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St​ Louis County police ordered to bring more minorities into their ranks St​ Louis County police ordered to bring more minorities into their ranks
(about 2 hours later)
Police in St Louis County, Missouri, who have been wrestling with racial unrest in the region for more than a year, must bring more minorities into their ranks and undertake a series of reforms, according to a federal report issued on Friday. St Louis County police responded to the protests and civil unrest that followed the death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, with heavy-handedness and encroached on protesters constitutional rights, thereby increasing tensions between the majority white police force and a majority black community, a federally commissioned review has found.
The report cited “abusive policing” as a cause for strained relations between a large minority population and mostly white police forces, and specifically laid out 109 recommendations for the St Louis County Police Department (SLCPD), which serves roughly 407,000 area residents. The collaborative review, produced by the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (Cops), also found the department relies heavily on the experience of Swat training and must do more to engage officers in community policing as well as recruiting more black Americans to its ranks.
Among the actions recommended, the US Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services said the SLCPD should address minority under-representation in the department; enhance training with a specific focus on fair and impartial policing and community engagement; improve the way it handles protests and mass demonstrations; reduce use of force; and work to ensure racial profiling does not occur. “While particularly proficient in the area of tactical operations, the department lacks the training, leadership, and culture necessary to truly engender community policing and to build and sustain trusting relationships with the community,” the report states.
The report said the SLCPD is “a competent, professional police department, well trained and disciplined in the technical skills necessary to perform police operations”. St Louis County police department came under heavy criticism for its militarized policing of protests in Ferguson in the wake of the unarmed teen’s death.
However, the report said “the department lacks the training, leadership, and culture necessary to truly engender community policing and to build and sustain trusting relationships with the community”. The report notes the department “had difficulty anticipating the extent of concern from communities” in Ferguson and therefore “officers reacted to problems instead of taking a proactive approach to preventing them”. It states the department does not have a policy of exhausting all avenues of de-escalation before utilizing tactical Swat responses, which often resulted in “officers with long guns on the front lines and the deployment of tear gas without proper documentation or sufficient warning”.
The report is the latest in a series of findings and recommendations to come out of the Justice Department in the wake of the August 2014 police killing of unarmed African American teenager Michael Brown. The report commends certain tactical changes made ahead of the grand jury decision in November 2014 not to indict Wilson over Brown’s death, but found striking evidence that the organisation as a whole was structured in favour of tactical rather than community policing.
Brown’s shooting by a white police officer from the St Louis suburb of Ferguson set off months of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and surrounding areas, and added to a national debate over allegations of police mistreatment of minorities. Investigators found that while only 6.8% of the 855 strong department has Swat training, those who have this experience accounted for over 25% of officers who were promoted between 2010 and 2015. The report interviews with rank and file officers who said they were told by senior staff there are two types of cops, “those in Sway and those who want to be Swat”.
The Justice Department said that St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar requested the federal review and assistance last year to identify ways the department could improve its relationship with the community. The Cops report marks the fourth and final federally commissioned review to emanate from Brown’s death, which included a scathing DOJ report on the racial bias endemic in the Ferguson city police department.
“We will evaluate the recommendations, and move forward in ways that will ensure our commitment to serve and protect the citizens of St Louis County, while continuing to set an example of leadership for other agencies to follow,” SLCPD spokesman Brian Schellman said. As in Ferguson, investigators found that the St Louis County department employed a low number of African American officers. While the black population of St Louis County as a whole is 23.7%, the police department employs just 10.2% black officers. The report calls on the department to actively recruit more black officers across the board.
In a prepared statement St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said the report served as a “critical analysis of the department”. He argued it was “borne out of an immeasurable amount of scrutiny following the death of Michael Brown” but pledged to “evaluate the recommedations and move forward”.
Asked by the Guardian which recommendations in particular the department would consider implementing, a spokesman responded: “Our department has to review and dissect the report before we comment further.”