Ferguson R2

[jacobolus]

Here’s a Washington Post article from a couple months ago explaining some of why people don’t like the police in Missouri:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/

Edit: oh wait, that was already linked upthread. Everyone here should please read that article before commenting further. Here, I’ll quote a bunch of it to make it easy for you. (But I recommend reading the whole thing.)

There are 90 municipalities in St. Louis County, and more in the surrounding counties. All but a few have their own police force, mayor, city manager and town council, and 81 have their own municipal court. To put that into perspective, consider Jackson County, Mo., which surrounds Kansas City. It is geographically larger than St. Louis County and has about two-thirds the population. Yet Jackson County has just 19 municipalities, and just 15 municipal courts — less than a quarter of municipalities and courts in St. Louis County.

Some of the towns in St. Louis County can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts. A majority of these fines are for traffic offenses, but they can also include fines for fare-hopping on MetroLink (St. Louis’s light rail system), loud music and other noise ordinance violations, zoning violations for uncut grass or unkempt property, violations of occupancy permit restrictions, trespassing, wearing “saggy pants,” business license violations and vague infractions such as “disturbing the peace” or “affray” that give police officers a great deal of discretion to look for other violations. In a white paper released last month (PDF), the ArchCity Defenders found a large group of people outside the courthouse in Bel-Ridge who had been fined for not subscribing to the town’s only approved garbage collection service. They hadn’t been fined for having trash on their property, only for not paying for the only legal method the town had designated for disposing of trash.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, blacks make up less than eight percent of the Florissant police force. The judge and both prosecutors are white. In nearly all the towns in St. Louis County, the prosecutors and judges in these courts are part-time positions, and are not elected, but appointed by the mayor, town council, or city manager. According to a recent white paper published by the ArchCity Defenders, the chief prosecutor in Florissant Municipal Court makes $56,060 per year. It’s a position that requires him to work 12 court sessions per year, at about three hours per session. The Florissant prosecutor is Ronald Brockmeyer, who also has a criminal defense practice in St. Charles County, and who is also the chief municipal prosecutor for the towns of Vinita Park and Dellwood. He is also the judge – yes, the judge — in both Ferguson and Breckenridge Hills. Brockmeyer isn’t alone: Several other attorneys serve as prosecutor in one town and judge in another. And at least one St. Louis County assistant district attorney is also a municipal court judge.

Incidentally, Beverly Hills, Missouri has a population of 571. Its City Hall and police station share a building with a pharmacy. Yet in 2013, the town handed out 3,250 traffic tickets, and issued another 1,085 citations for violations of non-traffic ordinances. Total revenue generated by the town’s municipal court: $221,164, or $387 for each of its residents.

As it turns out, in 1998 Bel-Ridge police had received permission from the DOT to install switch at the light that allowed an officer to manually convert it to red. The switch was installed so an officer could allow children from a nearby school to safely cross the road. But the engineer witnessed police switching the light to red when there were no children present at the intersection at all, just as groups of cars were passing through. Another officer would then pull one or more cars over and issue them tickets. Bel-Ridge police denied the allegation, and insisted that officers only switched the light to red when children needed to cross. But the engineer found that most of the morning tickets were issued between 9 and 10:30am, when school was already in session. The Post-Dispatch noted that in 1996, two years before the switch was installed, Bel-Ridge derived 29 percent of its annual revenue from traffic fines. In 1999, the first full year after the switch was installed, that figure jumped to 44.8 percent.

Today, Bel-Ridge has about 2,700 people, 83 percent of whom are black, and 42 percent of whom live below the poverty line. In 2013 the town’s municipal court handled 7,706 traffic citations and issued 1,723 arrest warrants. As the ArchCity Defenders report in their white paper, the town estimates that in 2014, “it will collect $450,000 in fine revenue–or, an average of about $450 per Bel-Ridge household — making municipal court fines the largest single source of revenue in the budget.” The firm also reports that the Bel-Ridge municipal judge will make $18,600 this year, its prosecuting attorney $25,000, and its court clerks $38,350 — each to work three four-hour evening court sessions per month. The town also has a nine-member board of trustees and a police department. Bel-Ridge is also the town that issued fines to residents who didn’t subscribe the one private trash collection service authorized to pick up garbage.

