Merged The Disturbences in Ferguson Missouri...

Upchurch said:
I don't know if this counts:
Ferguson correctional officer faces sex charges, rape lawsuit
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Well, that's isn't really a case of a minority being targeted, is it? He took advantage of his position to rape a woman that wanted to get out of jail. I guess I'm not sure what we're driving at here. I thought the focus was on white, authority figures discriminating against minorities. Have we shifted to just authority figures?

Cl1mh4224rd said:
So... no person or group can have a reputation if you're not aware of it?
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:rolleyes: please. My point was I stay up on the news, I'm an avid reader of several forums that shed light on topics such as these. So no, while I don't expect that places don't have a reputation if I hadn't heard of them, or anything even close to as stupid, I do think if there was a longstanding issue I would have heard about it. I would have caught previous articles, mentions of it, and media attention. Especially if it's as horrible as it's claimed to be.

Instead of snide comments, do you have maybe a series of articles that have addressed the issues in Ferguson that came out PREVIOUS to the Michael Brown attack? Anything that focuses on the racism that has ran so rampant through the area, unchecked, for the previous x amount of years?
 
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plague311 said:
Well, that's isn't really a case of a minority being targeted, is it? He took advantage of his position to rape a woman that wanted to get out of jail. I guess I'm not sure what we're driving at here. I thought the focus was on white, authority figures discriminating against minorities. Have we shifted to just authority figures?



:rolleyes: please. My point was I stay up on the news, I'm an avid reader of several forums that shed light on topics such as these. So no, while I don't expect that places don't have a reputation if I hadn't heard of them, or anything even close to as stupid, I do think if there was a longstanding issue I would have heard about it. I would have caught previous articles, mentions of it, and media attention. Especially if it's as horrible as it's claimed to be.

Instead of snide comments, do you have maybe a series of articles that have addressed the issues in Ferguson that came out PREVIOUS to the Michael Brown attack? Anything that focuses on the racism that has ran so rampant through the area, unchecked, for the previous x amount of years?
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Kevin Drum has a post up about this.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/11/it-turns-out-ferguson-pretty-typical-america

Ferguson has an arrest rate of black people that's 3 times higher than non-black. But I think your request for articles that only tackled this before the Michael Brown shooting isn't totally unreasonable but maybe misses the point. The problem is that this is going on across the country, but no one really writes about it or seems to care very much. Take a look at this map. I typed in Portland and the arrest rate for black people is:

258.7
BLACK RATE
63.3
NON-BLACK RATE

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/experiments/usatoday/2014/11/arrests-interactive/

In other words, the fact that no one talked about it doesn't mean it wasn't a longstanding issue, in just about every city in America. And once people decided to finally take a look at the situation in Ferguson, they found that the situation was exactly what people were complaining about.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/22/ferguson-warrants-per-household_n_5698454.html
 
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Unabogie said:
Kevin Drum has a post up about this.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/11/it-turns-out-ferguson-pretty-typical-america

Ferguson has an arrest rate of black people that's 3 times higher than non-black. But I think your request for articles that only tackled this before the Michael Brown shooting isn't totally unreasonable but maybe misses the point. The problem is that this is going on across the country, but no one really writes about it or seems to care very much.
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I saw the arrest rate were higher, but my knee-jerk reaction was "there are also 3 times more black people in the area. Wouldn't it make sense that they make up a higher amount of arrests?" That was answered in another article that broke it down more thoroughly, in that they were arrested more per stop. I just wish there was a statistic that would show how many people of each race were arrested without cause. I believe that would be more telling than just those that were pulled over.

Unabogie said:
Take a look at this map. I typed in Portland and the arrest rate for black people is:

258.7
BLACK RATE
63.3
NON-BLACK RATE

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/experiments/usatoday/2014/11/arrests-interactive/
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Which makes me wonder about the heart of the problem. I am not saying "blacks" are the problem, but that breaks it down to 2 subsets. Black people, and those that aren't black. Those that aren't black include Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, Caucasian, etc. While I am positive that there is bias against black people, you can find a ton of sources that confirm that. Can we safely say there is a bias against minorities? And if not, why not?

