Every time we read another nugget of information dug out of the Justice Department’s report on the gangster cartel that has run the town of Ferguson, it becomes more apparent that the town’s entire municipal court and police force need, to borrow a phrase from conservative plans for Obamacare, a root-and-branch repeal. Or, put another way, fire the entire apparatus out of a cannon into the sun.
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For instance, this asshole, also known by his given name of Ronald Brockmeyer, the city’s municipal court judge. The judge was called out in the DOJ’s report for being a driving force behind using the city’s poor, mostly African-American population as a bank from which the cops could withdraw money by aggressively enforcing minor bullshit ordinances.
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Turns out the judge was so busy attending to the motes in hissubjects’neighbors’ eyes, he plumb forgot about his own.
The judge in Ferguson, Missouri, who is accused of fixing traffic tickets for himself and colleagues while inflicting a punishing regime of fines and fees on the city’s residents, also owes more than $170,000 in unpaid taxes.
That would be $172,646 in back taxes, to be exact. And that’s after he has already paid off $64,599 in back taxes since November of 2013. The backlog is a combination of personal income taxes, employer taxes from the law firm he owns, and taxes to the fund that pays for unemployment benefits. Which, ironically, we really really really hope Brockmeyer is going to need to file for soon, so the state of Missouri can tell him to fuck off and die. Maybe he can get a new job playing anonymous Mob bosses in no-budget indie movies, for which his only pay will be a bag lunch and exposure dollars.
The city of Ferguson has at least fired a couple of people involved in the whole nightmare of civic racketeering that the shooting of Michael Brown revealed. First up was Mary Ann Twitty, Ferguson’s court clerk. According to the DOJ report, thanks to the structure of the city’s government, Twitty held enormous power over managing the court’s daily operations. Which means she could have disciplined court employees for all those racist emails they were sending around that, among other things, compared President Obama to a chimpanzee. And she probably would have, if she hadn’t been forwarding them herself. Also she was busy fixing tickets for senior police officers and town officials and friends and relatives, so maybe doing something about her employees’ and her own unconstructed racism just slipped her mind. It’s tough to say.
Also getting the heave-ho in a desperate scrambling attempt to look like the city is addressing its problems is one William Mudd, Darren Wilson’s direct superior and the first police sergeant called to the scene of Michael Brown’s shooting last August. Mudd was the jokester apparently responsible for sending around – from his official work account – one of the more infamous email “jokes” mentioned in the DOJ report, which you can read here if you are dying to need a shower.
Mudd also told the grand jury investigating the shooting that Brown told Wilson “You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me,” a detail he had left out of his statement to the FBI earlier. Since we’re pretty sure that taunting an officer’s manhood is still not grounds for shooting an unarmed suspect, we don't know what Mudd thought this little piece of information would prove. Other than that he’s an asshole.
We’re of the opinion that firing Twitty and Mudd is a bit like cutting off a couple of toes when the entire leg is already gangrenous. Like we said, fire everyone…out of a cannon into the sun.
[ Guardian / Guardian again / Crooks & Liars ]
Thanks Obama too and also...shit, I don't know how to make the trademark symbol
That cop is so lucky, "The name is Mudd, Bill Muuuuuuddd".