The first real wave of black migration [out of the city of St. Louis] came after 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled in Jones v. Mayer that the Civil Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in real estate transactions. Another wave came in the 1980s, after the implementation of a busing plan to integrate schools in St. Louis County, as black families again followed their kids into the suburbs. All the while, white communities tried to keep their distance. As the courts struck down the more blatant discriminatory policies like restrictive covenants and explicit segregation, whites engaged in what you might call a pattern of zone and retreat. It’s during these two waves of black immigration that you really begin to see the proliferation of municipalities in St. Louis County.

“Until only relatively recently, the state of Missouri had almost no rules for municipal incorporation,” Gordon says. “In just about every other state, when a new new subdivision would spring up in an unincorporated area, the state would say, ‘If you want public services, you need to be annexed by the nearest town.’ In Missouri, you didn’t have that.”

Instead, developers would create new subdivisions outside a city. White people would move in. As black families moved north and west of the city, these subdivisions would try to keep them out by zoning themselves as single-family housing only. That barred the construction of public and low-income housing.

“The state’s one requirement before giving you the power to zone was that you had to incorporate and draw up a city plan,” Gordon says. “That plan could be as simple as getting an engineer to slap a ‘single family’ zone over the entire development. Your subdivision is now a town.”

Gordon says this is why the towns in St. Louis can have such unusual names, such as Town & Country or Bellefontaine Neighbors. “Look at a place like Black Jack in North County. It began as a private subdivision in the 1970s. When they saw the looming threat of housing projects, they quickly zoned the neighborhood as single-family and incorporated as a municipality.” Today Black Jack is more than 80 percent black. There’s a similar town of about 1,200 people near Ferguson, just across the street from the Normandy Country Club. It’s 91 percent black, has a 35 percent poverty rate, and has a median household income 40 percent below the state median. Its name? Country Club Hills.

As black families moved out from the city and slowly infiltrated white towns, new white developments would spring up further out still, incorporate, and zone to keep the black population at bay. Blacks would move in to those towns too, and the process would repeat itself. The pattern was most prevalent along the interstate and highways because property values along those routes are lower. White working class people moved in and created affordable , single family housing. As blacks moved closer, the whites moved farther west. Gordon calls it a postage stamp pattern. “You then see blacks moving into the same affordable housing footprint that the white working class abandoned,” he says.

“I had a buddy who was written up on a zoning violations because he had a car up on cinder blocks in his yard. He ended up spending 30 days in jail. It was in this tiny town where the court is literally held in a double-wide trailer. I thought it was just an anomaly. I quickly realized that sort of thing is common.”

Quinn describes one homeless girl who had been written up for violating an occupancy permit restriction. To simply reside in St. Louis County, you have to register your residence with the local government. What that entails varies from town to town. In the town of Berkeley, for example, new tenants must obtain an occupancy permit from the Inspections Department of the City of Berkeley. A permit costs $20, and requires a valid driver’s license or identification card. If your license has been suspended due to an outstanding warrant, you can’t move in. A permit includes the names of the people legally allowed to live at the residence. If you want to add additional names or change a name, it’s an additional $25 and a signed authorization from the landlord. And again, you’ll need an ID.

In theory, occupancy permits are to prevent fire hazards and overcrowding. But they can also be another way for towns to generate revenue. Quinn’s client, for example, was the victim in a domestic abuse incident. But when the police arrived, they checked her occupancy permit, which only allowed for one person to reside at the apartment. The officers then cited the woman and her boyfriend $74 each for violating the permit. When Quinn protested that the law makes no effort to distinguish visitors from unlawful residents, the municipal prosecutor stated that “nothing good happens after 10pm” when single men and women are alone together — a sentiment later echoed by the judge. Other attorneys say that the permits are sometimes even used to enforce anachronistic laws prohibiting cohabitation of unmarried couples.

