the city to use law enforcement not as a public service, but as a tool for raising revenue.

According to our investigation, this emphasis on revenue generation through policing has fostered unconstitutional practices – or practices that contribute to constitutional violations – at nearly every level of Ferguson’s law enforcement system. Ferguson police officers issued nearly 50 percent more citations in the last year than they did in 2010 – an increase that has not been driven, or even accompanied, by a rise in crime.

As a result of this excessive reliance on ticketing, today, the city generates a significant amount of revenue from the enforcement of code provisions. Along with taxes and other revenue streams, in 2010, the city collected over $1.3 million in fines and fees collected by the court. For fiscal year 2015, Ferguson’s city budget anticipates fine revenues to exceed $3 million – more than double the total from just five years prior. Our review of the evidence, and our conversations with police officers, have shown that significant pressure is brought to bear on law enforcement personnel to deliver on these revenue increases. Once the system is primed for maximizing revenue – starting with fines and fine enforcement – the city relies on the police force to serve, essentially, as a collection agency for the municipal court rather than a law enforcement entity focused primarily on maintaining and promoting public safety. And a wide variety of tactics, including disciplinary measures, are used to ensure certain levels of ticketing by individual officers, regardless of public safety needs.

As a result, it has become commonplace in Ferguson for officers to charge multiple violations for the same conduct. Three or four charges for a single stop is considered fairly routine. Some officers even compete to see who can issue the largest number of citations during a single stop – a total that, in at least one instance, rose as high as 14. And we’ve observed that even minor code violations can sometimes result in multiple arrests, jail time and payments that exceed the cost of the original ticket many times over.

For example, in 2007, one woman received two parking tickets that – together – totaled $152. To date, she has paid $550 in fines and fees to the city of Ferguson. She’s been arrested twice for having unpaid tickets, and spent six days in jail. Yet she still – inexplicably – owes Ferguson $541. And her story is only one of dozens of similar accounts that our investigation uncovered.

Over time, it’s clear that this culture of enforcement actions being disconnected from the public safety needs of the community – and often to the detriment of community residents – has given rise to a disturbing and unconstitutional pattern or practice. Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them. According to the Police Department’s own records, its officers frequently infringe on residents’ First Amendment rights. They interfere with the right to record police activities. And they make enforcement decisions based on the way individuals express themselves.

Many of these constitutional violations have become routine. For instance, even though it’s illegal for police officers to detain a person – even briefly – without reasonable suspicion, it’s become common practice for officers in Ferguson to stop pedestrians and request identification for no reason at all. And even in cases where police encounters start off as constitutionally defensible, we found that they frequently and rapidly escalate – and end up blatantly and unnecessarily crossing the line.

During the summer of 2012, one Ferguson police officer detained a 32-year-old African American man who had just finished playing basketball at a park. The officer approached while the man was sitting in his car and resting. The car’s windows appeared to be more heavily tinted than Ferguson’s code allowed, so the officer did have legitimate grounds to question him. But, with no apparent justification, the officer proceeded to accuse the man of being a pedophile. He prohibited the man from using his cell phone and ordered him out of his car for a pat-down search, even though he had no reason to suspect that the man was armed. And when the man objected – citing his constitutional rights – the police officer drew his service weapon, pointed it at the man’s head, and arrested him on eight different counts. The arrest caused the man to lose his job.

Unfortunately, this event appears to have been anything but an isolated incident. Our investigation showed that members of Ferguson’s police force frequently escalate, rather than defuse, tensions with the residents they encounter. And such actions are sometimes accompanied by First Amendment violations – including arresting people for talking back to officers, recording their public activities, or engaging in other conduct that is constitutionally protected.

This behavior not only exacerbates tensions in its own right; it has the effect of stifling community confidence that’s absolutely vital for effective policing. And this, in turn, deepens the widespread distrust provoked by the department’s other unconstitutional exercises of police power – none of which is more harmful than its pattern of excessive force.

Among the incidents of excessive force discovered by our comprehensive review, some resulted from stops or arrests that had no legal basis to begin with. Others were punitive or retaliatory in nature. The police department’s routine use of Tasers was found to be not merely unconstitutional, but abusive and dangerous. Records showed a disturbing history of using unnecessary force against people with mental illness. And our findings indicated that the overwhelming majority of force – almost 90 percent – is directed against African Americans.

