Can Anyone Fix the Ferguson Police Department? It needs to be overhauled. It takes time, but it can be done.
"President Obama on Monday announced that he will send Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson, Missouri. America’s top law enforcement official will meet with FBI agents conducting the civil rights investigation into the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed, black 18-year-old who was shot and killed by a white police officer a little more than a week ago. The investigation into Brown’s death—which will include a federal autopsy of his body—is expected to take some time. But its end will likely only mark the beginning of a larger probe into the Ferguson Police Department, which has seemingly gone out of its way to stoke protesters’ anger by refusing to clarify the circumstances of the shooting, and by greeting the originally peaceful protests with military-grade riot gear."
Any meaningful reconciliation to the chaos and conflict provoked by this episode will have to include reform of the Ferguson Police Department. But how could that be done? How do you fix a police department that has proven it can’t police itself?
If Holder concludes that there has been a pattern of misconduct by the police—either in the lead-up to Brown’s death or in its aftermath—the president has the ability to force widespread reforms within the department with the help of a law passed in the wake of the Rodney King beating. The provision in question, part of what was officially known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, is “one of the most significant” pieces of civil rights legislation passed in the latter part of 20th century, and also one of the most “overlooked,” according to Joe Domanick, the associate director of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Center on Media, Crime, and Justice. The law gives the federal government two options: It can either formally pursue a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Ferguson Police Department by alleging a “pattern and practice” of misconduct or the administration and city officials can enter into what is known as a “consent decree” that would mandate a specific set of reforms that would then be overseen by an independent court-appointed monitor. Faced with the possibility of a costly court battle, most cities have historically taken the path of least resistance and signed on the decree’s dotted lines. Ferguson officials probably wouldn’t buck that trend............."
It actually is going to be hard to argue against reforming the Feguson police department. In 1970, Ferguson was 99% white. Now it’s 67% black. But only 3 of the 53 officers are black.
They won’t be able to hire anything but a black officer for the next 10 years.
They may be doing a great job, but that won’t matter. They’ve made this about race. And regardless of the facts of the shooting, they will address the racial disparity of the police department.
Hopefully they won’t do it in a disruptive manor and cause the unemployment of a lot of police that are already hired.