Eric Holder's Parting Remarks On Race: The DOJ's Ferguson Report

A cultural shift has begun in this country with respect to criminal justice policy generally and policing particularly as Ferguson Police Department has become the latest poster child in a long awaited campaign to out rogue law enforcement agencies for unfair extra-judicial processes and procedures that have had catastrophic consequences for those persons of color unfortunate enough to get caught up in “the system.” Unwarranted [pun intended] police contact is a dark portal through which many unwary, law abiding Blacks enter into a hostile, racist and patently unfair criminal justice system.

To those brothas and, to a lesser degree, sistas suffering the indignity of false arrest is not the end but very often beginning of an insult that always has unforeseen collateral consequences. Those overcharged for minor often non-criminal offenses, like misdemeanor traffic infractions, possession of small amounts of marijuana, or other “quality of life” violations, these “criminal justice” contacts are tantamount to descending down the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland.

A colleague was more sanguine yesterday during a faculty meeting, because she is beginning to see evidence - albeit anecdotally - of a paradigm shift spurred by Ferguson, and other high profile incidents throughout the country, emerging like the phoenix raising from the ashes, with the scathing DOJ report against Ferguson Police Department, acting as a catalyst. Unfortunately, I do not share her unbridled optimism. Ferguson Police Department is emblematic (the rule not the exception) of many law enforcement agencies in this country. What was missed in the wash is how the Feguson Municipal Court lent its imprimatur to police excesses.

In one notable example illustrated by DOJ’s stunning report that was stupidly memorialized by electronic mail, the city comptroller encouraged police managers to actually step up unlawful enforcement of “quality of life” violations to generate revenue streams for a cash strapped city on the backs of citizens least able to exercise their constitutional rights, hire competent lawyers to mount effective defenses, and, more importantly, sue to recover court costs and fees, which would both disincentivize and discourage these extra-judicial practices.

But where the Judiciary was supposed to act as a separate branch of government curtailing the excesses of the Executive – i.e., “police” – here Ferguson Municipal Court actually validated police misconduct, which became a prima facie example of institutionalized racism conservative talking heads like to dismiss as baseless conspiracy theories. In Ferguson, we clearly see a startling example of a corrupt court that did not act as either a check or as a balance as it was designed against egregious police excesses.                                         

Thankfully, young Black folks are tired of seeing themselves being so vulnerable, marginalized and disenfranchised: watching their parents burying loved ones, peers, and friends whether by police action or intra-racial criminality. These are the kids manning the front lines in the protests we now see re-emerging in the wake of that damning DOJ report against Ferguson Police Department, which ironically substantiates everything we already suspected - either biographically or anecdotally - about the police in areas heavily populated by minorities.

The cops, black, white, Hispanic, Asian and every ethnic group in between, have adopted classist, racist, and, invariably provincial, worldviews they then rationalize away by saying they are the thin blue line between criminals and law breakers all while occupying, brutalizing and terrorizing the very communities in which they are sworn to protect. And this too shall end…