Unabogie said:
In other words, the fact that no one talked about it doesn't mean it wasn't a longstanding issue, in just about every city in America. And once people decided to finally take a look at the situation in Ferguson, they found that the situation was exactly what people were complaining about.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/22/ferguson-warrants-per-household_n_5698454.html
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Is this a situation where it's just black people that are being discriminated against? I see that the article is about warrants per household, does that mean this issue goes all the way up to the judges who are signing off on this?
 
The state of Missouri is one of those with an anti racial-profiling law and part of our annual POST training (Police Officer Standards of Training) is a yearly review of this law.
This is conducted by the university of Missouri.
Despite the mandatory reporting by police agencies, the statistics compiled yearly indicate that blacks are stopped more often than whites, that Hispanics are as well, and that both of these minorities are more likely to be searched than are whites.
However, at the very same time, whites when searched have a higher rate of being arrested for being in possession of contraband....
Which indicates that a high level of stops of minorities are indeed along the lines of harrassment, and that whites are just as likely (if not more so....) to be involved in criminal enterprise.

Now it is true that in areas which have a very high percentage of a particular minority, one might expect a higher percentage of stops.....
 
Bikewer said:
The state of Missouri is one of those with an anti racial-profiling law and part of our annual POST training (Police Officer Standards of Training) is a yearly review of this law.
This is conducted by the university of Missouri.
Despite the mandatory reporting by police agencies, the statistics compiled yearly indicate that blacks are stopped more often than whites, that Hispanics are as well, and that both of these minorities are more likely to be searched than are whites.
However, at the very same time, whites when searched have a higher rate of being arrested for being in possession of contraband....
Which indicates that a high level of stops of minorities are indeed along the lines of harrassment, and that whites are just as likely (if not more so....) to be involved in criminal enterprise.

Now it is true that in areas which have a very high percentage of a particular minority, one might expect a higher percentage of stops.....
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Indeed, and the statistics for Ferguson are in the link in this post:

jimbob said:
OK, and what has that to do with the price of fish?

The answer could be evidence that the local community has lost all trust in the police.


Even if it hasn't, how does that justify the wrongful arrests that have been well documented?
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At least in his(?) the whites had a higher arrest rate, not a lower arrest rate but a higher contraband rate.
ETA formating, to highlight something slightly worse than in Bikewar's post.
 
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plague311 said:
Which makes me wonder about the heart of the problem. I am not saying "blacks" are the problem, but that breaks it down to 2 subsets. Black people, and those that aren't black. Those that aren't black include Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, Caucasian, etc. While I am positive that there is bias against black people, you can find a ton of sources that confirm that. Can we safely say there is a bias against minorities? And if not, why not?
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I don't know the answer to this. I'd say that some people like to describe it as the "original sin" of America. Slavery set in place a culture in which bigotry towards African Americans was just ratcheted up to a level not seen for other minorities. Sure, there were people who hated the Chinese, but no one passed laws specifically to exclude them (although my first house had it written in the deed that the owner couldn't sell to "Negroes, Chinese, or Jews"). Then you had the days of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and I think there existed a large subset of the country who grew up with a special resentment towards black people. They saw them as not only inferior, but also as the cause of so much of their own misery. And following Reconstruction, the entire South was just hammered by the Great Depression. So my best guess as to your answer is that yes, there's bias against all minorities (even against me for being Jewish) but that it's not as heated or vehement as that against black people. And the proof is in the statistics that we use to measure the effect. Some people would say it's "the blacks" who caused all this, but "the blacks" didn't cause slavery, nor did they create Sundown Towns or Jim Crow or demand that black children not attend their schools. The didn't cause banks to refuse to loan money to black people or cause homeowners to refuse to sell to them or flee to the suburbs when other people sold their homes to them.

