Ferguson resists DOJ's effort to be nice....

[Wrabbit2000]

Ferguson has accepted, on principle, the overall consent decree with the US Department of Justice. That is, in principle. In specifics? It isn't quite so easy, and Ferguson apparently feels they can wiggle a better deal out of the DOJ. 

Statement from Head of the Civil Rights Division Vanita Gupta Regarding Ferguson, Missouri, City Council Vote on Proposed Consent Decree

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, released the following statement regarding the Ferguson, Missouri, City Council vote on the proposed consent decree with the Department of Justice: 

“The Ferguson City Council has attempted to unilaterally amend the negotiated agreement.  Their vote to do so creates an unnecessary delay in the essential work to bring constitutional policing to the city, and marks an unfortunate outcome for concerned community members and Ferguson police officers.  Both parties engaged in thoughtful negotiations over many months to create an agreement with cost-effective remedies that would ensure Ferguson brings policing and court practices in line with the Constitution.  The agreement already negotiated by the department and the city will provide Ferguson residents a police department and municipal court that fully respects civil rights and operates free from racial discrimination.

“The Department of Justice will take the necessary legal actions to ensure that Ferguson’s policing and court practices comply with the Constitution and relevant federal laws.”

(The Full DOJ Release is Quoted Above)


This is another of the stories I found great use for my multiple monitors to watch from several perspectives at once. Basically, it was a focus for quite some time for me, especially given its proximity and how it touched my own local politics and issues in some ways. Having said that for perspective? 

#1. I've accepted the DOJ result of the shooting being a clean one. Questionable...borderline..I think goes without question. However, a Department of Justice LOOKING for an outcome to hang the cop...couldn't find basis, and so I accept that as a valid outcome for those reasons.

#2. The St Louis area has powerful, deep and very dark racial issues which are unique to that metro area, recent enough to be within current living memory of enough people to matter, and recent enough for the worst of it historically, to be just one generation back for living memory. 

#3. That was, and as far as I know, still IS one 'cracker white' police department, who has multiple officers from other agencies who sounded to have had a racially charged history in their own dealings with the public. This...in a city that has changed in demographics within just a generation or two, from quite white as a suburb of St Louis to something damn near inner city in some ways. Demographics of the community changed...the department didn't, and it seemed to uphold the "best" traditions of a racial past most of us in Missouri would prefer NOT become more a focus of national attention. (sigh)

A boy died, and he shouldn't have. He brought that on by his own actions...MORE SO...(but not entirely, IMO) than the cop who put him down. The cop is no longer in that department, and MUCH more has changed...most by some degree of force. Still...The Department he represented is very much there and a very BIG problem to the local community.


If Ferguson cannot take things the nice and easy way ....then I hope they get very thoroughly edumucated on how much this is NOT an "Obama Presidency thing" that will go away or improve at the end of the year. Oh....I'll party when Obama and his racist henchmen are gone ...and I'll still root for the DOJ to give that city a first class enema by force of law and whatever decency the DOJ still has to muster above politics. 

Quite a thing... but.. as they say?

This is one time I'll actually enjoy seeing the full weight of the US Justice Dept end up having to do something the hard way. Whatever....Justice people get their result, either way. As the hicks in Ferguson are bound to realize. Of course, any up for re-election to any position within the city at all, I'd write off as needing new work just as quickly as the locals get a ballot before them to vote with.

[Wrabbit2000]

By the way, as the election season approaches....I think it is very important to note...

! ! THIS is why it is CRITICAL that people VOTE ! !

The President of the United States or your state Senators and Congressional Representatives may have something to do with how your police are armed, how your city is equipped and how well it is (or is not) supported and maintained by federal dollars. This...is true. It is also true that the system is stacked SO radically in favor of incumbents (look up The franking privilege as just one institutional aspect of that stacking).....at the NATIONAL LEVEL.....that I can understand and even come to agree with people who say our system has become or is getting to be outright rigged.

However......

I can see and I can understand, down to the mechanics and the necessary corruption with where it has to happen, just how national elections are stacked and, yes, outright rigged at times.

I CANNOT see (and I've been a voter, and watcher of the process my entire adult life) how you could rig the National races (at least 2, and usually more for every state, every general election, without exception), *AND* the State elections for statehouse senators/reps, *AND* the Governor's race, *AND* the 100,000's of thousands of little races around the nation, which are all on the same ballots and would add complexity beyond comprehension to meddle with and pass muster in even cursory count checks or further looks. 

No...Our National system is first rigged by sheer apathy and the carefully nurtured appearance of something less than entirely open at the caucus level. Then...it VERY well MAY be jiggered in countless little ways, by countless individuals across the system, for contributing to rigged outcomes.

----

Bottom line after all that? Voting matters ...because The President, your 2 Senators and your gaggle of Representatives don't set direct tone and policy, as well as select and hire the personnel that enforce your laws at the level YOU see it on a daily basis. Your Mayors do. Your city council's do. Your school boards do. 

These are all elected positions, and before anyone says all those races can be rigged? Lets recall something else. You....and yes, I mean you, if you're American. You...can be a poll watching volunteer. You and your friends can pool your numbers to effectively watch a majority if not ALL of the polling stations, from an accepted and official position of doing so, across the entire area which matters for city/county leaders. ....The people who actually DO set daily tones...policies...fines...and the aggression levels of those who enforce it all. 

Vote...because it always matters on the local level. So few do, that every vote in THAT frame of measure and that level of looking at things *DOES* matter.

[Wrabbit2000]

Well, it didn't take Justice long to start the process of doing it the hard way. In fact, you might just say it was same day service. 

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is suing the city of Ferguson in an attempt to forcibly overhaul the city’s troubled police and court operations, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday.

The decision comes hours after city leaders sought to revise a long- negotiated settlement, citing prohibitive costs of executing such a deal.

“There is no cost for constitutional policing,'' Lynch said late Wednesday.

Source


Lynch strikes me as someone I might not agree with for the day's weather or current time of day ...but I have to agree with her on this one. 

The Ferguson City "Leaders" may as well resign en masse, as this stage. It only gets worse from here, and they own every last bad part of how this all plays out. 

As the story notes, they JUST pretty much agreed to this, then, "Oh, golly, it costs THAT much? Oh oh oh..wait..we can't do THAT!" ...huh?!?!?

26 WEEKS of negotiations is what the story indicates happened here, then the City Council and Mayor toss the last best chance they'll ever get to remain something like an independent city with control left in their hands to any degree which matters. Ohh.. I have a feeling Lynch will help make life exceptionally miserable for a number of elected officials there, and so much so, I really don't expect this to go too much further without some resignations. 

The mayor? Well... He has absolutely nothing to lose, as no amount of rigging votes by God Almighty himself could see THAT man win another election for anything in that city. 

Should be interesting to watch....but first the citizens tore them up with riots? Now the Government will tear them apart for real.