Leaked Documents Show Dothan Police Department Planted Drugs
December 1, 2015 8:56 PM   Subscribe

The Henry Country Report has revealed leaked documents that show a narcotics team in Dothan, AL planted drugs on black men for years. The cases were prosecuted by Doug Valeska. All of the officers involved were in a local neo-confederate organization, and many of the targeted individuals remain in jail.
posted by hermanubis (80 comments total) 67 users marked this as a favorite
 
Keep Guantanamo open, for these guys.
posted by Oyéah at 9:18 PM on December 1, 2015 [19 favorites]


i've been reading pearlstein's nixonland and the sequel in the last couple of days, and there has to be a feeling that the paranoid shit that you are convinced couldn't happen did happen and were worse than you imagined--Tuskegee, Cambodia and Laos, the Iran Contral, Extreme Rendetion, Domesticized Extreme Rendition in Chicago--this....
posted by PinkMoose at 9:21 PM on December 1, 2015 [18 favorites]


Holy Shit.

I mean ... I can't decide how cynical is too cynical.

"I bet there are more out there." Is that too cynical? Is it just realistic? Fuck, man. Fuck.

I understand that the drug war is deeply racist, but I didn't expect this. It's so fucking direct. It's so fucking evil. Fuck.
posted by Myca at 9:23 PM on December 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


What a nightmare!
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:27 PM on December 1, 2015


Cached copy for those having trouble getting it to load.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:28 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]




> "I bet there are more out there." Is that too cynical? Is it just realistic? Fuck, man. Fuck.

There are more victims of these particular cops and there are more cops out there like them and there are more police departments with cops like them.
posted by rtha at 9:34 PM on December 1, 2015 [58 favorites]


Bring in the Feds and make them do long, hard time.
posted by uraniumwilly at 9:35 PM on December 1, 2015 [10 favorites]


Keep Guantanamo open, for these guys.

Why? We have Leavenworth.

Don't sink to their level.

Or, at least be honest, and just execute them. I have no problem with that. But putting them in a place designed to be where law doesn't operate? No. I will not do that.

Because that makes us them.
posted by eriko at 9:40 PM on December 1, 2015 [77 favorites]


i'm so tired of white supremacy.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:43 PM on December 1, 2015 [69 favorites]


You are right Eriko, that was just knee jerk on my part. Bad knee.
posted by Oyéah at 9:49 PM on December 1, 2015 [15 favorites]


Ceterum censeo...
posted by PMdixon at 9:59 PM on December 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


Ugh, some of the comments at the bottom of that google cached text only link are depressing.
posted by smcameron at 10:05 PM on December 1, 2015


What's really telling about this is how hard people had to work to get the news out. Several people made constant complaints, using all available means, and it still took years to get out. The officers involved were promoted and some have had very good careers. It seems multiple internal affairs investigations should hold back your ability to rise in the ranks, but apparently not. The system completely failed, and seems to be designed not to hold people accountable or rectify injustice.
posted by hermanubis at 10:07 PM on December 1, 2015 [51 favorites]


What if the system didn't fail? What if the police of Henry County were operating exactly as the majority of its population wanted? That's what I'm afraid of.
posted by theodolite at 10:17 PM on December 1, 2015 [33 favorites]


I have nothing more intelligent to say at the moment than "what the fuck you shitty shits?!"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:20 PM on December 1, 2015 [11 favorites]


Ironically, this restores my faith that there are actually some good cops out there. I'm glad there are officers willing to take these risks, release this information, and demand justice.
posted by Garm at 10:30 PM on December 1, 2015 [7 favorites]


Alternet, and Rawstory are covering this. I hope more outlets start covering this story, and hopefully start doing their own independent investigations (I'm looking at you Guardian, Vice News and The Intercept).

I have little faith in cable news to touch this story (I have little faith in cable news to cover any story though).
posted by el io at 10:31 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


What's really telling about this is how hard people had to work to get the news out.

