ShootSpeeders
Gold Member
- May 13, 2012
- 20,232
- 2,366
Blacks are being told " Loot and burn stores and we'll CANCEL any fines you owe the city".
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/us/mistrust-lingers-as-ferguson-takes-new-tack-on-fines.html?_r=1
sep 12 2014
FERGUSON, Mo. — There were lots of jitters at the Ferguson police clerk’s window this week, as steady streams of drivers with unpaid traffic tickets and pending arrest warrants turned themselves in as part of a new city initiative to repair its frayed relationship with black residents.
They looked around skeptically. “I don’t know if they are going to lock me up,” said Katrina Clemons, who owes almost $800 in fines and penalties from a $250 traffic ticket. “I do not like coming here.”
The drivers came with their citations, thousand-dollar invoices, and tales of racial profiling and exorbitant fees. In the wake of last month’s killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, their frustrations with the police and local courts had boiled over, pressuring elected city officials this week to scale back municipal penalties that had helped fill the city’s coffers even as they had lightened the wallets of the poor.
On Tuesday, the City Council decided to abolish fines that are routinely issued if a defendant fails to show up for court, repeal a “failure to appear” law that led to many incarcerations, and give people a month to come forward and void their warrants. It also created a special docket for defendants who have difficulty making payments on outstanding fines and moved to establish a civilian review board to oversee the Police Department, which is under investigation by the Justice Department’s civil rights division.