This deeply alarming statistic points to one of the most pernicious aspects of the conduct our investigation uncovered: that these policing practices disproportionately harm African American residents. In fact, our review of the evidence found no alternative explanation for the disproportionate impact on African American residents other than implicit and explicit racial bias.

Between October 2012 and October 2014, despite making up only 67 percent of the population, African Americans accounted for a little over 85 percent of all traffic stops by the Ferguson Police Department. African Americans were twice as likely as white residents to be searched during a routine traffic stop, even though they were 26 percent less likely to carry contraband. Between October 2012 and July 2014, 35 black individuals – and zero white individuals – received five or more citations at the same time. During the same period, African Americans accounted for fully 85 percent of the total charges brought by the Ferguson Police Department. African Americans made up over 90 percent of those charged with a highly-discretionary offense described as “Manner of Walking Along Roadway.” And the use of dogs by Ferguson police appears to have been exclusively reserved for African Americans; in every case in which Ferguson police records recorded the race of a person bit by a police dog, that person was African American.

The evidence of racial bias comes not only from statistics, but also from remarks made by police, city and court officials. A thorough examination of the records – including a large volume of work emails – shows a number of public servants expressing racist comments or gender discrimination; demonstrating grotesque views and images of African Americans in which they were seen as the “other,” called “transient” by public officials, and characterized as lacking personal responsibility.

I want to emphasize that all of these examples, statistics and conclusions are drawn directly from the exhaustive Findings Report that the Department of Justice has released. Clearly, these findings – and others included in the report – demonstrate that, although some community perceptions of Michael Brown’s tragic death may not have been accurate, the widespread conditions that these perceptions were based upon, and the climate that gave rise to them, were all too real.

This is a reality that our investigators repeatedly encountered in their interviews of police and city officials, their conversations with local residents, and their review of thousands of pages of records and documents. This evidence pointed to an unfortunate and unsustainable situation that has not only severely damaged relationships between law enforcement and members of the community, but made professional policing vastly more difficult – and unnecessarily placed officers at increased risk. And today – now that our investigation has reached its conclusion – it is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action. Let me be clear: the United States Department of Justice reserves all its rights and abilities to force compliance and implement basic change.

The report from the Justice Department presents two sets of immediate recommendations – for the Ferguson Police Department and the Municipal Court. These recommendations include the implementation of a robust system of true community policing; increased tracking, review and analysis of Ferguson Police Department stop, search, ticketing and arrest practices; increased civilian involvement in police decision-making; and the development of mechanisms to effectively respond to allegations of officer misconduct. They also involve changes to the municipal court system including modifications to bond amounts and detention procedures; an end to the use of arrest warrants as a means of collecting owed fines and fees; and compliance with due process requirements. Ensuring meaningful, sustainable and verifiable reform will require that these and other measures be part of a court-enforceable remedial process that includes involvement from community stakeholders as well as independent oversight in order to remedy the conduct we have identified, to address the underlying culture we have uncovered, and to restore and rebuild the trust that has been so badly eroded.

As the brother of a retired police officer, I know that the overwhelming majority of America’s brave men and women in law enforcement do their jobs honorably, with integrity, and often at great personal risk. I have immense regard for the vital role that they play in all of America’s communities – and the sacrifices that they and their families are too often called to make on behalf of their country. It is in great part for their sake – and for their safety – that we must seek to rebuild trust and foster mutual understanding in Ferguson and in all communities where suspicion has been allowed to fester. Negative practices by individual law enforcement officers and individual departments present a significant danger not only to their communities, but also to committed and hard-working public safety officials around the country who perform incredibly challenging jobs with unwavering professionalism and uncommon valor. Clearly, we owe it to these brave men and women to ensure that all law enforcement officials have the tools, training and support they need to do their jobs with maximum safety and effectiveness.

Over the last few months, these goals have driven President Obama and me to announce a series of Administration proposals that will enable us to help heal mistrust wherever it is found – from a National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, to a historic new Task Force on 21st Century Policing – which will provide strong, federal support to law enforcement at every level, on a scale not seen since the Johnson Administration. These aims have also led me to travel throughout the country – to Atlanta, Cleveland, Memphis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Oakland and San Francisco – to convene a series of roundtable discussions dedicated to building trust and engagement between law enforcement, civil rights, youth and community leaders from coast to coast.