I'd like to ask the officers who stuck with it for so long, trying to get someone to pay attention and do something: How often did they fear for their lives?
posted by fatbird at 10:35 PM on December 1, 2015 [5 favorites]


I really disapprove of reality outstripping my hyperbolic fb posts.
posted by PMdixon at 10:37 PM on December 1, 2015 [20 favorites]


From the prosecutor's self-promotion page:
Among the many awards he has received are.. State Humanitarian Award for 2007-2008..
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:41 PM on December 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


The War On People Who Use Drugs is immoral and racist. "Specialized narcotics teams" should be assumed to be immoral and racist.
posted by llc at 10:47 PM on December 1, 2015 [8 favorites]


Who is henrycountyreport? Should I know them?
posted by KantoKing at 11:04 PM on December 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


"I bet there are more out there." Is that too cynical? Is it just realistic? Fuck, man. Fuck.

There are nearly a million police officers in the United States.

It's plausible that this was one of the more flagrant examples of such malfeasance, because if there's any room for doubt or any remote excuse or whatever, we don't hear about it, but it's basically inconceivable to me that it could be the only instance, and it probably isn't the worst.
posted by aubilenon at 11:19 PM on December 1, 2015 [7 favorites]


Vile, worthless shit-stains on the human fabric.
posted by Token Meme at 11:20 PM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Damn.

Good on the cops that fought to get this out, and good on the Henry Country Report for getting this out.

Will Alabama have the stones to make sure heads roll?
posted by klangklangston at 11:57 PM on December 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


It reminds me of all the tiny Missouri counties (like Ferguson!) who survive by handing out lots of traffic fines and arrest warrants, mostly against African Americans, keeping them stuck in an unending cycle of debt.

The paranoid in me wonders if this is some way of continuing the traditional horrors of racism and slavery in some sick modern, hidden way. How much of this kind of thing is going on and in how many places? It is the kind of thing that can give you nightmares.
posted by eye of newt at 12:30 AM on December 2, 2015 [10 favorites]


What's really telling about this is how hard people had to work to get the news out. Several people made constant complaints, using all available means, and it still took years to get out. The officers involved were promoted and some have had very good careers. It seems multiple internal affairs investigations should hold back your ability to rise in the ranks, but apparently not. The system completely failed, and seems to be designed not to hold people accountable or rectify injustice.

My wife and I went to see Spotlight this evening, and it's rather telling that one could swap a couple of the titles and this paragraph would perfectly describe what happened with child molestation in the Catholic church. The common thread seems to be too much trust in and deference toward institutions and too little oversight from those outside that don't have the institutional bias.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:36 AM on December 2, 2015 [19 favorites]


Considering what's coming out about the shooting of Laquan McDonald (and that it appears a number of officers were involved in limiting evidence that one of their number used massively excessive force) and that stories similar to it happen nearly every day, this is completely unsurprising. There's a common attitude (held by most of us in the US to some degree, not just corrupt cops) that black people are inherently more dangerous and it's not far from that to justifying making sure "they" go to jail before they hurt anyone. How often do people express the idea that someone who frequently has contact with the police must be doing something wrong even if charges aren't resulting in convictions? Now add on a healthy dollop of racism...

Note I first saw this story linked by the SPLC so I'm disinclined to believe this isn't a relatively accurate report.
posted by R343L at 1:28 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


So how do we stop this from happening? There's a bunch of things happening in the U.S. with our police force that are just shameful. What changes can we push for?
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:30 AM on December 2, 2015


How often do people express the idea that someone who frequently has contact with the police must be doing something wrong even if charges aren't resulting in convictions?

Cops have contact with each other all the time, and rarely get charged or convicted. But somehow this logic doesn't apply to them.
posted by Dysk at 1:36 AM on December 2, 2015


I'd like to ask the officers who stuck with it for so long, trying to get someone to pay attention and do something: How often did they fear for their lives?

And what's their plan now? How are they going to avoid this shit, or the local white supremacists burning their houses down?

This is like a pack up, leave town, and look over your shoulder for years if not the rest of your life sort of situation.

I have no idea what to make of it, but this is witness protection territory. If they got away with this, what's to say their buddies wouldn't get away with doing worse to you later on, or framing you, or...