Also, recall that the Ferguson area already had a police force disbanded due to rampant racial bias. And that Darren Wilson was not asked to return to his job when they attempted to reform the force. Ferguson was willing, however, to give him another shot. So was Ferguson uniquely bad? Well if they weren't, then isn't that even worse, if the status quo is that every city in America is like this?
 
Unabogie said:
<snip>
Also, recall that the Ferguson area already had a police force disbanded due to rampant racial bias.
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From the WAPO Article:
FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it.
...
Police faced a series of lawsuits for using unnecessary force, Stichnote said.
...
The Jennings department also had a corruption problem. A joint federal and local investigation discovered that a lieutenant had been accepting federal funds for drunken-driving checks that never happened
...
All the problems became too much for the city council to bear, and in March 2011 the council voted 6-to-1 to shut down the department and hire St. Louis County to run its police services


Where exactly is it claimed force was "disbanded due to rampant racial bias." ??? Did you just make that up ?

Unabogie said:
And that Darren Wilson was not asked to return to his job when they attempted to reform the force.
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From the WAPO Article:

Some of the Jennings officers reapplied for their jobs, but Wilson got a job in the police department in the nearby city of Ferguson....
The job in Ferguson represented a step up and likely a significant salary increase.
...
What he found in Jennings, however, was a mainly white department mired in controversy and notorious for its fraught relationship with residents, especially the African American majority. It was not an ideal place to learn how to police. Officials say Wilson kept a clean record without any disciplinary action.

It doesn't say that anyone was asked to return to their job in the article. And it explains why he would go to Ferguson instead.

Unabogie said:
Ferguson was willing, however, to give him another shot. So was Ferguson uniquely bad? Well if they weren't, then isn't that even worse, if the status quo is that every city in America is like this?
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Like what ? Willing to hire an officer with a clean record ?
 
TheL8Elvis said:
From the WAPO Article:
FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it.
...
Police faced a series of lawsuits for using unnecessary force, Stichnote said.
...
The Jennings department also had a corruption problem. A joint federal and local investigation discovered that a lieutenant had been accepting federal funds for drunken-driving checks that never happened
...
All the problems became too much for the city council to bear, and in March 2011 the council voted 6-to-1 to shut down the department and hire St. Louis County to run its police services


Where exactly is it claimed force was "disbanded due to rampant racial bias." ??? Did you just make that up ?



From the WAPO Article:

Some of the Jennings officers reapplied for their jobs, but Wilson got a job in the police department in the nearby city of Ferguson....
The job in Ferguson represented a step up and likely a significant salary increase.
...
What he found in Jennings, however, was a mainly white department mired in controversy and notorious for its fraught relationship with residents, especially the African American majority. It was not an ideal place to learn how to police. Officials say Wilson kept a clean record without any disciplinary action.

It doesn't say that anyone was asked to return to their job in the article. And it explains why he would go to Ferguson instead.


Like what ? Willing to hire an officer with a clean record ?
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Come on, man. The whole PD was disbanded. Are you really making the case that there was just SOP going on there and they were just disbanded on a whim? And then you go on to say that Wilson had a "clean record" at a corrupt PD? One in which all of the records were "clean"? They were cooking the books so that every one of their officers had unblemished records? Perhaps the video of Wilson threatening to arrest a man for recording him and saying "I'm gonna lock your ass up" will change your mind"

Haha, just kidding.

Look, the problems with Ferguson are well documented. They treat black people in a different way than they treat white people there, and cops like Darren Wilson are part of the problem. Perhaps he feels he has nothing in common with inner city youths.
 
TheL8Elvis said:
From the WAPO Article:
FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it.
...
Police faced a series of lawsuits for using unnecessary force, Stichnote said.
...
The Jennings department also had a corruption problem. A joint federal and local investigation discovered that a lieutenant had been accepting federal funds for drunken-driving checks that never happened
...
All the problems became too much for the city council to bear, and in March 2011 the council voted 6-to-1 to shut down the department and hire St. Louis County to run its police services


Where exactly is it claimed force was "disbanded due to rampant racial bias." ??? Did you just make that up ?