When a police officer apprehends someone with warrants in multiple jurisdictions, that person can then get shuffled from town to town, from jail to jail, as they battle over which court gets first crack at whatever money he may have. Attorneys and families are left to chase clients and loved ones through the fog.

This is especially true with juveniles. Quinn, for example, recently had a client arrested because a “wanted” had been put on him. Different than a warrant, a wanted is basically a “person of interest.” It means the police don’t have probable cause to obtain a warrant. But it does allow them to snag someone up and hold them for up to 24 hours. Quinn’s client had allegedly been identified as an accomplice in a crime. But Quin and her law student assistant couldn’t figure out where he was being held. He had been arrested in one town for a wanted placed by another. She eventually found him in the interrogation room in the jail of a third town. It turned out that the town in which the wanted was placed wasn’t big enough to have its own jail. He was soon released.

“Many of these ‘wanted’ cases are just an excuse to catch and release juveniles,” Quinn says. “It gives the police a chance to squeeze them for information about other people.”

Even with ArchCity Defenders, Quinn’s clinic, a similar clinic at St. Louis University, and firms like Khazaeli Wyrsch taking some cases pro bono, the lawyers interviewed for this article estimate that only 10-25 percent of the defendants in St. Louis County municipal courts get any sort of legal representation. The rest are on their own. By statute, the St. Louis County Public Defender’s Office is prohibited from representing indigent defendants in municipal courts. (Even if it weren’t, the office is busy enough in state court with more serious offenses. In 2010, the New York Times pointed out that Missouri ranks 49th in spending on its public defender system.)

Legally, only indigent defendants facing jail time are entitled to a public defender, though local attorneys say even those defendants don’t always know to ask, and few of the municipal courts bother to make them aware of the fact. But it’s clear that those with legal representation get an entirely different sort of justice from the municipal courts than those without it. “Matt,” a white bartender at a trendy restaurant in St. Louis city, has had two experiences in municipal courts in the county. Both were speeding tickets that he had neglected to pay. He showed up for one with an attorney, and one without. Without an attorney, he says it took three court appearances and several hundred dollars to get the warrant cleared. With an attorney, it took one trip to court and a $150 settlement. “My lawyer said hi to the prosecutor. They talked about the last time they played golf together. He brought up my case, the prosecutor asked for 150 bucks, and that was that.”

On the same night I attended the municipal court session in Florissant, I stopped by the town of Cool Valley just as court was winding down. Cool Valley is a town of 1,194 people. It is 84.5 percent black. Last year the court issued 1,871 arrest warrants. More incredibly, there are another 5,998 warrants from previous years still pending in Cool Valley, or more than five for every resident. In 2013, the Cool Valley Municipal Court collected $375,425 in fines, or $314 per resident. That’s about 34.5 percent of the town’s annual budget.

One of those pending warrants was for “Jack” (he asked that I not use his real name), a black man who looked to be in his 60s whom I met briefly at the Cool Valley courthouse. I noticed Jack as he was chatting through a teller’s window with the court clerk. He was getting increasingly frustrated. I followed him outside and asked why he had been in court. He said he had recently been stopped by a police officer. He hadn’t been issued a citation for the stop, but a search of his name apparently showed a warrant stemming from a 20-year-old speeding ticket. With late fees and added fines, prosecutors said he now owed $615.

But he said he was angry because no one could show him the original ticket. They could only point to the warrant. He believes it was a mistake, and wondered why the warrant wouldn’t have shown up the other times he’s been stopped over the last 20 years. But the court officers had no time to argue with him. They handed him a piece of paper showing what he owes, with instructions for his payment plan. He is to come back to court each month and pay $50 until the full amount is paid off. If he misses a month, they’ll put out another warrant for his arrest.

