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“How Ferguson elevated the profile of the Justice Department’s civil rights enforcers
BY ERIC TUCKER AND ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Updated 11:51 AM EST, August 16, 2024
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WASHINGTON (AP) — As the first images out of Ferguson, Missouri surfaced 10 years ago — the bloodied body of a man left for hours in the street beneath white sheets, protesters smashing car windows and looting stores — it didn’t take long for the federal government to see a role for itself.
Acting with notable haste, the FBI within two days opened a criminal investigation into the killing of Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer, while the Justice Department less than a month later launched a civil rights inquiry culminating in a devastating report that identified abuses by the city’s overwhelmingly white police force and court system.
The investigations catapulted the department’s Civil Rights Division into the spotlight, bringing heightened publicity to a unit whose work since its 1957 creation included fighting for voting rights and prosecuting Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King. The Ferguson probes became part of a cluster of high-profile investigations into police departments, work that fed a national dialogue on race and law enforcement and formed a legacy item of the Obama administration Justice Department before being largely abandoned under President Donald Trump. Inquiries into big-city police forces returned under President Joe Biden.”