Posted on 02/17/2015 8:35:19 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In weighing whether to bring discrimination charges against the Ferguson Police Department, the Justice Department has been “seriously examining” allegations that the city’s enforcement of minor offenses discriminated against minorities and often led to jail times and fines that lined the city’s coffers, a law enforcement official confirmed to POLITICO.
Department lawyers handling the investigation have repeatedly met with lawyers for a St. Louis non-profit that filed a federal lawsuit last week alleging that the city of Ferguson and its neighbor, Jennings, were running what amounted to modern-day debtors’ prisons, people familiar with the meetings said.
The organization, Arch City Defenders, has been investigating for months allegations that the city of Ferguson engaged in a pattern of discrimination and encouraged its police department to target low-income residents and jail those who could not pay the fines.
Thomas Harvey, executive director of Arch City Defenders, told POLITICO that he and his colleagues have consulted Justice Department lawyers and that he met one-on-one with Christy Lopez, the deputy chief of the department’s Civil Rights Special Litigation Section. Lopez has been tasked with leading the Justice Department’s larger investigation into the Ferguson police.
“All discussions [with the Justice Department have focused on what we believe to be a connection between the allegations of police misconduct and the erosion of trust between members of communities of color and their government,” Harvey said.
In public comments Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t discuss the direction of the federal probe, but emphasized that he expects the investigation to wrap up by the time he leaves office — likely within the next few weeks.
“I’m satisfied with the progress that we have made, and also I’m comfortable saying that I’m going to be able to make those calls before I leave office,” Holder told reporters at the National Press Club Tuesday.
Ferguson became a focus of national attention last August after Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was killed by a Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, leading to civil rights protests.
In announcing its investigation into the shooting, the Department of Justice said it would examine whether or not the Ferguson Police Department has “engaged in systemic violations.”
Arch City Defenders joined with the St. Louis University Law School and another non-profit, Equal Justice Under Law, to bring the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The private lawsuit filed against the city details a number of plaintiffs who claim local police mistreated them. The lawyers are seeking class-action status to broaden the scope of the charges.
Alec Karakatsanis, a lawyer with the non-profit Equal Justice Under Law, says that the pattern of fines and arrest warrants each year in Ferguson creates an “everyday brutality” that “fundamentally alters the relationship between police and community,” which the lawyers believe contributed to the animus behind Michael Brown’s shooting.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on whether this alleged culture of mistrust created by excessive fines and debtors’ jails could play a role in the department’s investigation.
But the department gave a hint of its thinking on the issue in a filing last Friday in another federal case against the city of Clanton, Alabama. In that case, the Department of Justice argued that “[i]ncarcerating individuals solely because of their inability to pay for their release, whether through the payment of fines, fees, or a cash bond, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
In the Ferguson matter, the Department of Justice decided in January not to pursue charges against Officer Wilson. But it previously authorized a second autopsy of Michael Brown, and Attorney General Holder met personally with Brown’s family and local officials in Ferguson last year.
The private lawsuit alleges that the city of Ferguson has violated citizens’ constitutional rights by placing them in unsanitary, overcrowded jails for outstanding debt to the city. These jails, the lawyers claimed, are often coated in mucus, dirt and feces. Jails in neighboring Jennings have reported two suicides in the last two years.
The Ferguson Police Department, the lawsuit claims, excessively fined residents because of pressure to generate revenue for the town. Missouri law limits the amount of a city’s operating budget that can come from traffic fines to 30 percent, though the New York Times reported that many cities either ignore this law or fail to report their figures.
Various Missouri lawmakers have proposed reducing the state’s cap on the portion of a city’s budget that can come from tickets to 10 percent.
The Ferguson Police Department last week issued a statement disputing the lawsuit’s claims, asserting that no prisoner is held in city jails for more than 72 hours, that the jails are sanitary and that those in custody have access to “toilet, wash-basin, and drinking water.”
“We believe this lawsuit is disturbing because it contains allegations that are not based on objective facts,” Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III said in a statement.
But Harvey believes that his investigation could provide key insight into the anger exhibited by protesters after Michael Brown’s shooting. “They’re just pissed off because they’re being exploited; they’re not dangerous.”
What “Justice Department”? We don’t have one of those anymore.
How’s that examination of Fast and Furious going?
They’ll have to sue every city in town in America because the entire judicial system is a racket designed to fleece money from the public.
I think they said “seriesly” ie: serially.
Over and over they look for something, anything... anything!
We should just exempt “all black folks” or Negro folks, etc., from any and all prosecution or imprisionment, along with the illegal folks, and lock up all the white folks
“the Justice Department has been “seriously examining” allegations that the city’s enforcement of minor offenses discriminated against minorities and often led to jail times and fines that lined the city’s coffers,”
Translation: We couldn’t make anything stick against Darren Wilson, so now we’re going for the consolation prize of indicting the PD.
Now, I have no doubt that the claim that minor offenses were used to line the city coffers. That’s pretty much standard procedure for a lot of PD’s these days. Those parking tickets and moving violations add up. Where I start fine tuning my skepticism detector is that it is automatically evidence of discrimination.
Ferguson is nearly 70% African-American. It stands to reason that more black people than white or hispanic would be getting ticketed for this or that. Unless there is concrete evidence that white offenders were getting a pass (and I’m not saying that isn’t a possibility, I just don’t think it’s a likely one) for the same minor infractions, this is just more grandstanding and political damage control for Holder and his DoJ.
Holder’s last gasp of incompetence.
This used to be called the “shuck and jive” maneuver.
Please don’t give them any ideas.
Investigate the City of San Francisco and their parking laws.
Obama/Holder racist harassment. Scumbags till the end, and beyond.
This is the same tactic the doj uses to mandate mosques in small towns. Basically, you will comply or they will bankrupt you in courts.
Segregation of the races is the answer. Maybe the Ferguson Police department needs to fire the white officers and hire only blacks. Then there would be no racism and crime in the land of Ferguson. Gee Wally, why didn’t someone think of that?
/S
If a majority of the population in a municipality is on welfare (as is likely the case in Ferguson) that doesn’t leave much of a tax base. Using the PD as a revenue collection agency is a practice I despise, but it’s hardly unique to Ferguson. If that’s what the Feds’ case consists of, it’s nothing.
Isn’t a second set of charges by a different entity double jeopardy?
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