Last August, TV station KMOV reported that Pine Lawn’s speed camera was actually installed in a vacant parking lot, that the city provided no warning to motorists, and didn’t include driver photos when sending out tickets. What’s more, the city threatened any motorist who refused to pay for a ticket with an arrest warrant. In the first six months of 2013, the camera generated $150,000 for the city, and sent a thousand extra motorists to its municipal court. In 2007, Pine Lawn passed a “saggy pants” ordinance, imposing a $100 fine on the parents of children caught wearing droopy drawers.

Antonio Morgan’s ordeal is another example of how the municipal courts can make life difficult for low-income parents. Morgan, 28, is married with two kids: a daughter, 9, and a son, 8. In 2011, Morgan had to show up for municipal court in Hazelwood to appear for some traffic violations. He had been to the court before, and recalled that on a previous occasion he had been told by a police officer that children weren’t permitted inside. Having just picked his kids up from school, Morgan spotted the girlfriend of a friend in the parking lot and pulled his truck up next to her. He asked her to keep an eye on his kids while he was in court. She agreed.

As Morgan walked toward the courthouse a police officer asked him the kids in the truck were his. He replied that they were. The officer asked him why he had left them alone. Morgan replied that he hadn’t, and that the woman parked next to him had agreed to watch them. By now, Morgan’s friend had returned, and started to leave.

“I can’t really blame them,” Morgan says from his home in Hazelwood. “No one around here wants to attract attention. You don’t want a police officer knowing who you are.”

Morgan pleaded with the police officer to flag down his friends, who he said would vouch for him. He says the officer then threatened to Taser him. Morgan put up his hands. The officer then arrested him for child endangerment. Morgan’s wife had to leave work to come pick up the kids, and Morgan spent the night in jail. He was fined $1,000, though both the fine and the charge were later reduced.

The incident still upsets Morgan — not even the arrest so much as that his children had to see it. “I’m a good father,” he says. “I own my own business. I provide for my kids. Do you know what it’s like for your own children to see you get arrested? For a cop to say, right in front of them, that he’s arresting you because you’re a bad parent?”

[.......]

On another occasion, Morgan [black owner of a car repair shop] says he and some friends had gone out to dinner. He returned to his shop later that night to pick some things up. A police officer saw the lights on and demanded to see Morgan’s permit. (You need a separate permit to operate a business after dark.)

“I told him that I wasn’t working, I was just picking a couple things up. He said I was talking back to him, and that if I kept it up, he’d shut down my shop.” The officer ended up having two of Morgan’s vehicles towed. He had to pay $200 to get them back. On another occasion, Morgan says two offices and the Pine Lawn municipal prosecutor came to his shop to ask about a new Camaro they were painting for a woman in Clayton. “They thought we were stripping it for parts,” he says. “They couldn’t believe that a white lady in Clayton would send her car to a black guy’s garage in Pine Lawn.”

[...]

In 2012, Morgan was working on his truck at his mother’s house when he heard a loud boom. He assumed it was a car or lawn mower backfiring and continued working. A short time later, he was driving his truck with a friend when a police officer pulled them over and emerged with his gun drawn. Soon, more squad cars showed up, 11 in all.

“A whiteshirt then showed up, and said someone fitting my description had been seen committing a burglary,” Morgan says. “They said they saw me kicking down a door, and then my friend driving my truck as we drove away. I had been working on my truck all morning, and my friend had never driven it.”

Morgan and his friend were arrested, though the police claimed they had been detained, not jailed. “I couldn’t leave, so I’m not sure what the difference is,” he says. After about three hours, the police let both men go without an explanation. Morgan’s truck had been towed. He says that when he got it back, the seats and upholstery had been ripped out, as if someone had been searching for guns or drugs. Morgan actually did have a gun. He also had a legal concealed carry permit for it.

“They told me they’d have to ‘run’ the gun to see if it was stolen or had been used in a crime, and that it could take up to 30 days. I told them I hadn’t been accused of any crime. When I tried to get it back later, an officer told me they’d have to keep it longer because of my record.”

