The Ongoing State of Ferguson/Systemic Racial Prejudice in the USA

[Landlord]

There was a lot of sentiment over this board over the last several months towards Ferguson, Eric Garner, and other similar situations, and the protests that followed. Lot of people of the opinion that the rioting/protesting wasn't a good response, was a waste of time, didn't accomplish anything and in fact hurt the case of the people trying to make the case for justice, etc.

 

 

Yet here we are in the aftermath of all of that, and Ferguson's police chief is out. The city manager is out. The municipal judge is out, two police supervisors are out, and the city's top clerk are all out.

 

Why?

 

Because the Department of Justice started doing some digging. They found incontrovertible proof of gross racial bias within the police department. They also found staggering numbers that led to the conclusion that the city's police department and courts had been institutionally compromised and geared towards raising revenue from citizens rather than protecting citizens, evidenced by such things as unconstitutional policing, lack of due process, and excessive force.

 

Why does this matter?

 

Because the DOJ investigation happened as a direct result of the pressure caused by the response of the citizens.

 

In other words, the protests led to the eradicating of several exploitive leaders who helped cultivate and manage an exploitive, racist, oppressive system.

 

Now what is really interesting is that the DOJ report also cleared Darren Wilson of wrongdoing in the shooting of Michael Brown. So, in essence, the individual and specific event that led to this nation-wide protest against a lack of justice was actually, in fact, a just result, but what it represented to the people crying out against it, namely a web of systems in our country that continue to oppress and operate with prejudice, were and are very much legitimate concerns.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/ferguson-police-chief-resigns-following-doj-report-411900995644

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/department-justice-civil-rights-violations-investigation-ferguson

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gangsters-Of-Ferguson/386893/

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-robinson/the-shocking-finding-from-the-doj-ferguson_b_6858388.html

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts?

[NUance]

The Ferguson protesters lost a lot of support after the two police officers got shot yesterday. LINK

[BigRedBuster]

I still have no idea what exactly happened on the day of the Brown shooting.

 

it is very clear the police department in that city had major problems with racism. It is also clear that Brown on that day was overly agressive to other people.

 

Both of those are wrong but other than that we don't know squat about what happened.

 

From that came the protests that (I my opinion) were done in a wrong way that created violence and actually hurt their cause and more innocent people.

 

Change is being made and a healing process needs to happen.

 

Here is something that bugs the hell out of me about the police getting shot. Yes, it's bad and the people who did it need to be punished. However, there is a part of me that gets pissed when I hear media say..." They were shot just because they were police". Well, in my mind, the police are in large part responsible for the tensions that caused the shooting due to their racism and actions. So, spare me the pity train.

 

Fix the Fing racist problem.

[JJ Husker]

Ferguson? I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[True2tRA]

Would be interesting to see all the other places that would have very similar outcomes if a little more digging was done.

[JJ Husker]

Here is something that bugs the hell out of me about the police getting shot. Yes, it's bad and the people who did it need to be punished. However, there is a part of me that gets pissed when I hear media say..." They were shot just because they were police". Well, in my mind, the police are in large part responsible for the tensions that caused the shooting due to their racism and actions. So, spare me the pity train.

Fix the Fing racist problem.

So, it's ok to shoot specific, individual police officers because their police department has a known, general racist problem? You might need to back the truck up a couple pity partys. Or, do you know for a fact that every police officer is a racist and deserves to be shot?

[BigRedBuster]

Where did I say that? I said the people need to be caught and punished.

[JJ Husker]

Where did I say that? I said the people need to be caught and punished.

But you also insinuated that they had it coming because they are racist. Thought the pity train comment maybe went a bit too far. The police officers who were shot had spouses, children, friends, and to my knowledge, it has not been proven those specific officers were racists. I understand that PD has issues. I'm not so sure the individual harmed officers do.

