WASHINGTON — Ferguson, Mo., is a third white, but the crime statistics compiled in the city over the past two years seemed to suggest that only black people were breaking the law. They accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of tickets and 93 percent of arrests. In cases like jaywalking, which often hinge on police discretion, blacks accounted for 95 percent of all arrests.
The racial disparity in those statistics was so stark that the Justice Department has concluded in a report scheduled for release on Wednesday that there was only one explanation: The Ferguson Police Department was routinely violating the constitutional rights of its black residents.
After Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Mo., many black residents protested what they called unfair treatment by the police. The report, based on a six-month investigation, provides a glimpse into the roots of the racial tensions that boiled over in Ferguson last summer after a black teenager, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by a white police officer, making it a worldwide flash point in the debate over race and policing in America. It describes a city where the police used force almost exclusively on blacks and regularly stopped people without probable cause. Racial bias is so ingrained, the report said, that Ferguson officials circulated racist jokes on their government email accounts.
According to a preliminary release, an investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division into the police department in Ferguson, Mo., found a pattern of racial bias between 2012 and 2014 violating the Constitution and federal law.
In a November 2008 email, a city official said Barack Obama would not be president long because “what black man holds a steady job for four years?” Another email included a cartoon depicting African-Americans as monkeys. A third described black women having abortions as a way to curb crime.
“There are serious problems here that cannot be explained away,” said a law enforcement official who has seen the report and spoke on the condition of anonymity because it had not been released yet.
Those findings reinforce what the city’s black residents have been saying publicly since the shooting in August, that the criminal justice system in Ferguson works differently for blacks and whites. A black motorist who is pulled over is twice as likely to be searched as a white motorist, even though searches of white drivers are more likely to turn up drugs or other contraband, the report found.
Minor, largely discretionary offenses such as disturbing the peace and jaywalking were brought almost exclusively against blacks. When whites were charged with these crimes, they were 68 percent more likely to have their cases dismissed, the Justice Department found.
More behind the link.
I know, I know: Who didn't know about this? Still, despite the officer who shot Michael Brown not being charged with violating his civil rights, seeing it laid out there in black and white (if you'll excuse the expression) makes it all the more stunning, and shows that last year's demonstrations were about far, far more than a single controversial shooting. It seems that the residents of the city have been poorly served by their law enforcement officials, and I suspect that the Department Of Justice is going to step in now to try and change things. Let's hope that they're as successful as they were in Los Angeles, and not blocked at every turn like they are in New York.
Thoughts on this? I know that it can't come as a surprise, but do you think that the Ferguson P.D. and city government are being treated fairly in this report? What, if anything, should be done now? Or is it simply too late for things to change, with a culture of racism so deeply ingrained that it seems that many officials don't even see it?