Morgan says when he replied that he had only been convicted of traffic violations, the officer noted that he had recently been arrested for burglary — the same burglary for which the police had wrongly arrested him, confiscated the gun, and released him three hours later. Morgan just got his gun back in February, nearly three years after it was confiscated.

[...]

The final incident with this particular officer took place at Antonio’s mother’s house. The next door neighbors had called the police to report the theft of an air conditioner. The same officer responded. Morgan says he was sitting in his mother’s driveway when the officer confronted him about one of Morgan’s cars parked on the street. The officer seemed fed up, and according to Morgan, referred to his mother as “your greasy grandma.” Morgan says he lost it, and yelled at the officer, calling him a “cracker.”

“I regret it,” Morgan says. “I lost control. But he disrespected my family. There was no need for that. You can only take so much.”

Morgan insists that he didn’t touch the officer, but after the two exchanged words, the officer drew his Taser, Morgan says he backed up and raised his arms. The officer fired the weapon anyway, and Morgan fell to the ground. He says he was Tased several times, but doesn’t recall exactly how many.

“I remember telling the neighbors to call the police,” he says. “I forgot for a moment that this was police.” When he felt he couldn’t take any more, Morgan says he reached back, grabbed the Taser wire, and ripped the weapon from the officer’s hands. The officer pounced on Morgan and put a knee to the back of his head. Morgan says by the time the paramedics arrived he counted 13 cops with their guns drawn, all pointed at him.

Morgan’s neighbors verify his version of the incident. Morgan was initially arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Those charges were later dismissed. The incident left him with a gash in the back of his head and a fractured wrist.

[jacobolus]

The rioters should have been all shot. If not with live ammo, at least with rubber bullets. Too bad modern interpretations of democracy and human rights forbid it. I don't think America's founding fathers intended to allow people to riot and destroy private property as they pleased. In 18th century America they wouldn't have cared if the rioters were Irish or slaves; they'd have shot everyone or ridden them down, then put the survivors into the stocks for the public to deal with.

That said, I think the best way to punish this community of rioters, is to have no outside businesses serve them. Al Sharpton, the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, the Black Panthers and their ilk can go about setting up their Black Pride Afrocentric businesses on the ruins, importing everything on the cheap from Nigeria and South Africa. I'm sure these businesses will be thriving, and future Michael Browns wouldn't dare steal from a shop protected by the toughest gangstas and bruthas in da hood. Everything would be hunky dory and Ferguson will be known as a black paradise soon.

You see, in el mundo Hispania (or is that Hispanos?), the whites also get everything and are not ashamed of it. Except these aren't WASPS with the WASP work culture. These are conquisados and genocidists and oligarchs whose only ambition is to luxuriate in their haciendas while the natives do all the work. [...] Thank you affirmative action! Thank you Harvard for your racist 19th century BS about Asians being all the same and bringing no diversity and contributing nothing to college! (See the recent NYT article by Mounk)

Hey berserkfan... you’re usually an okay seeming sort of guy.

Can you please stop with the extremely condescending bull**** now, before we start making unpleasant assumptions about your character? Thanks. If you were just trolling, well, stop it. And if you’re serious... well, still stop it.

[iri]

.

[vivalarevolución]

You know what irks me more than anything about this whole mess?  Talk radio commenters still take potshots at the character of the deceased Michael Brown.  A teenager is dead.  He may not have lived an exemplary life.  But let him rest in peace, and hope that we cease inflicting such hate and violence on each other.

Compassion and understand seem to be rarities in the messages that transmitted through our popular culture.

[IPT]

You know what irks me more than anything about this whole mess?  Talk radio commenters still take potshots at the character of the deceased Michael Brown.  A teenager is dead.  He may not have lived an exemplary life.  But let him rest in peace, and hope that we cease inflicting such hate and violence on each other.

Compassion and understand seem to be rarities in the messages that transmitted through our popular culture.