Jesus fucking christ, what a broken system.
posted by emptythought at 2:21 AM on December 2, 2015 [5 favorites]


So how do we stop this from happening? There's a bunch of things happening in the U.S. with our police force that are just shameful. What changes can we push for?
With any institution where the rot has crept in this deeply, you have work cut out for you, but in short:
  1. Mandated, tamper-proof always-on-outside-station body cameras, with audio. All recordings streamed to an offsite backup outside the precinct's control.
  2. Any cop who obscures the lens or mic of the recording device, or attempts to mess with the stream, is instantly terminated.
  3. Fully independent, citizen-run police investigative councils, with the power to subpoena cops, recommendations passed on to state prosecutors.
  4. Broad cross-jurisdictional agreements to not rehire cops with poor disciplinary histories.
  5. At the federal level, the ability and willingness to go in and fire everyone in a department, since it is very clear that sometimes the rot is so insidious and multi-generational that no amount of selective firings or cosmetic changes will make a difference. As mentioned by a fellow Mefite, this might have to be done every 10 ~ 20 years in some cases.
  6. At the training level, an emphasis on crisis management, rather than force-up aggressive responses.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:25 AM on December 2, 2015 [41 favorites]


How many poor souls are sitting in jail because of those badge wearing hemorrhoids? This is truly depressing.
posted by james33 at 2:39 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Clearly the problem for these neoconfederates is that there have been black people who have not yet been processed by the criminal-justice system, whidh was something that needed to be remedied. Which jibes with the model of the criminal-justice system as being minority containment rather than crime prevention, or more specifically, for managing the problem of what to do with a population who were brought over as slave labour, but now officially must be regarded as equal citizens because of that commie traitor Lincoln.
posted by acb at 4:49 AM on December 2, 2015 [13 favorites]


Yuck, acb; please don't project me into their heads.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:06 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


The paranoid in me wonders if this is some way of continuing the traditional horrors of racism and slavery in some sick modern, hidden way.


That's exactly what this is- they can't pick them up for vagrancy or loitering like they used to in Jim Crow days, so now it's traffic fines and dime bags. Whatever gets them "in the system."
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:09 AM on December 2, 2015 [18 favorites]


The paranoid in me wonders if this is some way of continuing the traditional horrors of racism and slavery in some sick modern, hidden way.

That's exactly what this is- they can't pick them up for vagrancy or loitering like they used to in Jim Crow days, so now it's traffic fines and dime bags.

Michelle Alexander wrote a book documenting exactly this and it is utterly horrifying: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
posted by Lisitasan at 5:20 AM on December 2, 2015 [16 favorites]


Ugh, I am sadly somehow not surprised. The racism in that part of Alabama is pretty damn thick. Mostly it lives just beneath the surface, but it doesn't take much for it to make it out in the open. It's also a strong part of gun culture there. Gotta have an arsenel to keep the "thugs" at bay.
posted by wierdo at 5:25 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, this isn't a question of paranoia. When overt racism became less acceptable, racists didn't suddenly see the light and repent. No, they instead looked around and figured out how they could continue to oppress minorities, but in ways that cloak their intent.

Lee Atwater was happy to explain it quite clearly back in 1981:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
The hysteria of the war on drugs, and the specific focus on black communities in that context (including making jail sentences for drugs associated with black people much harsher) is just an extension of this kind of thinking. So also is the pro-cop "tough on crime" default political stance of many politicians.

All of this acts as a smokescreen so that racist actions can be given the veneer of legitimacy -- "this isn't racism, we're just fighting crime!". And then, when that bullshit is believed enough, the cops have no problem getting away with shit like what's reported in this article, because everyone's primed to believe that if the cops said they found drugs, they must have found drugs.
posted by tocts at 5:36 AM on December 2, 2015 [24 favorites]


My grandfather told me, more than once, 40-50 years ago, never never NEVER trust a cop and never give him a reason to fuck with you because he can fuck up your life just because he can. He spent 35 years as an NYPD cop so I figured he knew what he was talking about.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:37 AM on December 2, 2015 [21 favorites]


never never NEVER trust a cop and never give him a reason to fuck with you because he can fuck up your life just because he can.


