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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums‘It’s Racist As Hell': Inside St. Louis County’s Predatory Night Courts
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI In 2004, Sean Bailey recalls, he was driving through the streets of St. Louis County en route to a party, when he saw a familiar black-and-white car out of the corner of his eye. He reached for his phone to warn the friend he was following to slow down, but it was too late; the cop blared his siren and pulled up behind him. Bailey, who had a warrant stemming from a failure to appear in court for unpaid traffic tickets, felt a familiar pang of anxiety. He knew exactly what was going to happen next.
I was like, Im going to get into this little orange jumpsuit and sit in this cold cell for a couple of days here, the bespectacled St. Louis, Missouri native recalls, lighting a cigarette and blowing out a thin ribbon of smoke.
The officer ran Baileys name and discovered he had a warrant. Bailey was arrested and sent to jail in Florissant, a municipality in northern St. Louis County bordering Ferguson. When Bailey stepped inside his cell, he was greeted with a gust of cold air. It was chilly outside maybe 20 degrees, he speculates and they had the AC blasting. The interior was grimy, and there were a lot of guys in there, beating on the cells and calling for [help] and nobody was coming.
Bailey sits comfortably on the stoop of a red-brick apartment in North St. Louis County while his daughter, who is groggy with a cold, naps inside. The 35-year-old single father is homeless, and for the moment hes staying in a relatives place on a noisy street dotted with crumbling corner stores. Since 1995, Bailey estimates hes been jailed upwards of 20 times throughout St. Louis County tallying up to more than two months behind bars for warrants stemming from traffic violations. At least once, he was subject to what some call riding the circuit shuttled to jail in a handful of municipalities back-to-back after the officer who arrested him notified police in other municipalities where he had warrants. Bailey, diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and prone to regular panic attacks, says he once faked a heart attack in his cell just to get medical care.
A lot of people were locked up with diabetes, high blood pressure, and they werent able to get their medicine. I had been locked up for days and I didnt have my medication, he pauses. The paramedics got there and were like hes not having a heart attack but you might not want to keep him there anymore. Its very stressful.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/04/10/3643582/worse-ferguson-week-st-louis-countys-egregious-night-courts/
Skittles
(153,160 posts)a sheer abuse of power
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)I wonder what the authorities would have done if he was voted "Driver of the Year?"
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)calimary
(81,265 posts)"...a warrant stemming from a failure to appear in court for unpaid traffic tickets." Like this individual was a real threat to society or something.
Aw man... fouled on a technicality.
It's just stunning.
I wonder what kind of benefit-of-the-doubt a white kid pulled over like this would get.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)JimDandy
(7,318 posts)will be limited to 10% of a city's revenue. That bill was proposed this year partly in response to Mayor Gwaltney's (Edmonson, MO) letter and to the scandal of Ferguson's gross reliance on court fines to fund city government.
Currently, Missouri cities are limited by state law to raising 30% of their revenue from traffic fines (hence Ferguson's additional focus on court fines, which are not limited by that law), but the state hasn't been keeping careful watch, so some cities were exceeding that 30%.
Arrest Warrants (and the fines associated with them) for no-shows on traffic fine cases don't count as part of the traffic fine revenue limits, so these cities have had a huge incentive to issue warrants which generate an unstifled revenue stream from municipal court fines.
Bill 5 was heard in early March, but I don't know if it got through. What is needed in addition to that bill is a law limiting city revenue from warrants and other municipal court fines.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Thirty percent is an invitation to corruption
JimDandy
(7,318 posts)Quackers
(2,256 posts)If the person is breaking the law, stop them. If you have to follow someone and wait for the slightest mistake to make a stop, it's wrong. Enforcing the law should never be incentive based.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)But it's quite clear that racial profiling is factored in here.
The incentives are the payoff.
Response to calimary (Reply #4)
Name removed Message auto-removed
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)n/t
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)stays next to almost being homeless at any given time. It's disgusting how certain people in those areas NEVER make any kind of stink to help out their more unfortunate neighbors.
I guess they love their white privilege too much to speak up.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)The best defense is to obey the laws, but that doesn't always work. I've gotten several bogus tickets from lying cops. The next step is to show up for the court date and/or pay the fines. Anyone who doesn't ends up with warrants. Is this unique to St. Louis County and the munies there? I guess you get to choose whether you want to pay a traffic ticket, or not, and just blow off court dates with no warrants and penalties to follow.
