DOJ report on racism and shakedown-artistry in the Ferguson PD

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@BrainGlutton

Then just read the highlights.

I’ve read that. It’s mostly a summary of the report’s conclusions. What’s your point?

[Czarcasm]

@Shodan

All except Eric Holder, apparently.
Actually it reminds me of the circumstances of the Michael Brown shooting. Rob a convenience store, assault a clerk, then walk down the middle of the street in broad daylight with the stolen goods in your hand, and then attack the cop who confronts you. Some people are looking for trouble, and it usually finds them sooner or later. That’s not racism; it is a law of the universe.

It reminded you to drop in a non sequitur?

[puddleglum]

@Richard_Parker

There are differences in specific kinds of drug use. The overall difference in whether a white person or black person is likely to be a drug user is not large, and is much smaller than the racial disparity in policing and enforcement of drug crimes.

I provided cites that said black people are 20% more likely to self report using drugs and 6 times more likely to under report drug use in self report. Given that the estimates of black drug use are therefore unreliable how can you know what the actual racial disparity should be?

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Richard_Parker

Yes, racist emails don’t automatically mean those same people engaged in racist practices as employees. Yes, individual incidents of intentionally racist stops don’t mean that there is a systemic problem. Yes, overarching statistics showing racial disparity in virtually every category don’t mean some third factor isn’t accounting for the disparity. Yes, widespread police admissions that they consider African-Americans to be less responsible does not mean that they profile based on race.

I’m not sure if any of this was intended to address things I’ve said. If so, I don’t see it.

But no reasonable person looks at all of that together and says Holder just had an axe to grind.
So, naturally, people who want to avoid difficult conclusions just won’t read the report.

This is not the only instance in this thread of you jumping to attribute people’s disagreements with you about specific points to their overall attitudes about the broader issues.

Meanwhile you yourself are a professional civil rights lawyer. Hmm …

[Shodan]

@Richard_Parker

They state numerous times that the disparities in contraband findings controlled for the justification for the search, which means they controlled for whether it was a search incident to arrest, a search for probable cause, or something else.

One instance:

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.

I don’t think a search incident to an arrest is at the officer’s discretion - is it? Thus I don’t see that a search incident to an arrest is a function of racism.
[QUOTE=Bone]

That’s a pretty obvious dodge. Is it a bad idea to act like a dick to a police officer - Yes. Should that non-criminal behavior be grounds for arrest? I say no. The law says no. Do you say no? Do you gain something by avoiding that answer?
[/QUOTE]
The police have discretion, to some extent. I am OK with them using that discretion and arresting this dumbass under the circumstances described.

They tried not to arrest him, but he insisted. Yes, that’s OK.

Regards,
Shodan

[Shodan]

@Czarcasm

It reminded you to drop in a non sequitur?

No, it reminded me of the incident that triggered the whole investigation.

Regards,
Shodan

[Shodan]

@puddleglum

They went through six years of email and found six emails sending racially insensitive jokes. Apparently none were found in the last 3 years. That is very weak evidence.

Plus, at least one of them was making the same point about abortion and crime rates as was made in Freakonomics. Maybe they need to investigate the library system if they find a copy of Steven Leavitt’s book on the stacks.

Regards,
Shodan

[Miller]

@astorian

Tell you what- pick some gloriously liberal city in a solidly blue state. Portland, say, or San Francisco.

Then, show me whether the Ferguson PD’s rate of stopping and/or arresting black men is disproportionately higher than it is in those nicer, more progressive cities.

Right. Because nobody ever complains about racism in the police departments of Los Angeles or New York.

[XT]

@Miller

Right. Because nobody ever complains about racism in the police departments of Los Angeles or New York.

Can’t we all just get along?

:eek: Don’t taze me, Miller…!

[BrainGlutton]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I’ve read that. It’s mostly a summary of the report’s conclusions. What’s your point?

