How municipalities in St. Louis County, Missouri profit from poverty

Washington Post ^ | 9/3/2014 | Rodney Balko

[iowamark]

On March 20th in the St. Louis County town of Florissant, someone made an illegal U-turn in front of Nicole Bolden. The 32-year-old black single mother hit her brakes, but couldn’t avoid a collision...

“He was really nice and polite at first,” Bolden says. “But once he ran my name, he got real mean with me. He told me I was going to jail. I had my 3-year-old and my one-and-a-half year old with me. I asked him about my kids. He said I had better find someone to come and get them, because he was taking me in.” The Florissant officer arrested and cuffed Bolden in front of her children. Her kids remained with another officer until Bolden’s mother and sister could come pick them up.

The officer found that Bolden had four arrest warrants in three separate jurisdictions: the towns of Florissant and Hazelwood in St. Louis County, and the town of Foristell in St. Charles County. All of the warrants were for failure to appear in court for traffic violations. Bolden hadn’t appeared in court because she didn’t have the money. A couple of those fines were for speeding, one was for failure to wear her seatbelt, and most of the rest were for what defense attorneys in the St. Louis area have come to call “poverty violations” — driving with a suspended license, expired plates, expired registration, and a failure to provide proof of insurance.

The Florissant officer first took Bolden to the jail in that town, where Bolden posted a couple hundred dollars bond and was released at around midnight. She was next taken to Hazelwood and held at the jail there until she could post a second bond. That was another couple hundred dollars...

[Eric Blair 2084]

Second: She was fined for driving with a suspended license - I wonder why her license was suspended.

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The worst thing to see is what I saw In Municipal Court last time I got a speeding ticket. Six illegal immigrants all driving without a license at all. And they stroll up to the judge with their anchor baby in the car seat after finding somebody in the hallway who speaks Spanish to translate for them. Then they smile smugly knowing that they can’t do anything to them. They take their $500 fine and then a two year license suspension for a license they don’t have and go on their merry way. And these are the people who are driving on the same road as our families.
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Also, she had failed to wear a safety belt - I wonder if she was equally negligent when it came to buckling up her children.
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I got $20 that says 80% of the people reading this were driven home from the hospital after being born with their mother in the passenger seat holding them without a seatbelt.