DOJ: Ferguson PD descrimination against blacks is routine

[jimbob]

The part about traffic stops has been prominent in this thread and in the news media, and presented as indisputable proof that Ferguson is targeting blacks. And the report is using a methodology they previously acknowledged as being improper and fatally flawed.


A few anecdotes does not a pattern make, and their attempts to establish a pattern is marred by a methodology that they previously acknowledged as being insufficient and misleading.

Corroborated anecdotes stories about behaviour are evidence. Supervisory staff sending racist jokes on their work email is evidence. Given the numbers involved: 54 officers in total and the patrol consisting of 28 patrol officers, four sergeants, and one captain, these anecdotes involving "several officers" are evidence of malpractice by a significant proportion of the FPD.

One officer freely admitted to exceeding his lawful authority, and said that's what his training told him to do. This is not simply an anecdote.

In our conversations with FPD officers, one officer admitted that when he conducts a traffic stop, he asks for identification from all passengers as a matter of course. If any refuses, he considers that to be “furtive and aggressive” conduct and cites—and typically arrests—the person for Failure to Comply. The officer thus acknowledged that he regularly exceeds his authority under the Fourth Amendment by arresting passengers who refuse, as is their right, to provide identification. See Hiibel, 542 U.S. at 188 (“[A]n officer may not arrest a suspect for failure to identify himself if the request for identification is not reasonably related to the circumstances justifying the stop.”); Stufflebeam v. Harris, 521 F.3d 884, 887-88 (8th Cir. 2008) (holding that the arrest of a passenger for failure to identify himself during a traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment where the passenger was not suspected of other criminal activity and his identification was not needed for officer safety). Further, the officer told us that he was trained to arrest for this violation.

We also know that the FPD is pretty shambolic in a lot of its procedures, which would do little to check malpractice.

The section in the DoJ report detailing the use of force is particularly shocking. Some edited highlights:

FPD’s stated practice is to maintain use-of-force investigation files for all situations in which officers use force. We reviewed the entire set of force files provided by the department for the period of January 1, 2010 to September 8, 2014.17 Setting aside the killing of animals (e.g., dogs, injured deer) and three instances in which the subject of the use of force was not identified, FPD provided 151 files. We also reviewed related documentation regarding canine deployments. Our finding that FPD force is routinely unreasonable and sometimes clearly punitive is drawn largely from FPD’s documentation; that is, from officers’ own words.

Similarly, in November 2013, a correctional officer fired an ECW at an African-American woman’s chest because she would not follow his verbal commands to walk toward a cell. The woman, who had been arrested for driving while intoxicated, had yelled an insulting remark at the officer, but her conduct amounted to verbal noncompliance or passive resistance at most. Instead of attempting hand controls or seeking assistance from a state trooper who was also present, the correctional officer deployed the ECW because the woman was “not doing as she was told.” When another FPD officer wrote up the formal incident report, the reporting officer wrote that the woman “approached [the correctional officer] in a threatening manner.” This “threatening manner” allegation appears nowhere in the statements of the correctional officer or witness trooper. The woman was charged with Disorderly Conduct, and the correctional officer soon went on to become an officer with another law enforcement agency.

These are not isolated incidents. In September 2012, an officer drive-stunned an African-American woman who he had placed in the back of his patrol car but who had stretched out her leg to block him from closing the door. The woman was in handcuffs. In May 2013, officers drive-stunned a handcuffed African-American man who verbally refused to get out of the back seat of a police car once it had arrived at the jail. The man did not physically resist arrest or attempt to assault the officers. According to the man, he was also punched in the face and head. That allegation was neither reported by the involved officers nor investigated by their supervisor, who dismissed it.