When people bring up these riots as getting justice for Michael Brown, why is it wrong to bring up that he wasn't a saint?
I mean most people who are protesting don't even know he robbed a store before he was killed.

[tbc]

You know what irks me more than anything about this whole mess?  Talk radio commenters still take potshots at the character of the deceased Michael Brown.  A teenager is dead.  He may not have lived an exemplary life.  But let him rest in peace, and hope that we cease inflicting such hate and violence on each other.

Compassion and understand seem to be rarities in the messages that transmitted through our popular culture.

well, if they're lying that's one thing.

but if they're not, what's wrong with the truth?  we demand the truth from our celebrities, government, and corporations all the time.

[fohat.digs]

I ignore this kind of stuff as much as I can.

When this story first came around, listening with one ear and not paying any more attention to it than I had to, it sounded like: "poor unfortunate black kid gunned down by hateful white cop"

Now that I see the grand jury testimony, I am flabbergasted.

A huge angry guy with recently stolen goods in his hand reaches into a cop car and tries to grab the cop's gun? WTF?

Then, instead of continuing to run away, he turns around and heads directly back toward the cop?

Sorry guys, I would have shot him, too.

And I am the quintessential pacifist and bleeding-heart liberal.

[jacobolus]

Now that I see the grand jury testimony, I am flabbergasted.

Are you kidding? The cop’s testimony is laughably absurd.

[fohat.digs]

I did not see the cop's testimony.

I was interested in the credible eyewitness accounts.

There were a lot of "witnesses" who were not eyewitnesses, and a lot of witnesses who were not credible.

The most compelling were the ones who did not come forward at the beginning.

[heedpantsnow]

Now that I see the grand jury testimony, I am flabbergasted.

Are you kidding? The cop’s testimony is laughably absurd.

Yes. The testimony of the kids who helped robbed the convenience store were much more believable! Lol

[jacobolus]

fohat: which witnesses specifically are you talking about? there are a whole lot of them, with conflicting stories.

PBS and NPR have had some nice excerpts and summaries of the witness testimonies, in case someone wants to follow along without reading through everything:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/newly-released-witness-testimony-tell-us-michael-brown-shooting/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/25/366526561/ferguson-docs-what-the-witnesses-saw
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/25/366519644/ferguson-docs-officer-darren-wilsons-testimony
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/26/366827836/ferguson-documents-what-michael-browns-friend-saw

[sleepy916]

The physical evidence refutes many of the eye witnesses accounts. I would guess the evidence held more weight than what was said to have happen by bystanders.

[fohat.digs]

there are a whole lot of them, with conflicting stories.

Those NPR charts were very helpful.

Here is my problem:

many of the same witnesses acknowledged that they didn’t actually see the shooting,

but the charts do not mark which is which.

Personally, I place little value on the accounts of the policeman and his suspects because they have a powerful vested interest in spinning the story in a direction that benefits themselves. And, as an aside, the policeman's story seems foolishly embellished and irrational, and the "friend" is essentially incoherent.

I place no value whatsoever on anyone's account who "didn’t actually see the shooting" and actually take a negative view of them because they should not have involved themselves at all. Their involvement obfuscates the truth and de-rails the progress of the real investigation.

Witness 10, the maintenance worker, was the one who I found most convincing.

[jacobolus]

The Washington Post also has some summary graphics:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/ferguson-grand-jury-findings/

[berserkfan]

Funny... everywhere I’ve ever lived it was the Texan white guys who were the biggest pricks.

Just so long as no more of them get to the white house, we should be okay for a while.

I don't think that guy in Crawford who got to the white house is a big prick. He's got none, that's why he preferred a VP with no heart and no hair, and that's why he had to start some useless wars in order to compensate for his lack of...

[berserkfan]

I did not see the cop's testimony.

I was interested in the credible eyewitness accounts.

There were a lot of "witnesses" who were not eyewitnesses, and a lot of witnesses who were not credible.

