Ferguson officials to meet with DoJ to discuss federal police review

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/03/ferguson-doj-officials-federal-police-review

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Leaders from Ferguson, Missouri, are to meet Department of Justice officials on Tuesday to discuss a federal review of their policing of the town, which was roiled by protests following the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old last year.

Mayor James Knowles III, police chief Thomas Jackson and city manager John Shaw are among those scheduled to attend talks in the St Louis area on Tuesday afternoon with senior Justice Department representatives, a spokesman for Ferguson told the Guardian.

The Ferguson officials are waiting to learn the conclusions of the review, which was prompted by the death of Michael Brown, who was shot dead on 9 August by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, leading to months of unrest and a revived national debate on policing.

The Justice Department’s report is expected to find that Ferguson’s police force, which is overwhelmingly white, carried out discriminatory arrests and traffic stops of members of the town’s majority black population, which residents have said caused severe racial tensions.

The report may demand that Ferguson’s leaders negotiate a settlement known as a “consent decree” with the Justice Department under threat of a civil rights lawsuit. This settlement would allow the federal government to continue monitoring Ferguson’s police department.

Consent decrees agreed with other police forces in the US in recent years have detailed new training requirements for officers or established tighter internal regulations on the use of force.

Ferguson’s population is 67% black, according to the 2010 census, but when Brown was shot, 50 of its 53 police officers were white. Missouri’s attorney general found in 2013 that seven black drivers were stopped by police for every white driver, and that 12 times as many searches were carried out on black drivers as white.

Jeff Small, a spokesman for Ferguson, said Tuesday’s meeting had been requested by Justice Department officials, who had asked to see senior leaders from the town. He said Ferguson’s team had not been briefed beforehand on what they were to be told. “We don’t know what the meeting will entail and what they will be discussing,” said Small.

Plans for Tuesday’s meeting were first reported by the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

Small would not comment on Ferguson’s expectations or concerns about the inquiry. He said leaders from Ferguson planned to address the Justice Department’s findings at a press conference to be held on the day the federal report is released to the public.

Speculation has mounted since August that Jackson’s position as police chief, and even the continued existence of his department, may be untenable following the Justice Department’s findings. It has been suggested that Ferguson’s police force could disbanded and their authority handed to St Louis County, which led the response to protests after Brown’s death.

A spokesman for St Louis County police said in an email that the department was “not involved” in Tuesday’s discussions.

A St Louis grand jury decided in November not to bring state charges against Wilson over the shooting of Brown. The FBI and officials from the Justice Department’s civil rights division have been investigating the shooting in a separate inquiry to the review of Ferguson’s policing. Officials are widely expected to announce soon that Wilson will not face federal civil rights charges.