XBradTC

The Justice Department is preparing to bring a lawsuit against the Ferguson, Missouri, police department over a pattern of racially discriminatory tactics used by officers, if the police department does not agree to make changes on its own, sources tell CNN.

Attorney General Eric Holder said this week he expects to announce the results of the department’s investigation of the shooting death of Michael Brown and a broader probe of the Ferguson Police Department before he leaves office in the coming weeks.

via Justice Dept. could sue Ferguson for racial discrimination – CNN.com.

I’m going to give Holder a pass on this. It fits a pattern of his of apparent racial bias in favor of African Americans. But in this case, there’s a fair bit of smoke, and probably a bit of fire in there as well.

I do not mean to excuse the rioting and looting committed in Ferguson in reaction to the grand jury’s passing on indicting Officer Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown. Every bit of evidence I’ve seen supports the thesis that Wilson acted within the law, and for that matter, my own expectations of due regard for a citizen’s rights.

Holder’s DoJ will almost certainly move forward with its suggestions for reforms for Ferguson PD on the basis of disparate impact. That blacks are cited or arrested at rates out of proportion to their numbers in the community. They likely are. Unfortunately, that’s because blacks are also committing crimes at disparate rates, as born out by criminology data over the years.

There’s an element of truth to this line of argument. Violent crime rates are far higher among blacks than among whites and other groups. One reason cops have a disproportionate number of interactions with African-American males is that these men commit a disproportionate number of offenses.*

But that doesn’t mean the police department in Ferguson isn’t guilty of a pattern of behavior that is at odds with the rights of citizens, be they black or white.

The St. Louis suburb, where unarmed black teen Michael Brown was shot dead August 9 by white police officer Darren Wilson, has just over 21,000 residents and had more than 40,000 arrest warrants as of June 2013, according to ArchCity Defenders, a local advocacy group.

The town’s aggressive policing strategies and difficult to navigate court system generated $2,635,400 in fine revenue for the small town in 2013. Court fines are Ferguson’s second-largest source of revenue, according to the Daily Beast.

Quite obviously, public services in Ferguson (and apparently several other collar cities in the St. Louis region) have inverted the normal status between government and citizenry.

As a bunch of dead white guys once noted, That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Instead, we see the use of police powers not as a means for securing rights, but rather generating revenue. The city government exists to serve, well, the city government, not the city citizens.

(They) has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: (when fines and court costs are your second largest revenue source, they’re a tax).

For once, if only for the wrong reason, the Holder lead DoJ may be doing the right thing.

 

*Of course, as the article notes, only a small percentage of blacks commit violent crime, and the rate of crime, both black and overall, is far lower than it was as little as 20 year ago.