Justice Department sues Ferguson, demands end to biased policing practices

The city of Ferguson, Missouri, must now defend itself against a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice after months of negotiations failed to bring a compromise on a package of reforms designed to revamp the city’s controversial policing practices.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the action Wednesday against Ferguson, a day after federal officials said Ferguson’s City Council tried to unilaterally modify and pass its own version of reforms.

A “disappointed” Lynch criticized Ferguson’s city leaders for trying to amend a package of reforms that had been hammered out between city and federal officials after seven months of what she called “painstaking” negotiations. The reforms include the mandatory use of body cameras and a repeal of city laws that allow police to jail people for not paying fines.

In a 6-0 vote Tuesday, the City Council said it would only accept the package if the Justice Department agreed to several conditions that included limits on staffing mandates and longer deadlines.

“Every part of that document was discussed and was negotiated extensively,” Lynch said in a news conference in Washington, D.C.

Lynch added, “The city was well aware that had they decided not to accept it; they were choosing litigation.”

Ferguson became a national symbol of troubled policing after the August 2014 police shooting death of unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer led to riots and lengthy protests in the predominantly black St. Louis suburb.

An ensuing Department of Justice investigation found no reason to charge the officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, who said Brown charged at him.

But a separate department investigation found the city’s police force systematically racially profiled and harassed black residents.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the eastern district of Missouri, accused Ferguson of violating the First, Fourth and 14th Amendments.