It also includes excerpts from the report. But the point is, now you can debate those conclusions, one by one. And now anyone can respond to you with quotes from the whole report (and so can you, if you wish).

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Shodan

Plus, at least one of them was making the same point about abortion and crime rates as was made in Freakonomics. Maybe they need to investigate the library system if they find a copy of Steven Leavitt’s book on the stacks.

Wow. No.

Freakonomics suggested that some percentage of the reduction in crime was due to increased rates of abortion.

The email in question said:

“An African-American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.’”

There’s a tiny, a wee, a miniscule bit of difference between these two, and I bet you can figure out what it is.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@BrainGlutton

It also includes excerpts from the report. But the point is, now you can debate those conclusions, one by one. And now anyone can respond to you with quotes from the whole report (and so can you, if you wish).

Why are you starting from the premise that I want to debate the conclusions of the report one by one?

I’ve asked about one specific (and IMO very fundamental) claim in an excerpt from the report which was posted to this thread. That’s it.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@puddleglum

They went through six years of email and found six emails sending racially insensitive jokes. Apparently none were found in the last 3 years. That is very weak evidence.

No.

@Report

We have discovered evidence of racial bias in emails sent by Ferguson officials, all of whom are current employees, almost without exception through their official City of Ferguson email accounts, and apparently sent during work hours. These email exchanges involved several police and court supervisors, including FPD supervisors and commanders. The following emails are illustrative [emphasis added]…
Our review of documents revealed many additional email communications that exhibited racial or ethnic bias, as well as other forms of bias. Our investigation has not revealed any indication that any officer or court clerk engaged in these communications was ever disciplined. Nor did we see a single instance in which a police or court recipient of such an email asked that the sender refrain from sending such emails, or any indication that these emails were reported as
inappropriate.
…
We did find one instance in 2012 in which the City Manager forwarded an email that played upon stereotypes of Latinos, but within minutes of sending it, sent another email to the recipient in which he stated he had not seen the offensive part of the email and apologized for the “inappropriate and offensive” message. Police and court staff took no such corrective action, and indeed in many instances expressed amusement at the offensive correspondence.

So, seven (not six) emails were used for illustration. There were many more. One was from 2012, and folks were laughing at it. And the ones they used for illustration might have been from a few years ago, but they were sent by police and court supervisors still employed by Ferguson. Unless you think that all of these racists have had epiphanies in the last few years, the evidence isn’t as weak as you claim.

[Richard_Parker]

@puddleglum

I provided cites that said black people are 20% more likely to self report using drugs and 6 times more likely to under report drug use in self report. Given that the estimates of black drug use are therefore unreliable how can you know what the actual racial disparity should be?

Your cite said “African American underreporting may well be a function of the particular sample and not ethnicity,” and that “One possible reason for this ethnic difference is that cocaine metabolites have been detected at a higher rate in African American hair than in other racial groups, which appears independent to specific laboratory procedures.” They did not reach the same conclusion you do about disparate underlying rates of drug usage. Indeed, given the high correlation between self-reporting and use for all other drugs other than cocaine, the study would suggest that the SAMSHA is pretty reliable when we’re talking about a given individual’s likelihood to have some contraband drugs on him.

@Shodan

I don’t think a search incident to an arrest is at the officer’s discretion - is it?

It is discretionary. Some departments might require it, I guess. But not all do. I don’t know about Ferguson, though based on this report it seems likely that they search all black people.

But that’s missing the point, anyway. They found disparities regardless of the reason for the search.

[Richard_Parker]

nm

[astorian]

@Richard_Parker

That’s the problem here. You regard this as an attack on your conservative identity. Well, get over your own ego. This isn’t about your political identity. I’m sure Chicago is just as bad.

If Chicago is just as bad, why is Eric Holder searching for racism in a small suburb like Ferguson instead of a huge city like Chicago?

When did Ferguson, Missouri become the headquarters of racism and corruption in the world?

[Bone]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

Why are you starting from the premise that I want to debate the conclusions of the report one by one?