As these discussions have unfolded, I have repeatedly seen that – although the concerns we are focused on today may be particularly acute in Ferguson – they are not confined to any one city, state, or geographic region. They implicate questions about fairness and trust that are national in scope. And they point not to insurmountable divides between people of different perspectives, but to the shared values – and the common desire for peace, for security, and for public safety – that binds together police as well as protestors.

Although dialogue, by itself, will not be sufficient to address these issues – because concrete action is needed – initiating a broad, frank, and inclusive conversation is a necessary and productive first step. In all of the Civil Rights Division’s activities in Ferguson – as in every pattern-or-practice investigation the Division has launched over the last six years – our aim is to help facilitate and inform this conversation; to make certain it leads to concrete action; and to ensure that law enforcement officers in every part of the United States live up to the same high standards of professionalism. It is clear from our work throughout the country—particularly the work of our Civil Rights Division—that the prospect of police accountability and criminal justice reform is an achievable goal; one that we can reach with law enforcement and community members at the table as full partners.

Last August, when I visited Ferguson to meet with concerned citizens and community leaders, I made a solemn commitment: that the United States Department of Justice would continue to stand with the people there long after the national headlines had faded. This week, with the conclusion of our investigations into these matters, I again commit to the people of Ferguson that we will continue to stand with you and to work with you to ensure that the necessary reforms are implemented. And even as we issue our findings in today’s report, our work will go on.

It will go on as we engage with the city of Ferguson – and surrounding municipalities – to reform their law enforcement practices and establish a public safety effort that protects and serves all members of the community. It will go on as we broaden this work, and extend the assistance of the Justice Department to other communities around the country. And it will go on as we join together with all Americans to ensure that public safety is not a burden undertaken by the brave few, but a positive collaboration between everyone in this nation. The report we have issued and the steps we have taken are only the beginning of a necessarily resource intensive and inclusive process to promote reconciliation, to reduce and eliminate bias, and to bridge gaps and build understanding. And in the days ahead, the Department of Justice will stay true to my promise, vigilant in its execution, and determined in the pursuit of justice—in every case, in every circumstance, and in every community across the United States.

Thank you.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 10:31 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
Quote:
Over the last few months, these goals have driven President Obama and me to announce a series of Administration proposals that will enable us to help heal mistrust wherever it is found – from a National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, to a historic new Task Force on 21st Century Policing – which will provide strong, federal support to law enforcement at every level, on a scale not seen since the Johnson Administration.


Beer summits for all!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:07 pm 
Offline
Peanut Gallery
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:40 pm
Posts: 2289
Location: Bat Country
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/innoce ... lied-raid/

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:53 pm 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
The sentence I quoted clearly states that their practices are **** "shaped by" revenue - in other words, that underlying motivation is what drives the bias, Constitutional violations, etc, not "hurf durf cops are racist because reasons". The report itself even says so in the very next sentence after the one I quoted - which you might have realized if you had bothered to go past the table of contents in your search for an excuse to act exasperated at what I have to say


Yeah, no kidding. It's shaped by revenue, and executed by racists. The report (keep reading) details consistent bias that results in the "get more revenue" approach leading directly to abuse of the black population.


In other words, it's not executed by racists.

Blacks are more likely to be poor than whites.

Excessive citations and fines, and related warrants for revenue generation will have a disparate impact on the poor.

The report establishes these things very firmly, and they really should not be hard to figure out anywhere.

Therefore, if a race is disproportionately poor it will necessarily be disproportionately impacted by these polices. Racism is not necessary as an explanation.

Bias and racism are not the same thing. The report describes a biased system, not individual racism. Despite the report's, and Holder's attempt to simply assume, furthermore, that disparate arrest rates are evidence of bias the simple fact is that there are behavioral differences between racial groups driven by socioeconomic and cultural factors. The "Manner of walking along roadway" charge that bothers Holder so much is a perfect example, despite his description of it as "discretionary", it is very clear from actually reading it what is an offense, and the simple fact is that you are a lot more likely to see black individuals walking down the middle of the street for no reason than white. In fact, one such incident is what started all this. Coro's comment is accurate. The fact that pointing thi out is considered "racist" is one of the factors that leads to bias in places like Ferguson.

