The mayor of Ferguson, Missouri, said Sunday that city officials will hold accountable anyone involved in the targeting of the minority community for tickets and arrests revealed in last week’s Justice Department report, calling such bias “intolerable.”
At the same time, Mayor James Knowles III declined to say whether the City Council would fire the city manager or police chief, or whether the police department would be dismantled.
“Everybody in that report that may be implicated, anybody who’s been participating in any sort of discriminatory policing that we can identify in the report, we want to hold accountable,” Mr. Knowles said on ABC’s “This Week.” “That’s going to take more than a couple days, but we are absolutely committed to that and that’s what we’re doing here in the city of Ferguson.”
Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that the Justice Department would dismantle the Ferguson Police Department, “if that’s what’s necessary.”
Mr. Knowles pointed to the launch of a civilian review board last year as one of the reforms undertaken by the City Council since rioting sparked by the police shooting of an unarmed black man, 18-year-old Michael Brown.
“Some of those things I think we can say immediately we’re going to be working on — improving training, improving some of the outreach to some of the members of our community, in sections of our community, especially who feel underrepresented, who have been underrepresented,” the mayor said.
The Justice Department released Wednesday a blistering, 102-page report alleging that the Ferguson police force is focused on generating revenue through tickets, fines and even arrests, rather than public safety.
Two police officers have since resigned and one city clerk was fired over racist emails described in the report. The report also found that black residents, who make up 67 percent of the city’s population, accounted for 93 percent of arrests, 90 percent of tickets and 85 percent of traffic stops.
Mr. Knowles said he was surprised by some of the findings, pointing out that the mayor and City Council are part-time public officials and rely on their professional staff to carry out day-to-day operations.
“Those are things that as the mayor, the city council, we don’t monitor on a daily basis — everyone’s emails,” Mr. Knowles said. “And some of these practices that have come to light, and some of these stories are new to many of us, especially at least the length in which the Department of Justice states that it occurred.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.