The most compelling were the ones who did not come forward at the beginning.

I agree with fohat and disagree with jacobolus.

And jacobolus, everything is from my own experience. I lived in a ghetto for several years and experienced many people like Michael Brown, and I also saw and was told of plenty of cases of lily-white people becoming Hispanic when they could claim benefits.

First year in college, both the president and the vice president of the Hispanic Students' association were blond and blonde and both were getting scholarships designed for the kids of brown skinned semiliterate refugees from central American civil wars.

Is that condescending? Are scholarships supposed to go to overprivileged elites just because they speak Spanish?

I'm sure you have your own experiences, but I stand on mine, and they are not trolling or whatever claims you have to make. I have no sympathy with rioters, and yes, if I had a gun and you were trying to set fire to my property, I would put a bullet in your head.

If you like to reward rioters with white liberal BS that's up to you, but I expect you to give me the same politically correct treatment when I am on trial for shooting rioters in the head. After all, the rioters were the majority race when they rioted, and I was the oppressed and threatened vulnerable minority.

[jacobolus]

Is that condescending?

Yes, go back and re-read your previous comments. It’s a steaming pile of ignorant hateful horse****. (As an example from your most recent comment, how the hell do you know what “people like Michael Brown” are like, if you have never met Michael Brown, don’t even know anyone who has met Michael Brown, and don’t know anything about him other than what is reported in a ridiculous media ****storm? Michael Brown could have been Satan in the flesh, a baby-seal clubbing hater of freedom and apple pie, and a statement like that would still be condescending horse****.) I don’t have time to interrogate you about your past experience, and this is not the forum for it.

I’m now done with this thread. Feel free to track me down in person sometime if you want to have a patient and courteous conversation about it.

[cmadrid]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

[heedpantsnow]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

[hwood34]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

If they can put some racial spin on it they're always interested

[SpAmRaY]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

If they can put some racial spin on it they're always interested

Racial spin only goes one way. 

[fohat.digs]

Racial spin only goes one way.

I saddens me greatly to find myself mostly agreeing with this.

[vivalarevolución]

You know what irks me more than anything about this whole mess?  Talk radio commenters still take potshots at the character of the deceased Michael Brown.  A teenager is dead.  He may not have lived an exemplary life.  But let him rest in peace, and hope that we cease inflicting such hate and violence on each other.

Compassion and understand seem to be rarities in the messages that transmitted through our popular culture.

When people bring up these riots as getting justice for Michael Brown, why is it wrong to bring up that he wasn't a saint?
I mean most people who are protesting don't even know he robbed a store before he was killed.

You know what irks me more than anything about this whole mess?  Talk radio commenters still take potshots at the character of the deceased Michael Brown.  A teenager is dead.  He may not have lived an exemplary life.  But let him rest in peace, and hope that we cease inflicting such hate and violence on each other.

Compassion and understand seem to be rarities in the messages that transmitted through our popular culture.

well, if they're lying that's one thing.

but if they're not, what's wrong with the truth?  we demand the truth from our celebrities, government, and corporations all the time.

I don't really listen to the radio or watch the news, because it's mostly babble designed to sell rather than understand, and being involved in some activities that occasionally get covered in the media, I can understand first hand everything that gets left out and misinterpreted by those on the outside.   But I stumbled on some talk radio when I driving this weekend, and I had to change the channel from the pure hate being spewed, which only feeds the flames.

My ire with continued attacks a dead teenager's character come down to this:

1.  The person is dead.  Simply imagine this as someone you might know.  How would you like them discussed after their death?  Please stop focusing on everything that might have been wrong about him, and let him rest in peace.
2.  Attempt to have some understanding about what may have influenced a young man to act in the way that they do, what turned them into a person that felt physical violence was a proper response.
3.  Perhaps the deceased was full of anger and hate.  But does talking about them in an angry and hateful way move us towards better future outcomes?  Of preventing future angry and hateful violence from similar individuals like the deceased?  Or having the necessary forgiveness and compassion and kindness and understanding that allow us to move on without hate?