On top of that, it does describe isolated incidents of overt racism, but they are limited to a few emails between a few people, and even then they seem to be more the "racially insensitive joke" type than "racism". The Al Sharpton definition of racism may be good for agendas, but it is not useful for solving problems.

Quote:
To pay for more cops, so they can get more revenue. Oh, and military equipment.


The report indicates that they were doing exactly that - hiring more cops to generate more revenue, and the same with overtime. Their money would ahve been better spent on military equipment. Military equipment doesn't cause citizens any problems - especially not the clothing, obsolete aluminum boxes on tracks, and rifles that ordinary citizens often own that has everyone's panties in a wad.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 11:32 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
Diamondeye wrote:
In other words, it's not executed by racists.


All discussion and reporting by the Justice Department to the contrary.

Quote:
Blacks are more likely to be poor than whites.

Excessive citations and fines, and related warrants for revenue generation will have a disparate impact on the poor.

The report establishes these things very firmly, and they really should not be hard to figure out anywhere.

Therefore, if a race is disproportionately poor it will necessarily be disproportionately impacted by these polices. Racism is not necessary as an explanation.


Agreed. However, additionally racism was prevalent.

Quote:
Bias and racism are not the same thing. The report describes a biased system, not individual racism. Despite the report's, and Holder's attempt to simply assume, furthermore, that disparate arrest rates are evidence of bias the simple fact is that there are behavioral differences between racial groups driven by socioeconomic and cultural factors. The "Manner of walking along roadway" charge that bothers Holder so much is a perfect example, despite his description of it as "discretionary", it is very clear from actually reading it what is an offense, and the simple fact is that you are a lot more likely to see black individuals walking down the middle of the street for no reason than white. In fact, one such incident is what started all this. Coro's comment is accurate. The fact that pointing thi out is considered "racist" is one of the factors that leads to bias in places like Ferguson.


So now you are arguing with the Justice Department's conclusions based on their own investigation and report, which you cited earlier when it suited you.

Quote:
On top of that, it does describe isolated incidents of overt racism, but they are limited to a few emails between a few people, and even then they seem to be more the "racially insensitive joke" type than "racism". The Al Sharpton definition of racism may be good for agendas, but it is not useful for solving problems.


So you have conceded that they are racially biased, and make racist statements, but won't admit they are racists. I don't even know how to respond to that.

Quote:
Quote:
To pay for more cops, so they can get more revenue. Oh, and military equipment.


The report indicates that they were doing exactly that - hiring more cops to generate more revenue, and the same with overtime. Their money would ahve been better spent on military equipment. Military equipment doesn't cause citizens any problems - especially not the clothing, obsolete aluminum boxes on tracks, and rifles that ordinary citizens often own that has everyone's panties in a wad.


Well, I don't agree that such equipment is required at all, and neither does the rest of the civilian population. That said, I do agree that spending the money on pretty much anything is preferable to them hiring more racist cops.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:36 pm 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
In other words, it's not executed by racists.


All discussion and reporting by the Justice Department to the contrary.


Not at all. The report never uses the word "Racists" in describing the Ferguson city workers. The report makes an exceedingly strong case that A) the system was set up to generate revenue, which (duh) created difficulty for the poor and B) that it had biased effects on blacks. Blaacks are more likely to be poor and therefore are obviously going to be disproportionately affected.

The report avoids stating this obvious conclusion too strongly so that it can hint at racism because it has a very weak case, if any at all, that intentional bias or predjudice was the cause.

What's even more concerning is how worried some people - including you and Mus - are with making the "racism" charge stick. A police department and court system set up to generate revenue rather than to ensure public safety and justice is a far bigger concern than "racism".

Quote:
Quote:
Blacks are more likely to be poor than whites.

Excessive citations and fines, and related warrants for revenue generation will have a disparate impact on the poor.

The report establishes these things very firmly, and they really should not be hard to figure out anywhere.

Therefore, if a race is disproportionately poor it will necessarily be disproportionately impacted by these polices. Racism is not necessary as an explanation.


