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Ferguson panel recommends merging police, courts

FERGUSON, Mo. – The co-chairman of a reform panel formed after the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown said Monday that the group’s report calling for police departments and municipal courts to be merged and other changes “reveals uncomfortable truths about this region we call home.”

Rich McClure and other Ferguson Commission members acknowledge in their 198-page report that the panel has no power to enact any of the proposals. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said he backs the recommendations and during a news conference declared: “I commit to you today that these tireless efforts will not be in vain.”

The 16-member commission’s report comes 10 months after Nixon appointed the panel in November. The report, with 189 “calls to action,” recommends consolidating St. Louis-area police departments and municipal courts and scaling back police use of force.

After Brown’s death in August 2014, several police departments and courts, especially in north St. Louis County, were accused of targeting minorities. The report says mistrust from many black residents was a key factor in the unrest after the shooting.

Brown, 18, who was black and unarmed, was killed by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson during a confrontation. A St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute Wilson, who is white and has since resigned, but the shooting spurred a national “Black Lives Matter” movement and led to protests and rioting in and around Ferguson.

The report says the panel heard from many black residents “who do not feel heard or respected when they interact with the police or the courts, and who do not feel that they are treated in an unbiased way.”

Relations with police were strained in parts of the St. Louis region before the shooting, partly because of excessive force, the report says.

The report suggests new use-of-force policies, officer training and a change in department culture. It also recommends establishment of a statewide database of use-of-force incidents and statistics.