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The Justice Department is preparing to bring a lawsuit against the Ferguson, Missouri, police department over a pattern of racially discriminatory tactics used by officers, if the police department does not agree to make changes on its own, sources tell CNN.
Attorney General Eric Holder said this week he expects to announce the results of the department's investigation of the shooting death of Michael Brown and a broader probe of the Ferguson Police Department before he leaves office in the coming weeks.
While racial discrimination, especially by police officers, is nothing to frown upon, I'm going to wait to review the evidence before coming to a conclusion on this matter. One thing is for certain, though, if the DOJ uses the Michael Brown incident as an example of racial profiling (note, the DOJ isn't going to pursue Federal civil rights charges against the Brown case police officer as there's no evidence to substantiate that he violated Brown's civil rights), then we'll know soon enough whether this case has legs or is an attempt to pander to the "BlackLivesMatter" crowd. I hope that it isn't the latter as it would be a severe abuse of government power.
What evidence is there that the Ferguson Police Department is guilty of widespread racial profiling? The town is like 70% black. Common sense would dictate that given the numbers most of the people stopped, ticketed or arrested are going to be black. Aren't there more significant problems facing our country than the goings on in some podunk town in Missouri?
What evidence is there that the Ferguson Police Department is guilty of widespread racial profiling? The town is like 70% black. Common sense would dictate that given the numbers most of the people stopped, ticketed or arrested are going to be black. Aren't there more significant problems facing our country than the goings on in some podunk town in Missouri?
There can certainly be widespread racial profiling (I'm assuming that the administration is going to claim bias against blacks) even with Ferguson's makeup. Heck, the town could be 100% black and the police force be guilty of profiling, specifically profiling by color, in violation of Federal civil rights law; for this example, I'm thinking of a recent case where a Federal appeals court ruled, and correctly so in my view, that a dark-skinned black woman could maintain a lawsuit against her former employer for "color" discrimination as the former employer was alleged to have said that the women wasn't promoted because she was "too dark." This despite the employer promoting multiple black workers to high positions; if the allegations are true, these were light-skinned blacks, though. Note, for widespread racial profiling, we're ultimately talking about systematic, unwarranted targeting of people based on race; ultimate demographics aren't necessarily instructive if there is proof of intent.
Having written that, its certainly a taller order to prove racial discrimination (if the case was that strong, the DOJ just wouldn't be giving the Department a chance to "change" their ways and would be suing for damages, etc.) under the circumstances, which is why I'm very curious to see what kind of evidence the DOJ supposedly has.
Note, for widespread racial profiling, we're ultimately talking about systematic, unwarranted targeting of people based on race; ultimate demographics aren't necessarily instructive if there is proof of intent.
Well, all this will accomplish is to make a lot of money for lawyers at the expense of the local taxpayers. If the rioting and burning wasn't bad enough for Ferguson business, now the remaining people there who pay taxes will be driven out by this pointless lawsuit.
Lol, this comes under the heading, We have to do something, and is simply the latest example of the DOJ's overreach.
Let's see...school districts are being threatened with a DOJ lawsuit if they [gasp!] suspend or or otherwise discipline black students excessively (to be determined by a gub-ment beancounter/bureaucrat, of course), the DOJ sued Family Dollar and BMW for running [gasp!] background checks on propspective employees because they were excluding from consideration a disproportionate number of blacks, the DOJ sued a school district for its grooming policy, etc., etc. The cases are legion.
The Ferguson issue was simply an excuse, and is the latest example of the DOJ's busybody encroachment policy.
The DOJ is not the only ones who do this, all agencies with respective enforcement duties do this, it is an issue I wish would come to light more in the US.
It goes something like this;
An agency will investigate an entity for whatever reason, could be legitimate, could be frivolous. After committing resources to the investigation and not finding any wrong doing, the agency will search for anything and everything in order to "get credit" for the work and resources put into it. The end result of this will be an agreement between the entity and the agency over a few frivolous BS violations, which the entity actually technically did violate, or the entity feels it is not worth the resources to combat against, but the fact is the violations have nothing to do with the original investigation, nor are they serious, they are most often just paperwork issues.
So at the end of the day, the agency "gets credit" for finding something, often will spin it into a positive light related to what the original investigation was.
My SIL (white) was a cop in a major metro area, and he was assigned to patrol an area that was in excess of 90% black population. His partner was black.
A defense attorney challenged my SIL on the stand during a perps prosecution, as to whether or not he was a racist, since over 80% of his arrests were blacks - as was the defendant. My SIL explained the racial make up of the community, and that his arrest percentage was actually lower than what should be expected based on community demographics. All well and good.
The attorney then put my SILs partner on the stand and accussed him of being a racist, too. The stunned cop looked at the attorney and said "Dude, I'm BLACK!"
I am beginning to wonder if that attorney was Eric Holder in his younger years.
Last edited by Tuck's Dad; 02-19-2015 at 06:23 PM..
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...school districts are being threatened with a DOJ lawsuit if they [gasp!] suspend or or otherwise discipline black students excessively (to be determined by a gub-ment beancounter/bureaucrat, of course), the DOJ sued Family Dollar and BMW for running [gasp!] background checks on propspective employees because they were excluding from consideration a disproportionate number of blacks, the DOJ sued a school district for its grooming policy, etc., etc. The cases are legion.