Agreed. However, additionally racism was prevalent./quote]

The report makes very little case for this outside of a few emails - as in, under 10. Of those, 2 were critical of the President and should be discarded because while it's unprofessional to criticize the president on official department e-mail, these are not federal employees and we should be very reluctant to dismiss criticism of the President as "racism". In at least one other case, the City Manager followed up right after forwarding an inappropriate e-mail with an apology stating that he had not seen the inappropriate portion and apologizing to everyone for forwarding something he shouldn't have. This was well before the Michael Brown incident and was entirely self-initiated. This brings up a serious question as to how much of this was just cynicism and unprofessionalism and insensitivity as opposed to actual racism.

The report further, subtly undermines its case for bias where it discusses people with multiple "events" (i.e. court appearances, additional fines, etc.) for a single charge or arrest. Up to 3 events the racial distribution was comparable, remaining within 1% of each other and the racial division only started to appear at 4 events or more and got worse the more events there were.

It is difficult to imagine that people become more racist depending on how many times a person has been to court, so once again we are left with poverty as the issue. It is harder for poorer people to pay fines, they move more frequently and so are more likely to not receive mailed notices, and this leads to additional arrests and fines based on the same original charge. Because blacks are more likely to be poor, this disproportionately happens to them.

However, the fact that up to 3 events no racial disparity exist very strongly goes against any bias directly attributable to skin color. It speaks, rather, to a determination to simply generate revenue at the expense of everything else.

Quote:
So now you are arguing with the Justice Department's conclusions based on their own investigation and report, which you cited earlier when it suited you.


First, I'm arguing far more with your conclusions based on the report than the report itself. Second, one is not required to accept the report in every particular in order to accept that it is an accurate accounting of the facts and statistics. That's a false dilemma. In terms of reciting statistics, facts, and anecdotal examples the report is very good. The report falls down in that it avoids drawing the obvious conclusion that focus on revenue generation will disproportionately impact poor groups. It reports the racial disparities and the revenue-focus as if they were separate issues for the most part, mentioning the link between them only in passing.

Quote:
So you have conceded that they are racially biased, and make racist statements, but won't admit they are racists. I don't even know how to respond to that.


"They" all did? Maybe you should respond to it by explaining how under 10 emails make all 54 police officers racist, plus the entire court staff. I haven't conceded that they are racially biased at all, nor that they "made racist statements" frankly I consider "racist" to be something a lot more flagrant than anything we've seen here, like the recent OSU fraternity video incident. Using "racism" to mean any insensitivity no matter how minor or infrequent is problematic for the same reason that carelessly using "rape" and "sexual assault" interchangeably is.

Furthermore, you might want to consider this paragraph from the beginning of the report:
Quote:
We thank the City officials and the rank-and-file officers who have cooperated with this investigation and provided us with insights into the operation of the police department, including the municipal court. Notwithstanding our findings about Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement and the policing culture it creates, we found many Ferguson police officers and other City employees to be dedicated public servants striving each day to perform their duties lawfully and with respect for all members of the Ferguson community. The importance of their often-selfless work cannot be overstated.


Before it even starts actually reporting, the report firmly kicks the "they're all a bunch of racists" narrative right in the balls. This is not the only incident either, on the infrequent occasions that the report actually quotes a line officer, he is very likely to be expressing frustration with the entire system.

Quote:
Well, I don't agree that such equipment is required at all, and neither does the rest of the civilian population. That said, I do agree that spending the money on pretty much anything is preferable to them hiring more racist cops.


They weren't "hiring racist cops" in the first place, and the report makes that clear - it is a report about systemic bias, not individual attitudes and makes it quite clear from the get go that the Ferguson PD and court is not

As for what you and the public agree with, it is not your business to determine what sort of equipment the police require, nor is there any universal agreement from "the rest of the civilian population". A toothbrush is "military equipment." A 9mm pistol is "military equipment". Cargo pants are "military equipment" and we saw plenty of whining over camo pants in the last thread. Shotguns are "military equipment".

The term "military equipment" means nothing. Lots of things out there are very useful for both the military and numerous other applications. Police in this country are not acquiring tanks or ATGMs or mortars or IFVs or even SAWs or M-203s. Whining about scary-looking trucks and aluminum boxes with tracks just demonstrates the presence of an irrational agenda.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:51 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 5716
DE: First, using the quote tags is not that difficult. Please spend a little more time on formatting so it's easier to see what it is your saying - I thought you were quoting someone else's response to me.

