By Rebecca K. Smith, CLDC Board Secretary and Cooperating Attorney
Next week, on Thursday April 2nd, there will be a national day of action in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. This national day of action comes fresh on the heels of a U.S. Department of Justice report issued this month. The roughly 100 page report on police practices in Ferguson, MO details numerous ways in which the police department and court system in Ferguson have violated and continue to violate the U.S. Constitution. ferguson_police_department_report In preparing the report, the DOJ investigators interviewed key city officials and half of the city’s sworn officers, spent 100 days onsite, and reviewed 35,000 pages of police records and thousands of emails. The investigators also sat in on court hearings, interviewed individuals accused of crimes, and met with hundreds of residents and community and neighborhood groups to hear their stories. After reviewing all of this evidence, the DOJ found a “pattern or practice of unlawful conduct within the Ferguson Police Department that violates the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and federal statutory law.”
In sum, the report demonstrates that the police department focuses on revenue more than public safety. This focus has led to unconstitutional police practices as well as questionable and harmful municipal court procedures. The report finds that “[o]fficers violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force. Officers frequently infringe on residents’ First Amendment rights, interfering with their right to record police activities and making enforcement decisions based on the content of individuals’ expression.” The report also finds clear racial bias and discriminatory intent in the police and municipal court. The report finds that the police and municipal court “have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular.”
Ferguson’s own police data shows that African Americans account for 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of citations, and 93% of arrests, despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson’s population. African Americans are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops, but are found in possession of contraband 26% less often than white drivers. African Americans are more likely to be cited and arrested following a stop regardless of why the stop was initiated and are more likely to receive multiple citations during a single incident. For example, from 2012 to 2014, the police issued four or more citations to African Americans on 73 occasions, but issued four or more citations to non-African Americans only twice. Another example – from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of jay-walking charges.
The report finds that the “disproportionate burden on African Americans cannot be explained by any difference in the rate at which people of different races violate the law. Rather, our investigation has revealed that these disparities occur, at least in part, because of unlawful bias against and stereotypes about African Americans.” Exacerbating this problem of racial bias is the issue that “[o]fficers expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority. They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence.”
The DOJ report documents that Ferguson officials claim that it is a lack of “personal responsibility” among African Americans that causes disproportionate harm to them. The DOJ report debunks that myth in its finding that City officials themselves were the ones to demonstrate a lack of personal responsibility by using their positions of privilege and power to assist each other in getting rid of their own citations, fines, and fees. A few examples: a city judge and prosecutor dismissing speeding tickets by police officers; a prosecutor dismissing a red light camera ticket against the city judge; a prosecutor dismissing a parking ticket received by a friend of the Mayor; a prosecutor dismissing multiple tickets received by friends of the court clerks. These are the same types of tickets that African Americans do not have dismissed and are therefore forced to pay; if they cannot pay they are deemed “lazy” or “irresponsible” by Ferguson officials and they are arrested and receive additional fines. As the DOJ states in the report, there is a “double standard grounded in racial stereotyping.”
A recent statement by the National Lawyers Guild Anti-Racism Committee and TUPOCC finds that “the violations highlighted by the DOJ [in the Ferguson report] are systemic and national in scope, resulting in a reality where one of every three Black men in the United States will spend time in prison and every 28 hours a Black person in the country is killed by a police officer or private security.” The NLG/TUPOCC statement documents that the Ferguson statistics mirror statistics in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, and elsewhere around the United States.
In the face of this overwhelming evidence of systemic racial bias and injustice, how do we participate in this national conversation and work for change in a meaningful and constructive way? I would like to offer three suggestions to get started. First, we can learn our rights so we are mentally prepared for police encounters as a participant or as a witness. CLDC offers “Know Your Rights” workshops around the country to teach participants how the Fourth and First Amendments protect us (or don’t protect us) during encounters with police and other government officials. CLDC offers these workshops to all age groups and can tailor the trainings to the needs of the audience. CLDC also offers workshops to “train the trainers” so that we can all become Know Your Rights trainers.
Another way we can participate is by learning how to use our cell phones (or someone else’s cell phone) to document police encounters. In this new age of ubiquitous cell phone cameras and YouTube, most bystanders who observe acts of police misconduct have a phone with a camera. Video evidence is objective and compelling in the courts and in the media. In other words, if there is a video of an incident, it is much harder for police to lie about what happened. There are numerous apps for smartphones that anyone can download and use to document police misconduct and immediately upload the videos online. One example is “Fi-Vo Film” available in the Apple App Store and the Android Market. This app instantly uploads your video file to a free Dropbox account while you are taking the video. Even if your phone is confiscated and destroyed by the police, your video is already secure online. You can then log in to Dropbox to view the video, and use the “share” feature to send the video link to others. As a final note on this topic, stay tuned for CLDC’s upcoming blog about recording police, which will provide more in depth coverage on rights, restrictions, and considerations when recording police.
And one last way to start to get involved is by participating in the next Community Conversation about Police Misconduct and Racial Profiling. The last Community Conversation in Eugene, Oregon was jointly organized by CLDC, NAACP Lane County, and Community Alliance of Lane County. There was a full house and we heard many compelling and outrageous stories of racial profiling and discrimination in the Eugene area. The next Community Conversation will continue this public discussion on how to prevent police misconduct and stand in solidarity with communities of color. If you are not in the Eugene area, organize a similar event in your community! Please stay tuned for details on the next Community Conversation and contact CLDC if you would like some help organizing a similar Community Conversation in your community.
In the DOJ’s report on the unconstitutional practices of the Ferguson, MO police, the DOJ stated: “We are [] grateful to the many members of the Ferguson community who have met with us to share their experiences.” Likewise, CLDC is also very grateful to all of the community members in the Eugene area who attended the first Community Conversation about Police Misconduct and Racial Profiling to share their experiences. You are the reason why CLDC exists: sharing your stories and working together to expose police discrimination and misconduct is the first step to ending it.
See you soon!