Unfortunately, being "Black" and "outside" are things some people can't really help.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:39 AM on December 2, 2015 [24 favorites]


"I bet there are more out there."

It's not even cynical to be surprised if there aren't a lot *more* out there.
posted by notsnot at 5:58 AM on December 2, 2015


Anecdotally, from what I recall from my semi-outlaw youth, it is utterly routine that when a person is busted with X amount of drugs in their possession, they were arraigned for a slightly smaller amount than what they we caught with. Busted with 3 grams of Cocaine? Get charged with possession of 2 grams. The cops were understood to be keeping a discreet quantity for either personal consumption, resale, or to have on hand to plant on people they wanted to bust, but had no evidence against.

I thing the gereral attitude was "what are you gonna do? Complain to the judge that 'No, your honor, I actually had more drugs than that'"?

I mean, I'm talking 70's & 80's here, so a long time ago, but it felt to be a pretty universally accepted part of the routine of being a cop in those days. I don't know how pervasive this sort of business really was of course, but I am not shocked whatsoever by the allegations -- more so that something is being done about it at all. The war on drugs & attendant asset forfeiture laws are the greatest pox upon the American body politic at this time. Hope justice is served in this case.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:00 AM on December 2, 2015 [9 favorites]


Will Alabama have the stones to make sure heads roll?

I'm absolutely positive they'll get right on with investigating and prosecuting the people responsible for the leaks and the ones who made it public.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:16 AM on December 2, 2015 [22 favorites]


In Alabama, 262,354 people--over 7% of the population--has lost the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, and they're not even the worst offender (PDF). Given the extensive history of the former Confederacy's legacy of voter suppression, which has spread to pretty much everywhere conservatives hold most or all the power, it's impossible that this is an accident. So when someone tells you voter disenfranchisement laws (or any voter suppression laws) aren't racist, the case of Dothan is a good counterpoint.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:16 AM on December 2, 2015 [19 favorites]


It reminds me of all the tiny Missouri counties (like Ferguson!) who survive by handing out lots of traffic fines and arrest warrants, mostly against African Americans, keeping them stuck in an unending cycle of debt.

Minor quibble: Ferguson is a small town in St. Louis County. There are a whole bunch of small towns in the county, many of which have their own police forces which operate exactly this way.

One of them, Charlack (pop. 1300), was infamous for setting speed traps along the interstate as well as throughout its tiny residential areas, and then its chief embezzled the money and went on vacation. Missouri Senate bill 5, which just went into effect this August, prevents municipalities in St. Louis County from earning more than 12.5% of their revenue from traffic fines -- and a couple of months later the Charlack Police Department disbanded. They now get their police services from neighboring Vinita Park (pop. 1800).
posted by Foosnark at 6:29 AM on December 2, 2015 [13 favorites]


"I bet there are more out there."

It's not even cynical to be surprised if there aren't a lot *more* out there.


Here's one, for starters
posted by TedW at 6:29 AM on December 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


Ironically, this restores my faith that there are actually some good cops out there. I'm glad there are officers willing to take these risks, release this information, and demand justice.

Ironically sure. Statistically it should be a nope on faith.

In the case of Chicago and the Laquan McDonald murder it was ONE PERSON who leaked the information and ONE REPORTER who pushed the FOIA.

How many cops and city officials know what happened and what was on the video? I'm guessing the number is at least dozens. How many media people were uninterested in the story? The independent reporter who pushed the FOIA claims to have shopped it to major media and got met with complete disinterest.

So you can guess that the number of people who knew or had inklings of what happened is somewhere around at least one hundred not counting the witnesses at the scene.

ONE PERSON is the reason we know about it. ONE excellent and brave person who is anonymous likely because they fear for there life/job.

So the next time someone tells you large conspiracies are impossible shout "Bullshit!" because we are fucking surrounded by them.

Don't rely on faith.
posted by srboisvert at 6:42 AM on December 2, 2015 [26 favorites]


Jesus. Not surprising, but still always disappointing.
posted by OmieWise at 6:42 AM on December 2, 2015


Mod note: Comment removed; good lord, let's not try to crack open the OJ case in here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:05 AM on December 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


Myca: I understand that the drug war is deeply racist, but I didn't expect this. It's so fucking direct. It's so fucking evil. Fuck.