In January 2013, a patrol sergeant stopped an African-American man after he saw the man talk to an individual in a truck and then walk away. The sergeant detained the man, although he did not articulate any reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. When the man declined to answer questions or submit to a frisk—which the sergeant sought to execute despite articulating no reason to believe the man was armed—the sergeant grabbed the man by the belt, drew his ECW, and ordered the man to comply. The man crossed his arms and objected that he had not done anything wrong. Video captured by the ECW’s built-in camera shows that the man made no aggressive movement toward the officer. The sergeant fired the ECW, applying a five-second cycle of electricity and causing the man to fall to the ground. The sergeant almost immediately applied the ECW again, which he later justified in his report by claiming that the man tried to stand up. The video makes clear, however, that the man never tried to stand—he only writhed in pain on the ground. The video also shows that the sergeant applied the ECW nearly continuously for 20 seconds, longer than represented in his report. The man was charged with Failure to Comply and Resisting Arrest, but no independent criminal violation.

and most damningly:

Perhaps the greatest deviation from FPD’s use-of-force policies is that officers frequently do not report the force they use at all. There are many indications that this underreporting is widespread. First, we located information in FPD’s internal affairs files indicating instances of force that were not included in the force files provided by FPD. Second, in reviewing randomly selected reports from FPD’s records management system, we found several offense reports that described officers using force with no corresponding use-of-force report. Third, we found evidence that force had been used but not documented in officers’ workers compensation claims. Of the nine cases between 2010 and 2014 in which officers claimed injury sustained from using force on the job, three had no corresponding use-of-force paperwork. Fourth, the set of force investigations provided by FPD contains lengthy gaps, including six stretches of time ranging from two to four months in which no incidents of force are reported. Otherwise, the files typically reflect between two and six force incidents per month. Fifth, we heard from community members about uses of force that do not appear within FPD’s records, and we learned of many uses of force that were never officially reported or investigated from reviewing emails between FPD supervisors. Finally, FPD’s force files reflect an overrepresentation of ECW uses—a type of force that creates a physical record (a spent ECW cartridge with discharged confetti) and that requires a separate form be filled out. It is much easier for officers to use physical blows and baton strikes without documenting them. Thus, the evidence indicates that a significant amount of force goes unreported within FPD. This in turn raises the possibility that the pattern of unreasonable force is even greater than we found.

When supervisors are sending racist jokes in work emails including the second-ranking officer in the force, and when many people report being racially abused by the police, I find an innocent explanation for the disparity in the search rate to be implausible. There is strong circumstantial evidence that the arrest rate disparity is also due in part to racial bias.

 

[jimbob]

WildCat.

Do you think that there is anything wrong with FPD at the moment, if so what?

What is OK?

 

[Upchurch]

The political stuff is where they make all kinds of allegations that would be illegal if they were factual and provable and yet they don't sue or bring charges in court.

Holder says he’s ‘prepared’ to dismantle Ferguson police department if necessary Plus, several officers have already been fired. This thing clearly isn't done playing out yet.

Ferguson officials will likely have to enter into an agreement or negotiate a settlement with the Department of Justice to change their police and governmental practices. If they do not, the government can bring a civil rights lawsuit against the city on behalf of its citizens.

Early days...

Are you handwaving away the rest of the report, too?

 

[Newtons Bit]

The political stuff is where they make all kinds of allegations that would be illegal if they were factual and provable and yet they don't sue or bring charges in court.

The DoJ claimed that the majority of the uses of lethal force in Albuquerque over the past several years have been unconstitutional, and yet they haven't pressed charges against a single APD officer. It's fairly standard operating procedure for them.

 

[WildCat]

Corroborated anecdotes stories about behaviour are evidence. Supervisory staff sending racist jokes on their work email is evidence. Given the numbers involved: 54 officers in total and the patrol consisting of 28 patrol officers, four sergeants, and one captain, these anecdotes involving "several officers" are evidence of malpractice by a significant proportion of the FPD.

One officer freely admitted to exceeding his lawful authority, and said that's what his training told him to do. This is not simply an anecdote.

​

We also know that the FPD is pretty shambolic in a lot of its procedures, which would do little to check malpractice.

The section in the DoJ report detailing the use of force is particularly shocking. Some edited highlights:

and most damningly:

​

When supervisors are sending racist jokes in work emails including the second-ranking officer in the force, and when many people report being racially abused by the police, I find an innocent explanation for the disparity in the search rate to be implausible. There is strong circumstantial evidence that the arrest rate disparity is also due in part to racial bias.

