Ferguson judge withdraws all warrants issued before 2015 as part of sweeping changes to the local judicial system. Municipal Court judge Donald McCullin appointed in June also changed the conditions for pretrial release. All defendants will be given new court dates with alternative penalties like payment plans or community service. A report from the Justice Department revealed that the Court and the city (PD) engaged in in "pattern and practice" of discrimination against African- Americans. An exclusive CNNMoney analysis earlier this month found Ferguson was still pumping out thousands of new arrest warrants and jailing people over minor offenses. Ferguson issued more than 2,300 new arrest warrants for the year compared to the year before, thousands of old warrants remain active.
CNN, AC360

and rioting, burning, looting should be legalized, if not already.

These are all minor offenses.. traffic tickets, parking tickets, they didnt cut their grass, etc. It isnt discrimination against African Americans.
I dont know about the rest of the country, but if you go to any small municipality in the South, youll see police depts and judges going crazy over these small infractions. Speed traps.....set up by police dept in townships of maybe 100-500 people....are notorious there...the "police" are notorious ticket writers...usually kin to the mayor. Its damn near extortion...."Here, pay the speeding ticket at our "city hall" and we wont report it to the state Dept of Motor Vehicles". And the guy that takes your money is usually the mayor lol. And I can guarantee you that they are just as **** about ALL offenses....no matter how minor.
Its discrimination of all citizens....the majority of the ones in Ferguson just happen to be African American.


Edit....And an.al is censored?! WTH?

Enough said right there for me. CNN...
I did take the time to google this for other links there were a couple and as Mr. Archer states this is a common practice; that in light of the events in Ferguson hopefully will ease some of the tension. But who knows

Yeah, I guess the Justice Department just runs around chasing meter maids. There was one thing they didn't seem to think was minor about the offenses, people being jailed over them. Oh another thing those people were disproportionately black. Oh, there was one more thing something about unjust penalties, then there being no pretrial release.... So it's more than one thing, ergo the sweeping change. I think it has something to do with justice, maybe that's why the Justice Department sent people there.

Again....those things happen all over. The only reason the Justice Dept was sent there was to hopefull satisfy those promoting the 'Hands up, don't shoot' facade in some way.

No. Few people even knew that they were in Ferguson, their presence wasn't publicly announced until after they had conducted their investigation. They don't have flashing lights and sirens. The Justice Department doesn't release findings of an investigation that prove "patern and practice" of discrimination against African-Americans (indicating patterns of police action and unlawful practice by the courts) unless it's a big problem and, according to them, it is. They wouldn't be changing court dates and restructuring the fees and penalties unless they were a problem indicative of said discrimination and, according to them it is.

I'm with RebelArcher on this - somewhat.

See, the law screws the poor six ways from Thursday.

It happens that many of the poor are also black. If this were a Venn Diagram, there'd be a lot of overlap. In many suburbs like Ferguson, the population is overwhelmingly black AND poor, while the cops are not.

It can be difficult to disentangle how much of the harassment is "because black" and how much is "because poor".

There is certainly some of both. I'd say there's a lot more "because black", but it is definitely mixed in with "because poor". No Capitol cop has thrown down Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas yet, as far as I know.

The studies I have seen tend to support this. Personally, I have been poor but have never been black, and anecdotal evidence isn't statistical evidence at all anyhow.

S.

Edit: also throw in a big box of "because young". Older farts (I was young once, too) seem to get a lot more hassle than their elders. S.

Would agree that the local PD in Ferguson was out of control in regards to issuing tickets to blacks. The arrest warrants for things like not mowing lawns is ridiculous. Most cities have a bylaw that gives a maximum length for the grass. They send a notice to cut it. If you don't a city employee does it, and they add it to your property tax bill. This way the city gets its money and no one has to go to jail.

The news report I watched spoke of a black woman who had a car parked in her own driveway that didn't have current registration tags on it, as she couldn't afford to drive it. The cops wrote her a ticket and fined her, and of course she can't pay the fine. So now she has a bench warrant out for her arrest on the unpaid fine.