This isn't about the war on drugs - racist police planted guns and illegal drugs on innocent minorities as a means of incarcerating them. Separate issues in this instance. From the Henry County Report: All of the officers reportedly were members of a Neoconfederate organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels “racial extremists.” Going further:
Several long term Dothan law enforcement officers, all part of an original group that initiated the investigation, believe the public has a right to know that the Dothan Police Department, and District Attorney Doug Valeska, targeted young black men by planting drugs and weapons on them over a decade. Most of the young men were prosecuted, many sentenced to prison, and some are still in prison. Many of the officers involved were subsequently promoted and are in leadership positions in law enforcement.
This wasn't a war on drugs, it's an attempt to reinstate slavery, with people in places of significant power to make sure this keeps happening:
Capt. Carlton “Bubba” Ott, now commander of the department’s Criminal Investigation Division, Steve Parrish, current Chief, and Andy Hughes, former Sheriff and current Director of Homeland Security for the state.

All were aware of the investigation and its outcome. All have been rewarded with careers in law enforcement by those for whom they covered, while those who spoke out were forced out of the department. Disturbingly, Ott and Parrish have both attended the FBI academy. Both were highly recommended by the district attorney and former Police Chief, John White.
Good old boys trying to recreate pre-war south. Thank [un/diety] this is in the open, names are named, photos included - it'll be harder for them to hide in the future, if they dodge these allegations on technicalities.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:08 AM on December 2, 2015 [15 favorites]


"I bet there are more out there." Is that too cynical? Is it just realistic?

dave chappelle told us this way back in 2000 - "just sprinkle some crack on him and let's get out of here."
posted by nadawi at 7:16 AM on December 2, 2015 [10 favorites]


This wasn't a war on drugs, it's an attempt to reinstate slavery...

What the hell else do you think the "war on drugs" ever was?
posted by mr_roboto at 7:19 AM on December 2, 2015 [9 favorites]


And those departments are staffed with and run by cops who ignore, lie about, and enable the crimes of other cops.

...and then wave the "notallcops" flag when the dirty ones are caught.

I'll say it again: I don't think every cop is dirty. But I do think that ever single cop knows at least one who is dirty, and doesn't say word one about it.

(it's nothing short of amazing to me that in all the coverage of Laquan McDonald's murder, the media seems to be completely ignoring the fact that every other cop on the scene lied about what happen, or at least stood mute while other cops lied.)
posted by Gelatin at 7:39 AM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


In the Chappelle bit linked above, at one point he says something like "black folks have known the whole time, but white folks didn't even know this was a thing until they read about it in Newsweek".

Some of the reactions in this thread feel that way. When I saw the post, I experienced no shock, no surprise, no astonishment that something like this could possibly happen... this is literally what police forces in the South were instituted to do - protect white property from black "threats". This isn't the result of a few bad apples, and this isn't something anyone should feel even moderately surprised to learn. This kind of behavior is shown over and over and over and over again, but somehow every time it happens it's "golly, gosh, those couple of cops sure sound like bad guys".

The process is working as designed.

Back to the Chappelle bit for a second, later in that same clip he tells this story :

I'm not saying I don't like police. I'm not saying that. I'm saying I'm just scared of 'em. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, we wanna call 'em, too. Somebody broke into my house once. This is a good time to call 'em, but I didn't. Mmm. Mm-mm. House is too nice. It ain't a real nice house, but they'll never believe I live in it.
They'll be--
"He's still here.
Oh my God.
(whacks mic stand with microphone) *THUMP*
Open and shut case, Johnson. I saw this once before when I was a rookie. Apparently this nigger broke in and hung up pictures of his family everywhere. Well, let's sprinkle some crack on him and get outta here."


Sound familiar? None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new. None of this is new.