None of that, even if 100% true, supports the claim that "discrimination against blacks is routine".

 

[WildCat]

WildCat.

Do you think that there is anything wrong with FPD at the moment, if so what?

What is OK?

All the things documented are hardly unique to Ferguson, and I'm just not seeing evidence that the policies are aimed at blacks or other minorities. Go to all-white areas in other parts of the country and you'll find the same crap. I've always been concerned with excessive fines, the charging of court fees to contest a case that exceed the fine, civil forfeiture laws, and all the other abuses of power. But fixing this in Ferguson only would be perverse, while other cities from Maine to California are doing the same thing. It reeks of scapegoating and grandstanding for purely political reasons.

It's also the inevitable result of the "war on drugs" which is 100% supported by Holder, Obama, and a good chunk of the people outraged over the practices in Ferguson. If these things really concern them they would be pushing for a major reform of the drug laws, but IMHO this is all just grandstanding political asshattery.

Holder says he’s ‘prepared’ to dismantle Ferguson police department if necessary Plus, several officers have already been fired. This thing clearly isn't done playing out yet.



Early days...

Are you handwaving away the rest of the report, too?

Under what authority does Holder intend to do that? And anyone can threaten a lawsuit, whether or not they think they have evidence to win the case. If all these practices are so bad why are they just threatening Ferguson and not the other tens of thousands of states, counties, and cities that are doing the exact same thing? Where is the call for legislation ending such practices nationwide? Where is the leadership? It's like you have a house that's rotting away, fixing one floor joist, and saying "job done". This is why this whole thing reeks of political grandstanding, and there is no real concern over the issues raised.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

State Judge to Take Charge of City Cases in Ferguson

 

[jimbob]

I agree that the problems are wider than Ferguson. The report ws investigating the practices within that municipality. It did refer to neighbouring municipalities but it would need a far larger investigation to produce a similarly detailed report that you want.

Such an investigation would not invalidate the results of this report.

I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that racism is a reasonable explanation when malpractice by an organisation disproportionately affects blacks and senior members of that organisation are openly racist in their work.

 

[jimbob]

None of that, even if 100% true, supports the claim that "discrimination against blacks is routine".

That wasn't the point of the my examples there - although the victims were overwhelmingly black. It is that FPD didn't even document what they were doing.

Similarly, we know about recorded vehicle stops, but have no numbers for pedestrian stops.

As for the "even if 100% true" bit - these were either claims by FPD officers or video evidence. There is no doubt about those happening, unless you think officers deliberately were trying to make themselves look bad to the DoJ?

Actually the Department of Justice said pretty much what I've been saying in a 2013 publication by its research arm. Note to mods: this is a government report and not subject to copyright law.

Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops

<snip>
•A study in Cincinnati found that black drivers had longer stops and higher search rates than white drivers. However, when the researchers matched stops involving black drivers with similarly situated white drivers, those stopped at the same time, place, and context (reason for the stop, validity of the driver's license, etc.), they found no differences. Their conclusion was that differences in the time, place, and context of the stops were the cause of the longer stops and higher search rates. [11]

http://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/Pages/traffic-stops.aspx

But hey, keep on telling yourselves the Ferguson report wasn't political.

The report does state the following:

African Americans are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops even after controlling for non-race based variables such as the reason the vehicle stop was initiated, but are found in possession of contraband 26% less often than white drivers, suggesting officers are impermissibly considering race as a factor when determining whether to search. African Americans are more likely to be cited and arrested following a stop regardless of why the stop was initiated and are more likely to receive multiple citations during a single incident.

Which suggests the authors have addressed that issue.

 

[SezMe]

WildCat.

Do you think that there is anything wrong with FPD at the moment, if so what?

What is OK?

It seemed a fairly straightforward question that you danced around but never gave a direct answer. Care to try again?

 

[Checkmite]

Under what authority does Holder intend to do that? And anyone can threaten a lawsuit, whether or not they think they have evidence to win the case.

LOL.

Yesterday: "If the DOJ really thought something was wrong, why aren't they suing?"

Today: "So what if they're threatening a lawsuit? That doesn't mean anything!"