We all know cities use tickets and bylaw enforcement to generate cash. The ticket you get for a noise violation because 'someone called the city to complain'. If your car, parked in your driveway happens to have a bumper hanging 2 inches over the sidewalk, you get a ticket because 'someone complained' that you were blocking the sidewalk. Maybe you have even engaged in the criminal act of planting flowers too close to the street! *gasp*

Glad to see however that there is going to be some relief from this overzealous policing. Just wondering however if all these arrest warrants will be expunged from the system so that it doesn't affect peoples background checks for a job? I wonder if your 'conviction' for the overgrown lawn shows up when you apply for jobs? Are these people being listed as a convicted criminals in various government databases? Have these 'convictions' ever led to people being denied employment? If so, is there a case to be had against the city for maliciously creating this criminal record? Hmmmmmm....

Ferguson is definitely not the only town issuing crap tickets to fund the town. Dont know about Canada, but its a big issue here....at least in alot of Southern states.
An example from my state, the town of Washington, population 900 or so:

"" Critics call it a notorious speed trap.
A state House committee approved two bills
Tuesday to trim speeding tickets issued in
Washington .
“It is far and away the worst speed trap in
the state of Louisiana,” said state Rep. Alan
Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, and the sponsor of
both bills.
One of the proposals, House Bill 565, would
require towns with home rule charters,
which Washington has, to turn over
revenue from speeding tickets of less than
10 miles per hour over the speed limit to
the Louisiana Highway Safety Fund.

The votes followed testimony by Seabaugh
that Washington collected $1.3 million in
fines and forfeitures for the financial year
that ended June 30, 2013, according to a
state report.
That accounted for 84 percent of the town’s
revenue, figures show, which was good for
fourth statewide.
The $1.3 million collected was easily tops in
the state.
Seabaugh said local law enforcement
officials routinely write speeding tickets for
motorists traveling one or two miles over
the speed limit on a tiny stretch of
Interstate 49.
Seabaugh said a 2009 state law requires
revenue from speeding tickets for less than
10 mph over the speed limit to be turned
over to the state but exempts cities and
towns with home rule charters.""
http://theadvocate.com/news/legislature/8971802-123/house-panel-approves-two-bills

Sorry, most of the article was about several bills to stop speed traps so I only posted the part about the specific town of Washington.
There are definitely more...a 190 mile stretch of Hwy 165, between Monroe and Lake Charles is littered with these towns. The speed limit will go from 65 to 25 in several spots....and you can bet Deputy Do-rite and his trusty ticket book are nearby

City ordinances, are city ordinances.
Nobody should be exempted from laws that apply to everyone, simply because they're black, or poor.

I seem to recall stories amongst the adults when I was a kid back in the late 60's about how out of state plates always seemed to get ticketed.

Friend of the family was somewhere down south in a town with one stop light. As he pulls up to the intersection, the light goes from green to yellow to red in a split second.

Of course, sitting across the street in his po-leece vee-hick-le is the deputy. The fine for blowing the red light was something outrageous like $275 in 1968. Complaining that there is no way the light can change that fast, the deputy is having none of that and says he'll give the driver 24 hours to pay up, and he can avoid jail.

Not having the cash in his pocket, the driver has has make arrangements to get money. The only pay phone in town is in a drugstore. He makes the call back to Canada to arrange for money to be wired to him. Looking out the window, he's staring at the lights when he hears two fast mechanical clicks, and sees the lights change in a split second.

Whipping his head around, he sees the pharmacist looking down at the floor. Hanging up the phone our driver goes around the counter and sees a pedal on the floor! Someone apparently would sit on a stool all day looking down the road for out of state plates. The lights were rigged via the pedal, and the deputy merrily wrote tickets all day long. He simply charged people whatever he thought they could afford, and extorted the money under penalty of being jailed.

Our driver smartly goes out to his car, grabs the family camera, snaps a few pics of the pedal under the counter, and says he'll call in the state police if his ticket didn't disappear.

