Eric Holders Speech Regarding Ferguson, Mo. (Must see)

by Jack

I’ve been no fan of Eric Holder’s in the past, however he makes some important points regarding the Michael Brown case and about law enforcement in Ferguson, Mo.  The link to his video follows.

I don’t agree with all of the assumptions Mr. Holder makes based off pure statistical data, but I tend to agree that some of the police practices in Ferguson are unwarranted and counterproductive to the community.  I also think they are not unusual.

For example, Mr. Holder points out that police were encouraged to write tickets and find as many violations as possible in order to generate revenue for the city.  This part is clearly not racism, it is about enforcement of traffic laws without allowing the individual officer to use the normal discretion they must if they are going to be fair and reasonable with the public.  Ferguson wasn’t the only city to do this, the great recession caused many, many cities to be in financial trouble and it filtered down that if the police were going to keep their doors open or avoid going on a firing spree, they would have to increase their fine revenues.    Jobs were on the line and yes, officers did engage in writing more cites.  The cites they wrote were for real violations in almost all cases, but they tasked with being too strict.  They deviated from the past practices and what the community had come to expect and that’s causes problems.

Imagine how the locals would feel if Chico PD suddenly started writing tickets for every violation they witnessed.  Officers would be pulling someone over every 5 minutes.   Heck, I could write over 30 expensive citations a day and generate thousands of dollars in fine money if that was all there was too law enforcement, but it isn’t.   This sort of “hot pencil” approach to traffic enforcement causes a lot of bad PR and it really doesn’t accomplish the overall job of law enforcement, that being, to protect life and property.   Although one could argue writing cites and thereby reducing traffic accidents does exactly that, but do we want a police state to get there?  No, when it comes to everyday citizens I say, all things in moderation, that’s the best way for police to treat folk.   Give them breaks when you can and cite if you must, but always be fair and professional and do it without bias.

Mr. Holder and I agree on the above.  And we agree that revenue generation through citations did get out of hand in Ferguson and they have been called on it.   When they needed some community support and understanding the most, it just wasn’t there.  Maybe this community would not be pro police under any circumstances, but being badge heavy sure doesn’t help.

Mr. Holder points out that sometimes police in Ferguson would stop an individual without probable cause or they would arrest an individual because they said something to offend the officer.   This has always happened to some degree and its not necessarily a racial problem.  And he seems to think it must be racial.

Imagine you see Jonnie Gang-banger driving his low rider around the commercial district at 2 a.m. where everything is closed except for a few bars.   Your experience and knowledge of this person says, he’s looking to caper (commit some sort of crime, usually burglary) but, he’s not really breaking any laws…yet.

You notice his rear license plate light is flickering, so you use this to put the reds on him and pull him over.

You: “Good evening sir, may I see your license and registration please?”

JG: “F—- you, you got no reason pullin me over, I aint done nothing!  Don’t you got nothin better to do?   You’re just stopping me cause I’m black, that’s all it is!”

You: ”Sir!  I need to see your license and registration..now.”  JG hands it to you and accuses you of harassment again.   You walk back to your patrol car to use the radio and run a warrant and registration check.  Dispatch advises JG is driving on a suspended license.  This is an arrestable offense or you cite and release, but he can’t drive away, that’s not an option.

You walk back to his car and a number of Black people are exiting the bar across the street.   JG starts yelling at you again and making a scene, this attracts the bar crowd.   Every third word coming out of JG’s mouth is F—- something.   Now the bar crowd starts to gather near you and they are yelling obscenities.   Things are going South fast, so you call for a backup, but they are 5 minutes away and seconds count.

JG is feeling emboldened by the crowd and he is playing it up for them.  JG says, “Hey F—- you, you muther-f’r, I kick yo muther-f’n ass yo mess wit me!  F-you, yo pig SOB muther f’r!”   The crowd cheers and closes in and you tell them to stand back.

(Picture of Chauncy Luna-Not JG)

Now JG is really being an ass, he’s definitely flailed the attitude test, and he’s making more threats.  But, if you escalate this from a traffic stop for a flickering tail light bulb to an interfering or resisting charge you know its is going to get violent.   JG can’t back down in front of his home boys… so, what do you do now?   Arrest, cite or release?   If you hand JG his license back and let him drive off he’s won, but you may have averted a racial incident.    In the ghetto world this is called “mouth power” and he’s just intimidated you into submission, as he sees it.   If he gets in a wreck after you let him go, then you’re going to be responsible.  You let him drive away on a suspended license!   If you try to arrest him for this violation or worse, say the interfering charge, you might wind up shooting him before it’s over and maybe someone else will be shot, even you.  But, your safety can’t really be a reason for de-escalating.

This is the kind of real life situation I’ve faced and all cops face every day somewhere.

If you are unlucky, some day a guy like Eric Holder will show up.  He will review your department records and he will see that you stopped a Black man for a…flickering tail light and what’s worse, he”l find out you seriously hurt this man and had a civil rights charge filed against you.  Clearly, you are a no good racist cop in his eyes.   Welcome to my world, well, correction, it used to be my world and now it’s my son’s world.  He’s the cop and I’m an old retired cop.  But I understand how it works on the street and until you’ve been there it’s really hard to explain it in mere words.

Holder is right in the sense that people do get written up or busted because they flunked “the attitude test” or they get pulled over for little or no reason.   It happens all the time actually, and in most all cases it was good old street justice that is sometimes absolutely necessary or it could be that nothing major comes from it, a few minutes of detention and its over.   But, its hard to prove that “probable cause” and show fairness to the public who can’t see the whole picture.  When you are the cop caught in the crosshairs of cold hard statistics you can suddenly look like the bad guy and you are anything but….

Those department stats add up and they can bite you in the butt when that’s all people look at.   That’s where Mr. Holder and I part company, he sees racism at the core of everything and I see cops being cops, and for the most part they are being fair and honest… there are exceptions, but not nearly as many as you might think.

There’s much to be learned by talking with cops, seeing it from their side, seeing the difficulties of the job and then, like Holder, feel free to look at those statistics.    So often what looks like racial harassment isn’t.

See Holders full comments:   http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2015/03/eric-holders-full-press-conference-on-ferguson-report.html