Page:Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department.djvu/82

 

The unlawful police misconduct and court practices described above have generated great distrust of Ferguson law enforcement, especially among African Americans. As described below, other FPD practices further contribute to distrust, including FPD's failure to hold officers accountable for misconduct, failure to implement community policing principles, and the lack of diversity within FPD. Together, these practices severely damaged the relationship between African Americans and the Ferguson Police Department long before Michael Brown's shooting death in August 2014. This divide has made policing in Ferguson less effective, more difficult, and more likely to discriminate.

 Ferguson's Unlawful Police and Court Practices Have Led to Distrust and Resentment Among Many in Ferguson

The lack of trust between a significant portion of Ferguson's residents, especially its African-American residents, and the Ferguson Police Department has become, since August 2014, undeniable. The causes of this distrust and division, however, have been the subject of debate. City and police officials, and some other Ferguson residents, have asserted that this lack of meaningful connection with much of Ferguson's African-American community is due to the fact that they are "transient" renters; that they do not appreciate how much the City of Ferguson does for them; that "pop-culture" portrays alienating themes; or because of "rumors" that the police and municipal court are unyielding because they are driven by raising revenue.

Our investigation showed that the disconnect and distrust between much of Ferguson's African-American community and FPD is caused largely by years of the unlawful and unfair law enforcement practices by Ferguson's police department and municipal court described above. In the documents we reviewed, the meetings we observed and participated in, and in the hundreds of conversations Civil Rights Division staff had with residents of Ferguson and the surrounding area, many residents, primarily African-American residents, described being belittled, disbelieved, and treated with little regard for their legal rights by the Ferguson Police Department. One white individual who has lived in Ferguson for 48 years told us that it feels like Ferguson's police and court system is "designed to bring a black man down… [there are] no second chances." We heard from African-American residents who told us of Ferguson's "long history of targeting blacks for harassment and degrading treatment," and who described the steps they take to avoid this—from taking routes to work that skirt Ferguson to moving out of state. An African-American minister of a church in a nearby community told us that he doesn't allow his two sons to drive through Ferguson out of "fear that they will be targeted for arrest."

African Americans' views of FPD are shaped not just by what FPD officers do, but by how they do it. During our investigation, dozens of African Americans in Ferguson told us of