THREE WARRANTS PER Ferguson HOUSEHOLD and over $2.6 million in fines and fees last year, or to put a number on it about $130 per man, woman and child in the town? Over $500 per family of four on average?
“Despite Ferguson’s relative poverty, fines and court fees comprise the second largest source of revenue for the city, a total of 2,635,400,” according to the ArchCity Defenders report. And in 2013, the Ferguson Municipal Court issued 24,532 arrest warrants and 12,018 cases, “or about 3 warrants and 1.5 cases per household
A Ferguson court employee reported, for example, that “the bench routinely starts hearing cases 30 minutes before the appointed time and then locks the doors to the building as early as five minutes after the official hour, a practice that could easily lead a defend net arriving even slightly late to receive an additional charge for failure to appear.”
Or put another way, it amounts to 463 warrants per sworn officer and 227 cases per sworn officer, which amounts to every officer coming up with 2 warrants and one case per shift, every day, forever, in a ‘burb with a population smaller than an Ohio State U. football home game crowd. And a court that in a nominal 250-day calendar issues 98 arrest warrants every single court day forever, 12 an hour, one every five minutes.
Armed robbery by the police?
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229318
THREE WARRANTS PER Ferguson HOUSEHOLD and over $2.6 million in fines and fees last year, or to put a number on it about $130 per man, woman and child in the town? Over $500 per family of four on average?
“Despite Ferguson’s relative poverty, fines and court fees comprise the second largest source of revenue for the city, a total of 2,635,400,” according to the ArchCity Defenders report. And in 2013, the Ferguson Municipal Court issued 24,532 arrest warrants and 12,018 cases, “or about 3 warrants and 1.5 cases per household
A Ferguson court employee reported, for example, that “the bench routinely starts hearing cases 30 minutes before the appointed time and then locks the doors to the building as early as five minutes after the official hour, a practice that could easily lead a defend net arriving even slightly late to receive an additional charge for failure to appear.”
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/
Or put another way, it amounts to 463 warrants per sworn officer and 227 cases per sworn officer, which amounts to every officer coming up with 2 warrants and one case per shift, every day, forever, in a ‘burb with a population smaller than an Ohio State U. football home game crowd. And a court that in a nominal 250-day calendar issues 98 arrest warrants every single court day forever, 12 an hour, one every five minutes.