From the WAPO Article:

Some of the Jennings officers reapplied for their jobs, but Wilson got a job in the police department in the nearby city of Ferguson....
The job in Ferguson represented a step up and likely a significant salary increase.
...
What he found in Jennings, however, was a mainly white department mired in controversy and notorious for its fraught relationship with residents, especially the African American majority. It was not an ideal place to learn how to police. Officials say Wilson kept a clean record without any disciplinary action.

It doesn't say that anyone was asked to return to their job in the article. And it explains why he would go to Ferguson instead.




Like what ? Willing to hire an officer with a clean record ?
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It is the Conspiracy Theorists mantra. If you wait a while they'll forget that they've already debunked it, and if there's any difference between the two debunkings, they are lying and covering something up. Besides if you say it enough times it will eventually be true.
see the first 3 or 5 pages of this and the other thread on the brown shooting.
 
rwguinn said:
It is the Conspiracy Theorists mantra. If you wait a while they'll forget that they've already debunked it, and if there's any difference between the two debunkings, they are lying and covering something up. Besides if you say it enough times it will eventually be true.
see the first 3 or 5 pages of this and the other thread on the brown shooting.
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Wait, are you saying that Wilson's previous employer was not a corrupt PD? And that they hired some of the officers back, but not Wilson?

And things like this are just imaginary?

In four federal lawsuits, including one that is on appeal, and more than a half-dozen investigations over the past decade, colleagues of Darren Wilson’s have separately contested a variety of allegations, including killing a mentally ill man with a Taser, pistol-whipping a child, choking and hog-tying a child and beating a man who was later charged with destroying city property because his blood spilled on officers’ clothes.

One officer has faced three internal affairs probes and two lawsuits over claims he violated civil rights and used excessive force while working at a previous police department in the mid-2000s. That department demoted him after finding credible evidence to support one of the complaints, and he subsequently was hired by the Ferguson force.
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Or that the Ferguson PD wasn't purposely cooking the books so that complaints against their officers weren't shuffled away so people wouldn't find them?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...erguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie.html

Schottel got another unpleasant surprise when he sought the use-of-force history of the officers involved. He learned that before a new chief took over in 2010 the department had a surprising protocol for non-fatal use-of-force reports.

“The officer himself could complete it and give it to the supervisor for his approval,” the prior chief, Thomas Moonier, testified in a deposition. “I would read it. It would be placed in my out basket, and my secretary would probably take it and put it with the case file.”

No copy was made for the officer’s personnel file.
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You're right about debunking, though. It's already been debunked that claiming that a cop with a "clean record" in Ferguson doesn't actually mean much.
 
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Unabogie said:
Come on, man. The whole PD was disbanded. Are you really making the case that there was just SOP going on there and they were just disbanded on a whim? And then you go on to say that Wilson had a "clean record" at a corrupt PD? One in which all of the records were "clean"? They were cooking the books so that every one of their officers had unblemished records? Perhaps the video of Wilson threatening to arrest a man for recording him and saying "I'm gonna lock your ass up" will change your mind"

Haha, just kidding.

Look, the problems with Ferguson are well documented. They treat black people in a different way than they treat white people there, and cops like Darren Wilson are part of the problem. Perhaps he feels he has nothing in common with inner city youths.
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Knocking down strawman does not advance your claim.

You claimed that the Jennings PD was "disbanded due to rampant racial bias."

The article you quoted makes no such claim. You provided no evidence.
 
TheL8Elvis said:
Knocking down strawman does not advance your claim.

You claimed that the Jennings PD was "disbanded due to rampant racial bias."

The article you quoted makes no such claim. You provided no evidence.
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Sure, what if I change that to rampant corruption and intractable racial tensions?