If all these practices are so bad why are they just threatening Ferguson and not the other tens of thousands of states, counties, and cities that are doing the exact same thing? Where is the call for legislation ending such practices nationwide? Where is the leadership? It's like you have a house that's rotting away, fixing one floor joist, and saying "job done". This is why this whole thing reeks of political grandstanding, and there is no real concern over the issues raised.

You really have absolutely no clue what exactly is going on in this situation and how it all works.

The DOJ investigates when a specific claim of a civil rights violation is received - that is one of its authorized tasks under the law. It does not pick random police departments to audit for civil rights violations.

 

[ponderingturtle]

If that was what was happening in Ferguson the DoJ would be suing instead of issuing a report.

That is happening everywhere. Including Ferguson. Why don't you accept this? They had the same issues in their report, why they are not acting on these violations of the constitutional rights I don't know but that doesn't mean they are not happening.

Why are you citing the existence of a report to say that it doesn't mean what the report says?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Holder says he’s ‘prepared’ to dismantle Ferguson police department if necessary Plus, several officers have already been fired. This thing clearly isn't done playing out yet.



Early days...

Are you handwaving away the rest of the report, too?

The existence of the report invalidates the material in the report, aren't you following along?

 

[Upchurch]

The existence of the report invalidates the material in the report, aren't you following along?

I have learned that if the theory doesn't fit the data, then there must be something wrong with the data.

Also, if WildCat could just put forth the idea that the cops doing the racist stuff are No True FPD Officer, I'll have Logical Fallacy BINGO!

 

[jimbob]

All the things documented are hardly unique to Ferguson, and I'm just not seeing evidence that the policies are aimed at blacks or other minorities. Go to all-white areas in other parts of the country and you'll find the same crap. I've always been concerned with excessive fines, the charging of court fees to contest a case that exceed the fine, civil forfeiture laws, and all the other abuses of power. But fixing this in Ferguson only would be perverse, while other cities from Maine to California are doing the same thing. It reeks of scapegoating and grandstanding for purely political reasons.
It's also the inevitable result of the "war on drugs" which is 100% supported by Holder, Obama, and a good chunk of the people outraged over the practices in Ferguson. If these things really concern them they would be pushing for a major reform of the drug laws, but IMHO this is all just grandstanding political asshattery.

The first highlighted part. Policies don't need to be discriminatory if there are inadequate safeguards and racists are allowed to act against people within their own discretion.

The second highlighted bit. Why would it be perverse to fix something that is clearly wrong? Also what is so wrong with "political motivations". There is nothing wrong with that in the correct place.

I don't agree that this is a consequence of the war on drugs, as contraband was more likely to be found in searched cars driven by whites than by blacks.

Despite being searched at higher rates, African Americans are 26% less likely to have contraband found on them than whites: 24% of searches of African Americans resulted in a contraband finding, whereas 30% of searches of whites resulted in a contraband finding. This disparity exists even after controlling for the type of search conducted, whether a search incident to arrest, a consent search, or a search predicated on reasonable suspicion. The lower rate at which officers find contraband when searching African Americans indicates either that officers’ suspicion of criminal wrongdoing is less likely to be accurate when interacting with African Americans or that officers are more likely to search African Americans without any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. Either explanation suggests bias, whether explicit or implicit.40 This lower hit rate for African Americans also underscores that this disparate enforcement practice is ineffective.

These disparities in the outcomes that result from traffic stops remain even after regression analysis is used to control for non-race-based variables, including driver age; gender; the assignment of the officer making the stop; disparities in officer behavior; and the stated reason the stop was initiated. Upon accounting for differences in those variables, African Americans remained 2.07 times more likely to be searched; 2.00 times more likely to receive a citation; and 2.37 times more likely to be arrested than other stopped individuals. Each of these disparities is statistically significant and would occur by chance less than one time in 1,000.42 The odds of these disparities occurring by chance together are significantly lower still

Indeed, controlling for other factors, the disparity in speeding tickets between African Americans and non-African Americans is 48% larger when citations are issued not on the basis of radar or laser, but by some other method, such as the officer’s own visual assessment. This difference is statistically significant.