Maybe it was this (my bold):

@Fotheringay-Phipps

…But that said, it could also be that the FPD is a hotbed of racism, and I’m not claiming otherwise. If it’s something that could easily be demonstrated then I’m interested, but not enough to read through extensive reports about.

The report is available, and you are free to read it, or not. You said you were interested and the information you are interested in is at your disposal. I usually find claims that celebrate ignorance suspect.

In any event, here are some excerpts if you are genuinely curious:

The racially disparate impact of Ferguson’s practices is driven, at least in part, by intentional discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Racial bias and stereotyping is evident from the facts, taken together. This evidence includes: the consistency and magnitude of the racial disparities throughout Ferguson’s police and court enforcement actions; the selection and execution of police and court practices
that disproportionately harm African Americans and do little to promote public safety; the persistent exercise of discretion to the detriment of African Americans; the apparent consideration of race in assessing threat; and the historical opposition to having African Americans live in Ferguson, which lingers among some today. We have also found explicit racial bias in the communications of police and court supervisors and that some officials apply racial stereotypes, rather than facts, to explain the harm African Americans experience due to Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement. “Determining whether invidious discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor demands a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available.” Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977). Based on this evidence as a whole, we have found that Ferguson’s law enforcement activities stem in part from a discriminatory purpose and thus deny African Americans equal protection of the laws in violation of the Constitution.

…

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. The odds of these disparities occurring by chance together are significantly lower still.

There are more examples in the report. Ferguson PD is shit. The whole city management and revenue focus of the court system there needs to be destroyed.

[Richard_Parker]

@astorian

If Chicago is just as bad, why is Eric Holder searching for racism in a small suburb like Ferguson instead of a huge city like Chicago?

It’s hard to understand this as something other than a rhetorical question. But then, as a rhetorical question, I don’t see what you’re trying to say. So I’ll just explain to you as if you were really asking:

Ferguson is probably no worse than many places in terms of racially disparate policing and enforcement of crimes. It may well be worse in terms of how tied its revenue is to policing, the extent of municipal court corruption, and the disparity in black/white political power given the demographics. In any event, the DOJ conducted an investigation there because an unarmed black man was killed, leading to protests and nationwide news coverage. It is not the only DOJ investigation. It is one of many. It is getting more coverage for the same reason the underlying incident got more coverage.

[magellan01]

@Richard_Parker

Most of the evidence we have about crime rates comes from policing. Since the neutrality of policing is the very subject we’re investigating, it isn’t very helpful to know that the police arrest and prosecutors charge and convict more black people or more poor people.

When we get statistics about crime unconnected to policing–as when we ask about drug use, or theft from employers–we find that there are not significant racial disparities. Indeed, if the policing of drug use alone reflected the actual underlying use rates, that would go a long way toward making the whole system less racist.

I encourage you to read the DOJ report. I think a lot of the speculation you might come up with in order to find non-racist explanations is dealt with directly in the report.

That has nothing to do with my question. My question has to do with the percent of crimes of the types mentioned that one should expect to come from the poorest 67% of an all-white town the size of Furgeson. Here it is again:

It is my understanding that blacks in Furgeson largely represent the lower end of the economic spectrum. I would think that in any town, most of the crime would come from the lower economic strata.

So, ignoring Furgeson for a moment, let’s say that 67% of Sometown, USA is poor. And Sometown is 100% white. What percentage of the type of crime mentioned would you expect to come from the poorest 67%? Would you expect 67%? More? Less? I would think it likely that the 67% would be responsible for a disproportionately large amount of all crime. So it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the 67% was responsible for 75, 80, 90% of all crime.

So based on my hypothetical, would you agree that the poorest 67% being responsible for more than 67% would seem logical?

You don’t need to read the report to be able to answer what I’m asking.

[Richard_Parker]

@magellan01

That has nothing to do with my question.

Then we are disconnecting on some fundamental level, because it sure seems directly responsive to me.