Per the Justice Department, the sheer disparate impact of Ferguson police actions is enough to prove racial bias. But actual prejudice also influenced police practices and behavior. The Justice Department records multiple instances in which officers used racial slurs—including “nigger”—against black residents, and it finds evidence of racial bias among city officials, including a series of emails sent by Ferguson officials using city accounts.
But while racial bias informed the actions of the Ferguson Police Department, the chief driver was city coffers. In 2013, for example, fines and forfeitures accounted for 20 percent of Ferguson’s $12.7 million operating budget. Or as the Justice Department writes, “City officials have consistently set maximizing revenue as the priority for Ferguson’s law enforcement activity.”
Officers weren’t protecting citizens as much as they were corralling potential offenders and sources of revenue, with a huge assist from the city municipal court...
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When I was in Ferguson, I talked to white residents who were baffled by the anger of their black neighbors. What was so bad about the city? they asked. Why are you so upset?
It’s not hard to grok. In Ferguson, if you are black, you live in the shadow of lawlessness and plunder, directed by city officials and enforced by the police. You work, and you pay taxes, and those taxes go to fund a system that stops you, arrests you, and steals from you.
Which is all to say that we shouldn’t ask why Ferguson rioted. We should ask why it didn’t happen sooner.