I suppose blacks might just be more likely to speed in front of a police car without a speedgun?

What would you consider evidence of discrimination?

How about this?

During our investigation, FPD officials told us that their police tactics are responsive to the scenario at hand. But records suggest that, where a suspect or group of suspects is white, FPD applies a different calculus, typically resulting in a more measured law enforcement response. In one 2012 incident, for example, officers reported responding to a fight in progress at a local bar that involved white suspects. Officers reported encountering “40-50 people actively fighting, throwing bottles and glasses, as well as chairs.” The report noted that “one subject had his ear bitten off.” While the responding officers reported using force, they only used “minimal baton and flashlight strikes as well as fists, muscling techniques and knee strikes.” While the report states that “due to the amount of subjects fighting, no physical arrests were possible,” it notes also that four subjects were brought to the station for “safekeeping.” While we have found other evidence that FPD later issued a wanted for two individuals as a result of the incident, FPD’s response stands in stark contrast to the actions officers describe taking in many incidents involving black suspects, some of which we earlier described.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ferguson City Manager Resigns
The city manager of Ferguson, Mo., who a Department of Justice report said was responsible for overseeing the city’s operations as it engaged in racially biased and unconstitutional policing practices, has resigned.
The announcement came during a City Council meeting on Tuesday, about a week after the scathing Justice Department report.
The manager, John Shaw, 39, had held the post since 2007.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/us/ferguson-city-manager-resigns.html?emc=edit_na_20150310

 

[newyorkguy]

To so blatantly combine law enforcement with revenue production is un-American.

In an email from March 2010, the year Chief Thomas Jackson took his post, the city’s finance director wrote to the chief that “unless ticket writing ramps up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly raise collections next year.”

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There's a class action law suit brewing in there somewhere.

 

[jimbob]

There's a class action law suit brewing in there somewhere.

I hope so, and whilst I disagree with a lot of what WildCat has said - the report said that Ferguson is very similar to a lot of neighbouring municipalities. Hazelwood looks pretty bent.

As an aside - upthread, dudalb mentioned Hazard county. Is that idea of a small corrupt police force fairly common in US popular culture?

The number of independent forces within Missouri (and presumably other states) with overlapping jurisdictions, looks insane to me, and can't be remotely efficient as far as resource use is concerned.

In the UK the police website lists the following police forces for 65-milllion people:

Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Bedfordshire Police
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Cheshire Constabulary
City of London Police
Cleveland Police
Cumbria Constabulary
Derbyshire Constabulary
Devon & Cornwall Police
Dorset Police
Durham Constabulary
Essex Police
Gloucestershire Constabulary
Greater Manchester Police
Hampshire Constabulary
Hertfordshire Constabulary
Humberside Police
Kent Police
Lancashire Constabulary
Leicestershire Police
Lincolnshire Police
Merseyside Police
Metropolitan Police Service
Norfolk Constabulary
North Yorkshire Police
Northamptonshire Police
Northumbria Police
Nottinghamshire Police
South Yorkshire Police
Staffordshire Police
Suffolk Constabulary
Surrey Police
Sussex Police
Thames Valley Police
Warwickshire Police
West Mercia Police
West Midlands Police
West Yorkshire Police
Wiltshire Police
Northern Ireland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
Police Scotland

Dyfed-Powys Police
Gwent Police
North Wales Police
South Wales Police


British Transport Police
Central Motorway Policing Group
Civil Nuclear Constabulary (formerly UKAEA Constabulary)
Ministry of Defence Police
Port of Dover Police
The National Crime Agency (NCA)


ETA: and I know that my county (Derbyshire, population 1-million) is considering merging its police force with neighbouring forces as it is considered a bit too small for efficiencies.

 

[Checkmite]

As an aside - upthread, dudalb mentioned Hazard county. Is that idea of a small corrupt police force fairly common in US popular culture?

It is a common plot device. To urbanites, there is something chilling about the idea of a tiny town that nobody ever stops in, having a 2-to-3-man police department capable of disappearing you into the town jail, with no way to contact family or a lawyer, or heck even an outside police agency or an impartial judge.