Stop acting like this is new. This is how it is, and it is this way because of the enormous amount of support - political, economic, community-based, and high up through the ranks of each - the status quo gets from those who want it enforced.
posted by radiosilents at 7:43 AM on December 2, 2015 [97 favorites]


This is the truth of the nasty undermining of the Obama administration. I know racism is playing a part, but silly me, I thought some of the hard wired racism was gone, not at all, it is in full epidemic form. Maybe all this revelation by good insiders, will end it, with the demand for ending it, from the outside. That these jackals are still so rewarded is terrifying. There is so much squirrel in the machine, look at the new and improved sexy photos of the Colorado Springs shooter. There is a river of institutionalized mayhem sucking at all of our ankles. The misdeeds at home, horrible, depressing, murderous, and apparently ubiquitous, are aptly reflected abroad in our dealings. These chicken shit white supremacy types are the first to rage about terrorism and its threat to their security, while they actively terrorise on American soil, every day. The epidemic is enormous and we, who are tied to the wheels are just now seeing those who comprise the road we roll over.
posted by Oyéah at 7:46 AM on December 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Wow, it's almost as if every black activist, preacher, comedian, and rapper since the 60s *wasn't* lying!
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 7:49 AM on December 2, 2015 [29 favorites]


This brings to mind an incident that happened near me about 20 years ago. Some high school kids had left their car in the school parking lot while they went to a football game in another part of the state, and wouldn't be back until sometime after midnight. While they were gone, a relatively new sheriffs deputy (who had formerly worked the parts counter at the local Harley dealership, where he was widely regarded as a dickhead) decided to stage a break-in at the school. He took some shoes out of their car, muddied them up in a puddle, then broke into the school and left footprints all around. He then pretended to "discover" the break-in while on patrol. Of course the kids were arrested, but in this case they were relatively affluent white kids, and in the ensuing shitstorm the truth came out, the kids were exonerated, and he was fired. This was long enough ago that I don't recall (and can't find out on the web) if he faced criminal charges. Of course, had this happened to poor black kids the outcome would have been quite different. I chalk this up to the fact that the new deputy didn't have the experience to choose targets that didn't have the resources to fight back. But what really stuck with me was the response of the sheriff (who remains in office today). He told the local paper that his deputy was "basically a good officer who was just trying too hard". I'm sorry, but "trying too hard" would be writing tickets for going 46 mph in a 45 mph zone. This was a criminal attempt to send innocent children to jail. But as long as this attitude persists among law enforcement leadership, we will continue to have cops who feel above the law.
posted by TedW at 7:57 AM on December 2, 2015 [28 favorites]


In the Chappelle bit linked above, at one point he says something like "black folks have known the whole time, but white folks didn't even know this was a thing until they read about it in Newsweek".

The other question to remember to ask is "Why did Newsweek take so long to write about it?"
posted by srboisvert at 8:15 AM on December 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is reminiscent of all of the very good reasons why slavery can only really be said to have begun to finally end in the United states in October of 1942. While slavery was made unconstitutional with the 14th amendment, is was not made Federally illegal with enforceable penalties, nor did post-reconstruction Southern states have any interest in banning the continuation of situations indistinguishable from chattel slavery. One of the many ways in which commercial chattel slavery was actively promoted by southern states was through a loophole in the 14th amendment: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Black Americans by the hundreds of thousands were rounded up and convicted of 'crimes,' classically black men without money in their pockets would be arrested for vagrancy while black men with money in their pockets would be arrested for theft, and then their labor would be sold by the state to the highest bidder. Birmingham, Alabama, as well as most of the "New" South, was built by the profits of these schemes in a way that is not that dissimilar to how so many small towns in the South only really have the local prison as their industry.
Slavery by Another Name (84:57)
Directed by Sam Pollard, produced by Catherine Allan and Douglas Blackmon, written by Sheila Curran Bernard, the tpt National Productions project is based on the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name challenges one of our country’s most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The documentary recounts how in the years following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, keeping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in bondage, trapping them in a brutal system that would persist until the onset of World War II. Based on Blackmon’s research, Slavery by Another Name spans eight decades, from 1865 to 1945, revealing the interlocking forces in both the South and the North that enabled this “neoslavery” to begin and persist. Using archival photographs and dramatic re-enactments filmed on location in Alabama and Georgia, it tells the forgotten stories of both victims and perpetrators of neoslavery and includes interviews with their descendants living today. The program also features interviews with Douglas Blackmon and with leading scholars of this period. - Produced by PBS
posted by Blasdelb at 8:25 AM on December 2, 2015 [18 favorites]


"What if the system didn't fail? What if the police of Henry County were operating exactly as the majority of its population wanted? That's what I'm afraid of."

