The full extent of the racial persecution of black residents in Ferguson, Missouri, by the city’s overwhelmingly white law enforcement authorities was disclosed on Wednesday in a damning report by the US Department of Justice.
Ferguson’s police department and court system “reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias”, the 105-page study found, adding that “discriminatory intent” among city officials – several of whom were found to have sent racist emails – was partly to blame.
Unveiling the report at a press conference in Washington, the US attorney general, Eric Holder, blamed Ferguson police for creating a “toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment” that had been set off “like a powder keg” by a white officer shooting dead an unarmed black 18-year-old.
“It is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action,” said Holder. “Let me be clear: the United States Department of Justice reserves all its rights and abilities to force compliance and implement basic change. Nothing is off the table.”
The investigators concluded: “Over time, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular”.
They also unearthed evidence of wider corruption among white court officials. They outlined 26 recommendations for Ferguson’s police department and courts system, indicating that these may form the basis of a binding reform agreement likely to be drawn up between the city and US officials. Under such a “consent decree”, Ferguson would be sued by the federal government if it failed to make necessary changes.
Ferguson’s mayor, James Knowles III told a press conference on Wednesday evening that one city official who sent a racist email had been fired and two others had been suspended pending an internal inquiry.
“This type of behaviour will not be tolerated in the Ferguson police department or in any department in the city of Ferguson,” said Knowles. The Justice Department’s report said their inquiry “revealed many additional email communications that exhibited racial or ethnic bias, as well as other forms of bias” in addition to those quoted.
He said Ferguson’s police department had recently hired some African American women and implemented “mandatory diversity training” for officers. The mayor refused to answer questions from reporters.
Yet the Justice Department study stopped short of recommending that Ferguson’s police force be disbanded and absorbed by St Louis County, as some campaigners had predicted. Stating that the city “has the capacity to reform its approach to law enforcement”, it suggested keeping a small force. At his Wednesday night press conference, Knowles announced no major reforms or personnel changes.
Bob McCulloch, the St Louis County prosecutor who oversaw the state grand jury inquiry that looked into Brown’s death, insisted that discrimination by law enforcement was a rarity but said authorities must “weed it out”.
“Nobody could deny there have been instances of racial profiling,” McCulloch told reporters at his offices in Clayton. “Nobody wants to see anybody treated unfairly”. He added: “We’ve got a long way to go.”
The Justice Department’s report ended a six-month inquiry prompted by unrest that followed a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shooting dead Michael Brown. Officials announced simultaneously in a second report on Wednesday that Wilson would not face federal civil rights charges over the 9 August incident.
In a statement issued through their attorneys, Brown’s parents said they were “encouraged that the DOJ will hold the Ferguson Police Department accountable for the pattern of racial bias and profiling they found in their handling of interactions with people of color”.
“It is our hope that through this action, true change will come not only in Ferguson, but around the country,” they said. “If that change happens, our son’s death will not have been in vain.” Ferguson leaders were expected to respond to the report at a press conference later on Wednesday.
Federal investigators conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed tens of thousands of documents and spent several days observing courtrooms. They found “a pattern of unconstitutional policing” and a municipal court system inflicting “unnecessary harm” under a drive to raise more revenues for the city.
Detailing an extensive list of individual injustices, the investigators concluded officers showed a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion, arrests without probable cause and excessive force, all in violation of the fourth amendment to the US constitution.
Ferguson’s population is 67% African American, according to the 2010 census. Yet between 2012 and 2014, 93% of all arrests were of black people and almost nine in 10 uses of force were against African Americans. In all 14 bites by police dogs when racial information of the person bitten was available, that person was African American.
The review found 85% of drivers stopped by police were black, and that African American drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to be searched. Yet black drivers were more than 25% less likely to be found in possession of illegal substances or goods. African American drivers were much more likely than whites to be cited for driving offences when these were observed by police officers in person rather than detected by radar or similar technology.
As black residents then moved through the courts system, the investigators found, they faced punitive sanctions and hypocrisy from the white officials in charge.
While they were bombarded with fines and tickets, white figures – including the municipal judge, court clerk and senior police officers – were found “assisting friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and themselves in eliminating citations, fines, and fees”.
The review found that 95% of people detained at the city jail for more than two days between April and September 2014 were black. During the same period, black defendants were 68% less likely than others to have their cases dismissed.
Dismissing the notion that the discrepancies could be explained simply by a “difference in the rate at which people of different races violate the law”, the Justice Department investigators pointed to “substantial evidence of racial bias” among court and police officials.
Details of seven racist emails sent by senior officials were published in the report. An April 2011 email “depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee”, while an email the following month “included a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women, apparently in Africa, with the caption, ‘Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion’.”
The authors of the emails, who were apparently not punished or told to cease, were not named. However, the report noted that John Shaw, Ferguson’s powerful city manager, forwarded an email in 2012 containing stereotypes of Latinos, before quickly apologising.
The investigators said they found officials insisting that rather than reflecting racial bias from law enforcement, the disproportionate action against African Americans was instead due to a pervasive lack of “personal responsibility” among “certain segments” of the community.
“Our investigation suggests that this explanation is at odds with the facts,” the investigators wrote. They added that “while there are people of all races who may lack personal responsibility, the harm of Ferguson’s approach to law enforcement is largely due to the myriad systemic deficiencies” discovered in their investigation.