Why blacks can't breathe

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by sheltiedave

We have some automated cameras, but reaction has been mixed. The smaller municipalities don't like them, because they only get a portion of the fees, rather than 100%. And when you have to pay $250 for the bench warrant, $50 for the no show, and $150 for the ticket, it becomes unaffordable.

And the cops sit on the roads and just camp on the people who have tickets. When I mentioned that people had a hard time holding jobs because the cops liked to fuck with them, it is the truth. If you do the math, when you get lucky in Ferguson and find a full time, $8/hr job, you first have to pay the now $450 ticket fine before you can use the @$%$@ car. I walked with a friend who happens to be a cop, and the first 51 cars we ran in the Canfield complex had outstanding tickets from throughout St. Louis.

Being poor, being in certain municipalities, and having a target on your back is not a walk in the park, and knowing you will get pulled over every week you drive your car makes for a good deal of stress and belligerence. For many of them, if you can't find a job you can walk to, or on a bus route, forget about it.

Originally Posted by finnbow

Traffic cameras are all over the place around here too. But it ain't the cops who make these fucked up laws. Politicians will do all sorts of crazy shit to avoid raising taxes. Instead they come down on traffic offenders, impose hospitality taxes on hotel and rental car custom.ers, and establish user fees for things that were once free.

I was responding to all of shelties post, not about the cameras. Cameras don't profile people. They'll catch the Mayor in his Cadillac just as fast as they'll catch some poor schmuck in his $600 craigslist beater.

It's the Cops that deliberately profile and harass poor people that are the problem.