Second, your interpretation of the report is contrary from... pretty much everyone else. Additionally, I'm starting to sense that your bar for what counts as "racism" is a bit absurdly high. Perhaps this is just because we're talking about cops.

Lastly, if the term "military equipment" means nothing, don't use it.

DE wrote:
Their money would ahve been better spent on military equipment. Military equipment doesn't cause citizens any problems - especially not the clothing, obsolete aluminum boxes on tracks, and rifles that ordinary citizens often own that has everyone's panties in a wad.


I'd rather not get into another semantic argument with you over use of wording.

One last thing, you say it's not my or the public's business to determine what sort of equipment the police require - I say a huge resounding BS. It is exactly our job to define the scope of the position, pay, equipment, and methods employed by our public servants. And if the cops don't like it, they can find another job, or convince the public why we need to change our mind.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re:
PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:21 am 
Offline
Commence Primary Ignition
User avatar

Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am
Posts: 15740
Location: Combat Information Center
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
DE: First, using the quote tags is not that difficult. Please spend a little more time on formatting so it's easier to see what it is your saying - I thought you were quoting someone else's response to me.


Yeah sorry, somehow I never seem to get that right.

Quote:
Second, your interpretation of the report is contrary from... pretty much everyone else. Additionally, I'm starting to sense that your bar for what counts as "racism" is a bit absurdly high. Perhaps this is just because we're talking about cops.


My bar for racism is not "absurdly high" - and it's the same for everyone. I need to see real smoking gun evidence before I will use the term racism, and that's how it should be for everyone. There's a difference between unconscious bias or mild predjudice and full-blown racism. We have allowed the creep of hate terminology to

In point of fact, the excessive use of hate terms over the years has been decried over and over on this board - but now all of a sudden when it's directed at the police, that absurdly low bar becomes A-OK. Just off the top of my head I'm remembering a thread entitled "creating new racists" and the one about some senator shouting at Obama. The fact is that the political metagame in this country - and by political I mean in any form of political debate - is that tarring someone with a hate label and forcing them to defend themselves and then dismissing the defense as insincere has become the default tactic. It's incredibly tempting to do so because it appeals to the logically-erroneous-but incredibly-tempting mentality that is exceedingly prevalent of "that person is horrible and awful therefore they are automatically wrong and their opponent is morally unimpeachable."

If you want to see what actual racism looks like, for example see the Sigma Alpha Epsilon video from University of Oklahoma last week or so - frat boys singing about "there'll never be a <n-word> in SAE" and "hang them from a tree". This is unequivocal racism. That's what racism looks like - and while you might be able to identify a few specific racists at the Ferguson PD, you cannot simple make broad claims about "racist cops" just because a few people might be. To do so is to substitute your own personal incredulity for argument - you cannot imagine that ALL the police (or at least the great majority) could be anything BUT racists based on your personal prejudices, therefore that must be the case.

Interestingly, this is exactly the view that the discredited witnesses in the Brown shooting held - they simply imagined that Brown must have been executed and so testified that was what they had seen until challenged on the forensic evidence. In one case the witness admitted that he hadn't seen it, but testified that he had because it was "just common sense" that Wilson had done so. this sort of thinking is evidently prevalent - "The police and courts in our town come down harder on blacks for minor fines, therefore they necessarily must be perfectly willing to shoot them in the street for no reason at all, and I can assume that based on common sense even when I didn't acutally see it" is the same flawed reasoning as "I can assume that all these police are a bunch of racists because I have evidence that a few people in city government might be and because they issue a lot of tickets that are harder for black people to pay." It involves assuming a much higher degree and prevalence of bias than evidence actually exists for based on "common sense" and our flawed assumptions about hate labels.

Quote:
Lastly, if the term "military equipment" means nothing, don't use it.


I'm not the one insisting on using the term "military equipment". I do so only because that's the term people insist on using. This is no different than the vague "assault weapons" term used by gun control advocates; you have to use the term in order to dispel its validity. The use of the term is a cleverly-disguised fallacy of Equivocation where the term "military equipment" is being used to technically refer to "any equipment used by the military" but the complaint is based on a meaning of the term based on the danger to the public that would exist if the police used uniquely military equipment such as main battle tanks, attack helicopters, and other similar items.