[hwood34]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

If they can put some racial spin on it they're always interested

Racial spin only goes one way. 

"White cop who shoots black teen found to be actually satan"

"Black teen who shot white male found to be wearing NBA jersey and listen to rap music; suspected gang member"

[SpAmRaY]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

If they can put some racial spin on it they're always interested

Racial spin only goes one way. 

"White cop who shoots black teen found to be actually satan"

"Black teen who shot white male found to be wearing NBA jersey and listen to rap music; suspected gang member"

http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_27027349

4 black gang members kidnap and execute police officer....nobody cares

[osi]

Racial spin only goes one way.

I saddens me greatly to find myself mostly agreeing with this.

Spot on ray

[hwood34]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

If they can put some racial spin on it they're always interested

Racial spin only goes one way. 

"White cop who shoots black teen found to be actually satan"

"Black teen who shot white male found to be wearing NBA jersey and listen to rap music; suspected gang member"

http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_27027349

4 black gang members kidnap and execute police officer....nobody cares

yeah, guess it's whatever will make a good story.

[vivalarevolución]

In other news a Bosnian man was beaten to death by a few black kids over the weekend.. the police are saying it wasn't racially motivated, but other people that were in the area heard them yelling 'fk white people'

Sorry, don't think the news outlets are interested in dead white people.

If they can put some racial spin on it they're always interested

Racial spin only goes one way. 

"White cop who shoots black teen found to be actually satan"

"Black teen who shot white male found to be wearing NBA jersey and listen to rap music; suspected gang member"

http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_27027349

4 black gang members kidnap and execute police officer....nobody cares

People care, the national media just decided it was not worth the firestorm.  Reminds of murders in my city.  The only ones that get detailed coverage are the ones in richer parts of town or the suburbs.  Another poor black or Hispanic guy?  Not worth the attention, apparently.

[SpAmRaY]

In case anyone missed it

http://revelationnow.net/2014/12/06/ferguson-dark-forces-and-the-silver-gate/

:facepalm:

[jacobolus]

So, anyone still wondering why people were rioting?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/06/ferguson-judge-owes-unpaid-taxes-ronald-brockmeyer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/03/04/the-12-key-highlights-from-the-dojs-scathing-ferguson-report/

[cmadrid]

Its not just Ferguson, there are like 80 townships in Saint Louis county, and MOST of them shake people down for every last cent in their pockets on a regular basis

[cmadrid]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/koster-sues-st-louis-county-municipalities-over-court-fees/article_09652317-c932-55b3-ab1d-f1e0bc478c0b.html


That is just the worst offenders.. the ones that were making more than the legal limit (yeah they had to cap amount of revenue that can come from fines) in fines.. and if you can't pay them they throw you in jail.  Modern day slavery.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/

[berserkfan]

This is not the first time in economic history that a bad taxation system has caused social discontent leading to riots.

The problem is, curing this often involves a massive reworking of the local taxation system. EG homeowners will have to pay more taxes, water and sanitation charges may rise, etc. So the discontent will merely be shifted towards another group of people.

I suspect this problem will never be cured because it is not in human nature to give way and accept paying higher taxes/ vote for paying higher taxes. That's why revenue collection has to be so sleazy and target the weakest people.

Tax issues tend to be neglected by most discontented people because they are too abstract and distant. Doubtless a big part of the discontent is "police keep bothering us" and the black residents think it's a racial thing. But if you brought in a huge number of out of town black policemen, made the police force 100% black, but continued these shakedown policies, the problem will still continue. It's not as if discontented people cannot riot against police members of the same race - you get that all the time in Nigeria, Tanzania, etc.

[cmadrid]

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cooper-grills-st-louis-police-rep-for-calling-doj-report-flimsy/

Anderson Cooper tonight confronted St. Louis police spokesman Jeff Roorda after he dismissed the DOJ report on racially-motivated Ferguson policing as “flimsy.”