FERGUSON, Mo. — The small city of Jennings, Mo., had a police department so troubled, and with so much tension between white officers and black residents, that the city council finally decided to disband it. Everyone in the Jennings police department was fired. New officers were brought in to create a credible department from scratch.

That was three years ago. One of the officers who worked in that department, and lost his job along with everyone else, was a young man named Darren Wilson.

Some of the Jennings officers reapplied for their jobs, but Wilson got a job in the police department in the nearby city of Ferguson.
Click to expand...
 
Unabogie said:
Sure, what if I change that to rampant corruption and intractable racial tensions?
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Wouldn't the fact that you can find this information so easily (including multiple lawsuits, internal affairs probes and investigations), and that Officer Wilson was NOT named in any of them, lend him credibility?

Obviously things were getting reported at some point. I absolutely agree that everything wasn't reported, written down, and properly documented. That much is very clear just from the evidence provided, and the mistakes that have come to light through this trial\investigations.

The undeniable truth is that at least a portion of it got some recognition, somewhere. You can find it with ease online, and Wilson wasn't caught up in any of that mess. Nothing can be found on Wilson previous to the Brown case, and I guarantee people with more access to privileged information than you and I have been searching constantly. Even when he went to Ferguson. We had 1 ******** video made by a random woman, that remained unidentified. claiming something about milk, and that Wilson was a real jerk. She had absolutely nothing to back it up, and we haven't heard from her since. Then this latest incident with Arman, that really hasn't shown me much personally. It kind of seems like a "he said\he said", and a random exchange with someone that was trying to skirt a warrant that was being delivered. At the very least Arman was doing his best to be a pain in the ass, and it ended up getting him arrested.

My point is he's been a cop for 7 years, and we MAYBE have 1 case of him kind of being a jerk. Then the woman, which, whatever. Believe what you'd like, and the Brown case. Which is still really up in the air. I can't believe that he has an established history of being a bad cop. I've made more than 3 mistakes at my job this month.
 
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Look. Some.people will do anything to be able to call someone else racist. The fact is that a cop will be called racist by some individuals any time he (or she) is even mildly critical of a minority.
Hell it doesn't even have to be a criticism. Ithe can be as minor as advising someone of a hazzard.I got called racist once when I told a little girl about 4 years old that she shouldn't be eating that popcorn and drinking the cokes left laying on the floor between the seats at the football stadium. Mom's friends had to hustle her off before she got violent....
 
This recent discussion took place after I said that the *department* had a reputation for racism.

Given the disparity in search rates, and arrest rates there is very strong evidence that blacks in Ferguson have been targeted by police. Officer Wilson's individual behaviour is almost irrelevant to me - beyond being involved in the incident that brought events to a head.

The fact that locals claimed that there was a problem has been borne out by statistics, the treatment of innocent people during the riots, and by the revelations of membership of the Klan.

The Anonymous photo of the webcam showing a Confederate flag in the St Louis police chief's home, if true, would be at best... evidence of an unhelpful private attitude.
 
plague311 said:
I must have, thanks. After reading through both of those I stick by what I said. I hadn't heard of Ferguson before the Michael Brown instance, and neither of those articles dictate that I should have. There have never been protests previous to this instance, nor have their been any public outcries. While it seems there is a bias, I don't see the local people have really voiced it before this.
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OK, so you don't think that you should have heard of Ferguson before the riots. Do you agree that whether or not there was a *reputation* for racism, there is plenty of evidence that the department has been treating blacks differently to whites?
 
jimbob said:
OK, so you don't think that you should have heard of Ferguson before the riots. Do you agree that whether or not there was a *reputation* for racism, there is plenty of evidence that the department has been treating blacks differently to whites?
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Read the part that you quoted, I blatantly stated it in my post.
 
I believe they were just going to make some more entrances to stores to help alleviate possible stampeding for the upcoming free gift holiday shopping season.
 
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