[strigori]

I think what happened in Ferguson is probably pretty common, particularly in smaller towns. The first issue is why were the systemic problems not brought out earlier. These smaller towns (21,000 in Ferguson's case) even having SWAT teams and armored vehicles is Orwellian. These small towns have little to no oversight, can run the town like the leader's own little fiefdom. Larger communities will get more oversight from the various news media and national organizations like the ACLU. Small towns have a much easier time silencing critics than large cities do.

[Landlord]

The most insane thing I've seen with all of this is that Ferguson has 21,000 residents.

 

 

There are 16,000 warrants out for arrests. Almost every single person in that city is supposedly a wanted criminal by the police department.

[JJ Husker]

The most insane thing I've seen with all of this is that Ferguson has 21,000 residents.

 

 

There are 16,000 warrants out for arrests. Almost every single person in that city is supposedly a wanted criminal by the police department.

 

Where are you seeing this? Something doesn't sound even close to right here.

[BigRedBuster]

 

Where did I say that? I said the people need to be caught and punished.

But you also insinuated that they had it coming because they are racist. Thought the pity train comment maybe went a bit too far. The police officers who were shot had spouses, children, friends, and to my knowledge, it has not been proven those specific officers were racists. I understand that PD has issues. I'm not so sure the individual harmed officers do.

I said it's bad what happened. I said the people who did it needed punished. They didn't deserve it any more than a black guy ending up shot from simply being black and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

The pity train comment stands with the media. When I heard their comments they were making it out to sound like the police had nothing to do with causing the problems.

 

That's BS.

[BigRedBuster]

I think what happened in Ferguson is probably pretty common, particularly in smaller towns. The first issue is why were the systemic problems not brought out earlier. These smaller towns (21,000 in Ferguson's case) even having SWAT teams and armored vehicles is Orwellian. These small towns have little to no oversight, can run the town like the leader's own little fiefdom. Larger communities will get more oversight from the various news media and national organizations like the ACLU. Small towns have a much easier time silencing critics than large cities do.

BS. On the "particularly in small towns comment"

[Landlord]

 

The most insane thing I've seen with all of this is that Ferguson has 21,000 residents.

 

 

There are 16,000 warrants out for arrests. Almost every single person in that city is supposedly a wanted criminal by the police department.

Where are you seeing this? Something doesn't sound even close to right here.

 

 

 

Check the links I provided.

 

 

 

 

 

In the city of Ferguson, nearly everyone is a wanted criminal.

That may seem like hyperbole, but it is a literal fact. In Ferguson -- a city with a population of 21,000 -- 16,000 people have outstanding arrest warrants, meaning that they are currently actively wanted by the police. In other words, if you were to take four people at random, the Ferguson police would consider three of them fugitives.

It turns out that nearly everyone in the city is wanted for something. Even internal police department communications found the number of arrest warrants to be "staggering". By December of 2014, "over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court." The report makes clear that this refers to individual people, rather than cases (i.e. people with many cases are not being counted multiple times). However, if we do look at the number of cases, the portrait is even starker. In 2013, 32,975 offenses had associated warrants, so that there were 1.5 offenses for every city resident.

That means that the city of Ferguson quite literally has more crimes than people.

To give some context as to how truly extreme this is, a comparison may be useful. In 2014, the Boston Municipal Court System, for a city of 645,000 people, issued about 2,300 criminal warrants. The Ferguson Municipal Court issued 9,000, for a population 1/30th the size of Boston's.

[strigori]

 

I think what happened in Ferguson is probably pretty common, particularly in smaller towns. The first issue is why were the systemic problems not brought out earlier. These smaller towns (21,000 in Ferguson's case) even having SWAT teams and armored vehicles is Orwellian. These small towns have little to no oversight, can run the town like the leader's own little fiefdom. Larger communities will get more oversight from the various news media and national organizations like the ACLU. Small towns have a much easier time silencing critics than large cities do.

BS. On the "particularly in small towns comment"

 

Why would you call BS? Unchecked power has a tendency to corrupt. If the system in a large city was operating the same way Ferguson's was, there would be all sorts of media investigations. And in all likelihood there would have been law suits years ago. But who watches little towns?