Ferguson, Mo. Police Chief Resigns Following Scathing DOJ Report Of Widespread Racial Bias

“The report from the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division on the Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department is a damning indictment of an out-of-control, lawless, and racist police department gone rogue.”  Out of the dozens of newspaper and TV reports following the release of the Department of Justice’s scathing review of the Ferguson Police Dept., an article written by Tom Nolan of the Daily Beast seemed to analyze exactly why embattled Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson was finally forced to resign.

It’s amazing to me this Police Chief was able to last this long in office

Here are just a few excerpts from Nolan’s article:

• The DOJ report found that the FPD has engaged in a “pattern and practice of constitutional violations (that primarily target African Americans) in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force.”
• The Ferguson Police Department (FPD) arrested 460 individuals for outstanding warrants between October 2012 and October 2014: 96% of those arrested were African American. African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges, 94% of Failure to Comply charges, 92% of Resisting Arrest charges, 92% of Peace Disturbance charges, and 89% of Failure to Obey charges “despite making up 67% of the population, African Americans accounted for 85% of FPD’s traffic stops, 90% of FPD’s citations, and 93% of FPD’s arrests from 2012 to 2014.”
• The race-based enforcement tactics and strategies employed by the FPD have a disparate impact on African Americans that is violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• The DOJ report found that the FPD regulates the activities and behavior of Ferguson’s African-American residents, workers, students, and visitors through enforcement strategies designed to raise revenue rather than to protect the public, and that it does so in collusion with the municipal court and the city government.

Jackson's resignation is the latest fallout from the Justice Department report, which exposed problems in the city's policing tactics and faulted Ferguson's officers for seeing residents as "sources of revenue".  The investigators also found evidence of racist jokes (too disgusting to be reprinted here) being sent around by Ferguson police and court officials.

Ferguson City Manager John Shaw stepped down Tuesday. The report mentions both men by name.Two police officers resigned last week and the city's top court clerk was fired in connection with racist emails, city spokesman Jeff Small said on Friday. 

UPDATE:

Not long after publishing this post, I saw Sam and Donna’s blog pop-up on my reading list.  In his post, Sam rightfully lamented the fact that 2 Ferguson police officers had been shot and wounded Wednesday night outside the Ferguson police department.  I share in Sam’s sorrow about the senseless shootings of police officers who are simply doing their job – it’s tragic and those responsible need to be brought to justice.

Unfortunately, Sam went on to write that “these criminals will seize any chance to riot and commit civil disobedience”.  That statement is incorrect on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin.  But, I’ll try anyway:

• The people gathered at the Ferguson Police were not criminals.  They were simply citizens exercising their rights of free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
• They were not breaking any laws by simply protesting
• They were not only not "criminals" they were not even practicing "civil disobedience" as they were not breaking any laws
• Tea Party Patriots (along with US Congressmen) and all kinds of other groups regularly gather crowds to demonstrate at the US Capital and no one calls them “criminals”.

As of 3:30pm PST, police investigators still had not determined where the shots that hit the 2 police officers had been fired from.  All witnesses that have spoken up so far have indicated the shots seem to have come from well behind the protesters. 

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