Most of the police forces were established when populations were majority white. What does that mean?sardis wrote:Ferguson is over 70% African American. Why didn't they vote in a mayor and town council to clean house on the department before 2014?
Same with all these large urban centers where the population is overwhelmingly African American, yet the police treat them badly. Maybe there are a large section of AA that don't mind the police being the way they are as long as the abuse is not turned on them.
1 - Institutional hiring. Multiple generations of family members are in the departments and - like everyone - they hire there own. Even with Civil Service exams, etc., there's a reason why NYPD was over 50% Irish-American at one point.
2 - Cops don't live where they police. http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-out- ... story.html - 79% of the employees of the LAPD live outside of Los Angeles.
So in some places - most of them urban - you almost have an army of occupation doing the policing. The cops live 50 miles away in a "red" county and come in town to keep the natives in order.