The good news is that the county and the munies have agreed to uniform maximum fines and court costs.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-county-municipal-courts-agree-to-uniform-fines-court/article_7851b8a5-52d3-59e6-804c-4f2883acbc77.html
Rex
(65,616 posts)and not a peep from them for years. Really pathetic.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)you just reply with ridiculous things that have no relevance.
Do you get to blow off fines and court dates without fear of warrants and penalties, or not?
Rex
(65,616 posts)You think they just liked how things were going?
Response to pintobean (Reply #16)
salib This message was self-deleted by its author.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)and rent was $500 and food was going to be $300 and utilities were going to be $150 and your daughter's 8th birthday was coming up and you got a ticket for $150, what would you do?
Seriously, which one of these things would you blow off to pay the ticket? Or would you hope that the cops have better things to do than come after you for a lousy $150?
pintobean
(18,101 posts)XemaSab
(60,212 posts)is pretty damn privileged of you.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)and/or show up to court
Did you miss that part?
Showing up and making arrangements for payments/jail time/community service is the other way to avoid warrants. The courts will work with people who can't pay. People know this and still never show up.
Lars39
(26,109 posts)white friends to fix the tickets?
pintobean
(18,101 posts)Lars39
(26,109 posts)snip..."The judge was also named among a group of white Ferguson officials found by Department of Justice
investigators to be writing off citations for themselves and friends while punishing residents for similar offences."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fired-ferguson-court-clerk-fixed-tickets-friends-report-article-1.2140813
pintobean
(18,101 posts)and a few people there. I'm talking about the whole county and all the municipalities in it. Ferguson is a city of 21,000 in a county with a population near a million. The white people in the county aren't getting their tickets fixed - that's corruption. I know a lot of people in St. Louis City and County PDs and governments. I've never been able to get a ticket fixed.
Lars39
(26,109 posts)pintobean
(18,101 posts)Even in the all white towns.
Lars39
(26,109 posts)pintobean
(18,101 posts)You're saying all whites do it. I'm saying it's very rare.
Rex
(65,616 posts)that could have...made a single stink all these years and years...must of been scared of the police too. YEP YEP...
JimDandy
(7,318 posts)Jackson County, MO is even more egregious and isn't part of this voluntary agreement nor are any of the other 113 Missouri counties.
Missouri residents, especially minority residents, are in need of a uniform state law that limits traffic and court fine revenue streams to a reasonable percentage of each municipality's budget (Currently at 30%. Will be reduced to 10%, if MO Senate Bill 5 becomes law.)
The best defense is not 'to obey laws' it's to generate uniform, fair and just laws, enforce them fairly and protest/dissent when that does not happen.
The next step is to reverse the trend of generating warrants for unpaid traffic and court fines. These fines, like any debt, can be best and fairly handled outside the arrest/debtors prison tract: via collection companies with fair fees that are regulated by law.
No one's life should become as awful as those who have become trapped by this cycle of fines, warrants and escalating fees, simply due to poverty or being born a minority in an unfair and often racially targeted system.
pintobean
(18,101 posts)Would you suggest waiting on the republican controlled legislature?
JimDandy
(7,318 posts)of a fair system...it is the end product of an unjust system.
Voluntary self-policing is the last stand of a corrupt process that, when it has come under intense public criticism, tries to retain power and control in the hopes that, after the public eye has lost focus on it, it can go back to business as usual.
I suggest a 'while the iron is hot tactic": more intense public scrutiny/protests and dissent to force such a conservative legislature to confront and adjust the inequalities in their system.
More bills like Senate Bill 5 should be proposed...they are getting a hearing in MO's republican controlled legislature.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)rec
gordianot
(15,238 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)gordianot
(15,238 posts)That includes the damn Cardinals fans who openly chant racist taunts.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Hard to believe south Texas might be more evolved then St. Louis county.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)That was a sad read. Also, the whole judge in one area and attorney in another should be illegal, if it isn't already. That's clearly a conflict of interest.
Gothmog
(145,231 posts)Many of these towns use the courts to fund the city operations and this leads to racist abuses such as in Ferguson