Ferguson’s leaders reversed course Tuesday and voted unanimously to accept a Justice Department plan to overhaul the Missouri city’s troubled police department and municipal court system.
The Ferguson City Council’s previous attempt to revise the deal in February led the DOJ to file a federal lawsuit that accused its police force of a pattern of racial profiling and unnecessary force and its municipal courts of acting as a cash source.
Leaders in the St. Louis suburb, which became a focal point of the Black Lives Matter movement after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson, approved the original deal to avoid the time and cost of litigating the matter in court.
“Our number one goal is to not only move the city but the entire region forward,” said Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III in a statement issued after the vote.
Ferguson’s police force came under national scrutiny following Brown’s 2014 death. A grand jury declined to indict Mr. Wilson, who has since left the police force.
A Justice Department investigation later ruled that the police force and court system had engaged in a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against black Ferguson residents.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta on Tuesday called Ferguson leaders’ vote to accept the deal “an important step towards guaranteeing all of its citizens the protections of our Constitution.”
“We are pleased that they have approved the consent decree, a document designed to provide the framework needed to institute constitutional policing in Ferguson, and look forward to filing it in court in the coming days and beginning to work with them towards implementation,” Ms. Gupta said.
Under the adopted Justice Department agreement, the city would overhaul the policies and practices of the Ferguson Police Department and the municipal court system.
Changes would include training to help Ferguson law enforcement officials recognize unconscious racial stereotyping; deployment of body-worn cameras to all patrol officers, supervisors and jail workers; more stringent accounting of police use-of-force incidents; limitations of court fines and jail time for minor violations; and a plan to increase the diversity of the police force.
After the deal was made public in January, Ferguson lawmakers raised concern over the potential high costs of complying with the agreement, which they worried could bankrupt the city.
In February, they attempted to revise the agreement with new conditions — among them that the deal would not bind any agency that takes over services currently being provided by the city. Inclusion of that condition would have opened up the prospect that the Ferguson Police Department could be dissolved and taken over by the surrounding St. Louis County, which would then not be held to the agreement.
The city and the Justice Department will now file a settlement agreement in St. Louis federal court in St. Louis for approval.
“It is time for the city to come together and rally around the spirit of the decree,” Councilman Wesley Bell said. “This is an opportunity to show the entire world that we can and will work together.”
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
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