Last August, in Ferguson, Missouri, an unarmed black teenager named Mike Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer, his dead body left in the street for four hours. Over the following days and weeks, people came from all over the country to protest, march, and show solidarity for Mike Brown. Police responded to the overwhelmingly peaceful protests by lining the streets in military gear, arresting protestors and journalists, and using tear gas. Many of those arrested were released without being charged and never heard anything again from law enforcement.
Until now. According to the Huffington Post:
Lawyers representing the interests of those arrested in Ferguson last August say St. Louis County authorities have sent out "hundreds" of summonses to individuals swept up by police a year ago. Because the state prosecuting attorney refused to take many of the cases and the city of Ferguson has not pursued charges in others, the ordinance violation charges have come from the St. Louis County Counselor— the very same entity that defends the St. Louis County Police Department's actions in civil rights lawsuits.
Sending out hundreds of summonses to protestors is bad enough on its own, but there are a couple of things that make this particular situation especially ugly, as we discuss below.
The county has apparently decided to go forward with these cases despite the fact that both the state of Missouri and the city of Ferguson already decided that they weren't worth the resources. That's right, even Ferguson decided not to pursue these cases—Ferguson, where the pursuance of trivial charges in order to generate revenue is so outrageous that the Department of Justice released an entire report on it.
What's more, according to the Huffington Post, a significant portion of the charges are for "interfering with a police officer in performance of his duties." Ryan Reilly, a journalist who was also arrested last August, stated that this interference charge is "the type of vaguely defined offense that policing experts say should be closely scrutinized by law enforcement agencies and by prosecutors because of the wide potential for misuse." Ordinances like this give the police the authority to arrest someone for almost anything—protesting, taping the police, or asking for information could theoretically result in an interference charge.
And even if the charge isn't a big deal, it could still result in trouble for those who now have to show up to court. Many of the protestors were from out of town, even out of state. Getting back to Ferguson isn't easy, but if they don't show up, the city will likely file a warrant for arrest. According to Christie Lopez, a Justice department official:
"There is widespread misunderstanding of police authority to arrest individuals who passively or verbally defy them. There is abundant evidence that police overuse disorderly conduct and similar statutes to arrest people who 'disrespect' them or express disagreement with their actions. These abusive arrests cause direct and significant harm to those arrested and, more generally, undermine the appropriate balance between police authority and individual prerogative to question the exercise of that authority," Lopez wrote.
Since Mike Brown's murder, it's become increasingly clear that Ferguson has long suffered from racist over policing. And nationwide we are suffering from an incarceration epidemic. We should be issuing less citations, putting less people in court, and wreaking havoc on less lives. That a county chooses to send hundreds of ordinances a year after the event is horrifying and a waste of time and resources.
The call for police reform and criminal justice reform has gotten louder and louder over the past few years, and since Michael Brown's death in particular.
But that's not stopping St. Louis County.