Quote:
DE wrote:
Their money would have been better spent on military equipment. Military equipment doesn't cause citizens any problems - especially not the clothing, obsolete aluminum boxes on tracks, and rifles that ordinary citizens often own that has everyone's panties in a wad.


I'd rather not get into another semantic argument with you over use of wording.


Then stop making snarky comments about "military equipment". Really, this is not hard to figure out. There is a difference between uniquely military equipment and equipment that has non-military uses as well. The assault rifles that people want to own but want to ***** when the cops have them are a perfect example. The Bell 206A JetRanger is perfectly suitable for use as a civilian police helicopter even though it's the basis for the OH-58D. If the police start flying OH-58Ds with Hellfire missiles hanging off them, you'll have a valid complaint, but this helicopter has been available in both civilian and military versions since 1969 and no one has ever ***** about "military equipment" being used in that regard; it's just a recent complaint based on this idea that the police are being "militarized." In point of fact it's the other way around - the military adapted its tactics and some of its equipment to be more police-like in Iraq due to the need to reduce casualties, thus increasing the resemblance. Some of the "military equipment" being used, like MRAPS is actually more suitable for the police than the military - MRAPS are singularly inappropriate for the traditional battlefield and would be meat on the table for a Stryker unit, much less an armored opponent and are useful only in a mostly-road-bound counterinsurgency environment.

This semantic argument results from people trying to use semantic vagaries to conjure up images of the police running around with main battle tanks by talking about "armored vehicles" and "military equipment" and the same thing with the rifles. It's singularly hypocritical to try to score points with overly-broad terminology, then whine that someone is talking about "semantics" when one is called on it.

another example - the coast Guard has 418 foot cutters with 57mm guns, CIWS, and several .50 caliber machine guns - unequivocal military equipment. The coast guard also has law enforcement power at sea. No one seems disturbed by this, nor do we see anyone trying to complain that the coast guard is using "warships" to enforce the law.

Quote:
One last thing, you say it's not my or the public's business to determine what sort of equipment the police require - I say a huge resounding BS. It is exactly our job to define the scope of the position, pay, equipment, and methods employed by our public servants. And if the cops don't like it, they can find another job, or convince the public why we need to change our mind.


First, there is no collective public agreement on these topics to "change the minds" of, and to the degree that there is, that agreement is not in accordance with your position. Gallup indicates that as of December, 48% of the public had a "high" or "very high" level of trust in the police and another 31% had an average level of trust. That is, low or very low trust amounted to 20-21% of the public, who could be said to "distrust" the police so frankly,4/5 of the public requires little convincing (average trust) or none at all (high/very high). your continued implication that the police have a PR problem is utter horseshit - that 20% that remains includes a large number of people who will never trust the police no matter what, and has probably been influenced at least in part by the completely-fabricated allegations that Wilson shot Brown unjustifiably. It's particularly telling that the 2 reports were released simultaneously, yet the exoneration of Wilson (for the 2nd time no less) has quickly taken a back seat while the Ferguson report gets the spotlight to keep the outrage going. While the Ferguson report deserves attention, the Wilson/Brown one is equally important because it reveals the attitude of some portions of the public that are willing to believe any story about the police that's negative, even in the face of insurmountable physical evidence.

Second, no, as a matter of fact it isn't up to the public. We do not have direct democracy in this country. The police are not a special case in that regard. There are legislative and Constitutional processes available for change, just like on any other issue. If you don't like the rules the courts have created, there is a Constitutional amendment process available. If the bulk of public opinion is so firmly on your side, the pressure on legislatures to pass such an amendment ought to be pretty high, right? I presume you've already written to your Congressman demanding he propose such an amendment?

And as for the police seeking new jobs, yes they can. I'm pretty sure that most of them will if we ever see any amendments to pass whatever change you sort of vaguely imagine is needed. Good luck finding new ones. In the meantime though, the job of the police is not to adapt to whatever trivial, emotion-driven outrage the press has managed to conjure up for the public at any given moment.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 2:42 pm 
Offline
Peanut Gallery
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:40 pm
Posts: 2289
Location: Bat Country
Nice Bill of Rights
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- ... of-rights/

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 12:25 pm 
Offline
Peanut Gallery
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:40 pm
Posts: 2289
Location: Bat Country
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/ra ... ce-officer

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 81 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

All times are UTC - 6 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 352 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group