Federal government sues Ferguson, Missouri

The Justice Department initiated a civil rights investigation into Ferguson’s policing after an unarmed black teenager was killed by a white police officer in 2014.

Brown’s 2014 death sparked weeks of sometimes violent protests and ignited a national debate about race relations and law enforcement in the United States.

Perhaps the city was hoping to push the Justice Department to accede to accommodations beyond those reached by negotiators.

The Justice Department has launched 67 civil rights investigations of police departments over the last two decades.

The Justice Department is filing a lawsuit against the city of Ferguson, Mo., for civil rights violations. These findings were based upon information received from Ferguson’s own citizens, from Ferguson’s own records and from Ferguson’s own officials. Within minutes of the vote, Ferguson public relations representatives issued a news release announcing the unanimous decision on the consent decree with the seven revisions.

With senior Justice Department officials watching from Washington on a video feed, the council voted to reject the deal as written and send it back with changes.

The deal, which had been arrived at after 11 months of negotiations following a damning DOJ report revealing widespread racism and bias in the city’s justice system, would have mandated extensive training for the police force to encourage “de-escalation tactics” instead of the use of force, and also made “officials engage with minority groups that have had negative experiences” with the department, according to the Huffington Post.

Bell also defended the proposed changes, saying that they “maintain the spirit and integrity of the consent decree” while letting Ferguson move forward with needed reforms.

“We strongly believe that this agreement, with the modest changes approved by the council last evening, achieves the goals of this consent decree”, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III said at a news conference earlier today. According to the terms of the agreement, cops would stop practices like making warrantless arrests, and the city would repeal a jaywalking ordinance that was used overwhelmingly to target black people for fines, among other changes.

On Tuesday, the council voted 6-0 to approve an amended version of the agreement that asks the federal government to change seven provisions to keep the city solvent.

“Their vote to do so creates an unnecessary delay in the essential work to bring constitutional policing to the city, and marks an unfortunate outcome for concerned community members and Ferguson police officers”, Gupta said in a statement Tuesday night. Wilson was cleared of wrongdoing by a St. Louis County grand jury and the Justice Department. In all, the plan would cost $10 million over three years to implement, the city estimates. “We intend to aggressively prosecute this case and I have no doubt that we will prevail”. Twelve of the 13 recommendations for Ferguson authorities involved fairly drastic revisions to the city’s practice of justice, including reforms of trial procedures to ensure due process and a broad-based reduction of fines and fees.