To quote Stafford Beers from another context:

"The purpose of a system is what it does."

If this does break out as a story, it will be framed as an unusual and unwanted product of the system, but in fact, this is the system at work as usual.

Someone else asked upthread what one might do to reform or break such a system. The Allied victors' de-Nazification programme after WWII is the only successful example I can think of. Sacking entire departments would only be the start.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:28 AM on December 2, 2015 [14 favorites]


This is not surprising in the least bit. I'd be shocked if anything significant comes as a result of this leak.
posted by RedShrek at 10:32 AM on December 2, 2015


Kos has picked it up. Digby, too.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:15 AM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


None of this is new.

Indeed -- when first I saw this story, I thought it was about the travesty in Tulia, and I thought, "Didn't that get wrapped up like 10 years ago?"

This kind of thing is so not new that, as with the beatings and killings of black males at the hands of the police, when I enter a discussion about it late, I always have to stop and run through a list to figure out which one everyone's talking about.
posted by lord_wolf at 12:02 PM on December 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yes, sadly none of this is new or surprising.

But it doesn't matter. This stuff needs to be relentlessly dragged into the light, exposed, talked about loudly, made glaringly visible, made inescapable even for those who try hard to filter it out. Over and over, every time. It's the only way to create a chance for change to ever take place.

In particular if it's a case like this where there is a chance that there'll actually, for once, be a significant price to pay for those involved, where there is a chance that successful convictions will maybe encourage a few more cops with a conscience to speak up and expose things elsewhere.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:14 PM on December 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


People defending cops always say it's a few bad apples, forgetting that it spoils the bunch.

Unlike apples however, with cops, 'the bunch' can take care of the 'few bad apples'. Several effective tactics come to mind, but I leave contemplating them as an exercise to the reader.
posted by mikelieman at 1:51 PM on December 2, 2015


My university hires cops who have failed and been kicked out of other precincts because they were investigated for abuses like this. Those same cops pepper-sprayed my classmates.

I wish we were educated about how many different systems of police we have, and how they all collude together for instances like this. We need to keep exposing this corruption and for people to stop willingly pulling their wool over their eyes.
posted by yueliang at 2:35 PM on December 2, 2015 [1 favorite]




And that just further feeds the "do good cops really exist?" argument. Of course they exist, but those honest cops are never going to break the surface of perceived legitimacy if this is the kind of shit they're drowning in.

But it's worse that this group of criminals masquerading as police has so far gotten away with stealing the lives and futures of hundreds if not thousands of innocent people. [Nay, they're being rewarded for it.] Those lives need to be returned—if not to the rightful owners, then symbolically to the rest of society.

Whether you see this news as quelle surprise, a new low, or the same-shit on a different-day, can we agree to just start taking all of the numerous but demographically-confined claims of systemic victimization and harassment at face-value?

Because there is some truth to the dark humor about how "Black people have been saying this the whole time!" but it only gets into public discourse when printed in Newsweek. Similar to the sheer Pandora's Box of shit I've learned women constantly have to put up with but was previously ignorant or unaware of until making more of an effort to listen. And I have to say, the effect this has had on my personal life has been like... well, what's the opposite of a deadly virus?
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 4:01 PM on December 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


I have linked to this before and it may have been a FPP, but it bears repeating:

I think that was an FPP. I definitely read it before, most likely via metafilter. Great article.
posted by mannequito at 4:10 PM on December 2, 2015


Charles Pierce is on the case as well.
posted by TedW at 4:43 PM on December 2, 2015


This is my home. I was born in Dothan Alabama, and I live there today. It makes me sick to read this here on Metafilter today -- I am so ashamed of my community, I don't have words to say ...