Suddenly they were all friendly, and saying oh, they didn't mean anything by it, that's how they razzed the tourists around here. All good clean fun, don't ya know. No need to call anyone, of course they never meant to really make him pay the ticket.....

Years ago, when I was younger there was a judicial system that included "common sense". The judicial system now includes money instead. I preffered the old way.

If a person doesn't wish to be fined,
they should obey the laws.

If a person doesn't wish to be jailed, for not paying fines. The deadbeats should have obeyed the laws that apply to everyone.

I got pulled over in Pa for going 70 in a 65 and the ticket was $35 plus $110 for an array of fees...

$145 for going 5mph over the speed limit... That is straight up robbery...

yea, Galveston charged me over 300 dollars for going 60 in a 55... i never went back to that chithole rip off mecca...

U.S. Census, African-American make up approximately 13% of the population. Ferguson MO has an African-American population of approximately 13%. Recently how much of the shootings there by police have involved the other 87% of the populace? What are incarceration statistics for African-American males Nationwide? Very high. It's not JUST policing for profit. It's not JUST poverty. It's not JUST a lack of decent jobs. It's not JUST the poor quality education. It's not JUST externally sourced drugs no one in Ferguson has control of protecting shipments across 1/4 to 1/2 of the country depending on the port of entry. It's not JUST the influx of 'stolen' (illegaly trafficked) guns and ammunition. It's NOT just Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, RDU, L.A., Miami, D.C., Cincinnati, Nashville, NYC, or any other hotspots. It's not JUST major metropolitan and suburban 'sleepy towns'. Cleveland, L.A. NYC, Chicago are going to be studied regularly. Maybe not with the correct focus so as not to openly admit to the public what many already suspect IS going on because WE DO NEED LAW AND ORDER. When things that are so abhorrently flawed that the DECENT LAW ABIDING CITIZENS (also referred to as non-combatants) become literally shooting targets for people who are SUPPOSED to be protecting us ALL, things need to change PEACEFULLY.

When 84% of SWAT deployments have African-American targets, in Ferguson, and they make up 13% of the population.... 16% of the SWAT activity focused on ALL OTHER ethnicities, this is where the focus needs to be.
You can't deny that these things are happening. They do happen everywhere but not with the same frequency with all of the above happen to African-American 'suspects' or targets and definitely not the upswing of the trend of bypassing due process unnecessarily executing on the spot. You all acknowledge that all the above complaints many your own personal complaints voluntarily submitted is not the way for Police or legislation or ordinance or signage changes, rigged ticket and speed traps doesn't make us safer. What makes us safer is when we realize that 'business as usual' is illegal, PEACEFULLY come TOGETHER as AMERICANS and decide that we are tired of the way things are and it's OUR DUTY as citizens to take the hard road towards PEACEFUL resolution by exposing the corruption and holding EVERYONE ACCOUNTABLE.
All these problems raise taxes and destabilize our country from within and it's been going too far for far too long.

I believe Mr. RockGnome lives in a world where all laws are perfectly fair and enforced without delay and equitably among everyone.

There would be no injustice in such a world.

I would ask if any cop has ever let him go with a warning.

Or if statistics show how much more minorities are incarcerated for the same crimes that others get merely a ticket for. How bail is set for a variety of defendants. And where judges don't get bribed to send certain kids to jail.

I would like to hear of such a world, as I believe it would be equally likely that there unicorns grew on trees.

It is practically an axiom that those who believe that laws should be equally enforced are those who have benefited from unequal enforcement.

Read 'Three Felonies A Day' (google it) and then report yourself for your 20-year to life stint.

Thank you,

S.

Iran or Putin's Russia might be better Place to live then?

If there is a place of such truly cosmic perfection then I should go there.

That some places have flaws does not imply that others don't have worse. Acting to correct those flaws does not imply that it's always better somewhere else.

Absolutism like "love it or leave it" is not an argument.

S.