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Tags: ferguson | police | traffic stops | fines | blacks

NYT: Justice Finds Ferguson Police Guilty of Racial Bias

NYT: Justice Finds Ferguson Police Guilty of Racial Bias
(David Carson/MCT/Landov)

By    |   Monday, 02 March 2015 07:30 AM EST

A Justice Department civil rights investigation is expected to find that Ferguson, Missouri, police discriminated against African-American motorists disproportionately in making traffic stops and levying fines, largely to balance the city's budget, The New York Times reported.

The shooting in August of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager who was resisting arrest, by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, led to widespread rioting in Ferguson and anti-police demonstrations around the country.

The Brown-Wilson incident did not involve a traffic stop, but exposed the animosity between the two groups that resulted from the targeted treatment, the Times said.

In setting forth the extent of racial bias in traffic stops, federal authorities mean to provide a wider perspective to the fatal shooting, according to the Times.

A grand jury refused to indict Wilson. A pending Justice Department inquiry is expected to clear him of civil rights charges, the Times reported.

Police behavior in making traffic stops — disproportionately singling out African-American drivers for both stops and searches — fed an atmosphere of racial hostility prior to the shooting, the report is expected to indicate.

African-Americans are 63 percent of Ferguson inhabitants but accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops in 2013. They were 50 percent more likely to be frisked than white drivers, though searches of whites were as likely to turn up contraband, it says, the Times reports.

The investigation, due to be released in the coming days, reports that the city has come to rely on fines from ticketing and arresting blacks to balance its budget. After sales taxes, traffic fines are Ferguson's second-largest source of revenue.

The DOJ report will likely say that police tactics had a "disparate" though unnecessary impact on African-Americans. The report need not show that cops deliberately picked on minorities, according to the Times.

The "highly critical" report is intended to force Ferguson officials to change considerably the way police operate. The city will either have to negotiate a settlement or find itself being sued by the Justice Department on civil rights charges, the Times reported.

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles criticized Attorney General Eric Holder for not informing the city of any findings that needed immediate attention and for claiming that Ferguson's police department required extensive reforms.

"Why have they allowed whatever they think is happening to continue to happen for six months if that's the case?" said Knowles.

Under Holder's tenure, DOJ has conducted some 20 investigations into the behavior of local police departments.

After visiting Missouri last summer, Holder declared, "this attorney general and this Department of Justice stands with the people of Ferguson," the Times reported.

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US
A Justice Department civil rights investigation is expected to find that Ferguson, Missouri, police discriminated against African-American motorists disproportionately in making traffic stops and levying fines, largely to balance the city's budget, The New York Times reports.
ferguson, police, traffic stops, fines, blacks
432
2015-30-02
Monday, 02 March 2015 07:30 AM
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