Ferguson's predatory police are not the only ones

I'm probably naïve and certainly bourgeois and obviously white, but I've always felt lucky to have lived so many years in America.

In the U.S., the law rules, not corrupt satraps or violent police. Or at least, that's the way it's supposed to be.

What I saw on my first visit to Cairo 17 years ago — a beer-bellied police thug kicking a beggar woman in the face and belly while his partner pinned her arms — would not be tolerated in America.

Her right to beg would, in principle, be protected by law here.

This is a nation with a constitution, a powerful founding document ordinary Americans commonly carry in their pockets. People here believe in it. They think, because they were told in civics class, that it shields them from arbitrary measures.

Well, they probably should know better, and so should I.

Here's a suggestion: Instead of eating up Tom Clancy's latest jingoistic best-seller, curl up tonight with the 105-page report published last week by the U.S. Justice Department about the predatory police actions in Ferguson, Mo.

• U.S. Department of Justice report on a pattern of civil rights violations by the Ferguson, Mo., police department 
• Ferguson shooting: Why police rarely face criminal charges 

You will read about officers who couldn't give a toss about the law — a force that routinely punished citizens who exercised their legal right to record police abuses, or those who had the gall to cite their constitutional rights.

"Talking back" is how Ferguson's officers regarded that sort of insolence.

The report is the story of gun-toting, badge-wearing louts who probably spent hours imagining themselves as impassive, reluctant heroes, telexes in their ears, steely eyes concealed behind sunglasses, preparing to do whatever necessary to enforce the law.

In reality, they ran their little corner of Missouri like a lawless seigneury, bullying citizens, ignoring the law, abetted by an equally bent municipal court system. Ordinary folks didn't stand a chance.

The federal report effectively describes Ferguson's police as thuggish tax collectors, willing to use Tasers, fists and boots to satisfy their political masters' desire for ever more revenue.

Their real job was writing tickets, not protecting the public. How much they could milk from motorists, or pedestrians, determined their career paths.

A few highlights:

• Ferguson's mostly white police department blatantly targeted black citizens. "Failure to comply" with police orders that the DOJ said were often illegal, and "walking unsafely in the street" were among the most popular money-generating citations.
• Officers were particularly harsh with anyone who dared record their behaviour. They would issue an order to stop recording "for safety reasons;" those who kept rolling were charged with failing to comply. Smartphones were seized, video erased.
• Drivers were cited for imaginary offences. One man was written up and fined for making a false statement. He'd given his name as "Mike" instead of "Michael."
• Ferguson police disproportionately went after the poor, who, if they didn't pay promptly, did jail time and had their fines increased. One woman spent days in jail and paid hundreds of dollars for two parking tickets; she still owes $541.

The report is a tale of overweening government and abuse of power in America, just the sort of thing you'd expect would make freedom-loving American conservatives rise up and roar.

Instead, nothing. In fact, some conservative writers have denounced the federal investigation of Ferguson's police as an unfair imposition of federal power on local authority.

Some have suggested Attorney General Eric Holder, who is black (and works for a black president), hates white police. Others have stated flatly that it is only natural that Ferguson police principally targeted blacks, given that blacks commit more offences.

Not a single Ferguson officer faces charges.

Cash grab

As the New York Times recently noted, Ferguson is hardly unique. The only reason Ferguson was targeted in the first place by the Justice Department's civil rights division was the shooting of an unarmed black man and the ensuing riots last summer.

Statistics suggest police and court officials in other, nearby municipalities are just as anxious to grab the public's money, and just as likely to abuse minorities.

• Riot-torn Ferguson's distrust of police flows from a city run on fines 

Across the U.S. South and Mid-West, county and municipal and state police have piled on board a federal scheme to seize the cash of private citizens on the assumption it comes from the proceeds of crime.

It began with suspected drug dealers, but eventually metastasized into a billion-dollar shakedown of anyone foolish enough to carry serious money in their own vehicles.

Police take classroom lessons in how to find and seize cash, thereby bolstering their budgets.

In New York, officers strangled a man who was selling loose cigarettes, tightening their chokehold as he protested he couldn't breathe. An officer in Fairfax, Va., shot a white man dead through his own front door, a man who other police on the scene say was unarmed and following orders.

A federal court is now supervising police in Cleveland, after an earlier federal Justice Department report detailed police using guns, Tasers and fists against helpless suspects, including the mentally ill.

The list of federally investigated forces goes on: Maricopa County, Az.; East Haven, Conn.;Albuquerque, New Mexico; New Orleans, La.; Newark, New Jersey.

In Miami Gardens, Fla., National Public Radio documented the horrendous story of police who routinely hounded minority residents to fill arrest quotas.

A law-abiding, mentally impaired employee of a local convenience store — a black man — was such an easy target that he was arrested 258 times in four years, often dragged out of his bedroom in the back of the establishment.

Again, a federal Justice Department inquiry found widespread violations of citizens' rights.

Yes, there is a constitution in America. But in Ferguson, and all sorts of other places here, you're a long way from the Supreme Court.

Be wary. Be careful. Submit totally if you cross paths with police.

And as our governments constantly increase police powers, citing terrorism and crime, it may be worth reflecting on what poses the greatest threat to your personal liberty.