Just minutes ago, I finished reading the local paper, the Dothan "Eagle". There's no mention of any of this there.

This is the deep south, and we have our share of idiots and rednecks, but I've always believed that most of us are better than that.

I'm not going to add anything else to this now because I am so goddamned angry at and embarrassed for my town that I'll probably regret what I say later.
posted by TwoToneRow at 8:01 PM on December 2, 2015 [10 favorites]




Here is a video response from the Dothan Police Chief from this evening.

The web site that posted the original article (Henry County Report) appears to be offline now, possibly getting hammered with traffic related to this. I took a look at some old articles from there that were available on the archive.org wayback machine, and I have to say that it appears less than reputable, to say the least. I had not seen the site before, but it appears to have a lot in common with a couple of other local web sites that call themselves "news", but actually mostly are just loony ranting along the lines of your basic "letters to the editor" regulars (no links, they're genuinely cringe-worthy.)

I'm not saying that the original article is a pack of lies (although that appears to be the chief's opinion), but clearly the author is not a journalist but more of a blogger with an axe to grind.
posted by TwoToneRow at 10:11 PM on December 2, 2015


Jon Carroll, the author of the original article that broke this story is interviewed in this article on AL.com where he describes how he got his information.

I don't know who to believe here. What I've seen of Carroll's body of work (Henry County Report appears to be back online) suggests he's a conspiracy theorist with an axe to grind. On the other hand, unless his report is a complete fabrication, there appears to be at least enough smoke to suggest the possibility of a fire. Clearly, an open, independent investigation needs to happen.

By the way, Dothan is the county seat of Houston county, in the lower southeast corner of the state, sharing borders with both the Georgia and Florida state lines. Henry county borders Houston county to the north.
posted by TwoToneRow at 10:38 PM on December 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Just remember--a good cop never knows when he's going to need a bad cop to back him up on the street.
posted by carping demon at 12:15 AM on December 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I don't know who to believe here. What I've seen of Carroll's body of work (Henry County Report appears to be back online) suggests he's a conspiracy theorist with an axe to grind. On the other hand, unless his report is a complete fabrication, there appears to be at least enough smoke to suggest the possibility of a fire. Clearly, an open, independent investigation needs to happen.

Slate just published a story with a similar idea. The HCR article isn't reporting facts, it's calling for further investigation.
posted by carsonb at 11:39 AM on December 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


The SPLC removed their tweets to the story. While I have no doubt some seriously crooked things have gone down in Dothan (I agree with TwoToneRow, there's definitely smoke here), this Henry County Report piece set off all my crackpot bells and the archives only made them stronger.
posted by ndfine at 12:24 PM on December 3, 2015


Slate: What Do We Really Know About the Alleged Police Cover-Up in Dothan, Alabama?
"None of the central accusations that the Henry County Report was making against the Dothan Police Department were clearly supported by the documents Carroll had posted. The documents were certainly suggestive of misconduct—but as far as I could tell, they weren’t definitive proof of anything, let alone a massive conspiracy by white supremacist cops to plant evidence on 1,000 black men.

....

(The SPLC was early to post Carroll’s article on Twitter and was partly responsible for it spreading it as far as it did; this afternoon, however, the organization formally retracted the tweet after determining that they could not vouch for the truth of the article. “We shouldn’t have given it a platform,” SPLC digital media director Alex Amend told me.)

....

I called Carroll yesterday, and he told me he has more than 800 documents in his possession and will be releasing them slowly over time, in accordance with agreements he has made with his confidential sources. When I told him I didn’t think the documents he had posted so far provided enough evidence to base a story on, he told me he understood, but that his primary goal wasn’t to convince readers like me, but rather to get the Justice Department to investigate. This is fair enough; the Henry County Report is not really a traditional newspaper, as I and I imagine many others assumed it was. In fact, it’s a website with an intense focus on alleged police scandals that seems to have published fewer than 100 articles—including a video interview with Carroll himself about allegedly having drugs planted on him—since it was founded, Carroll told me, by him and several associates three or four years ago.


posted by jenkinsEar at 4:59 PM on December 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


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