Ferguson Report: Rampant Racism and Other Findings from Probe

iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice on Wednesday released its investigation of the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department, finding a pattern and practice of discriminatory policing.

The report includes seven racist emails sent by Ferguson officers. In its review, the Justice Department also found 161 use of force complaints against Ferguson police from 2010 to 2014. Only one case was founded and no officer was disciplined.

“As detailed in our report, this investigation found a community that was deeply polarized, and where deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between police and area residents,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them. Now that our investigation has reached its conclusion, it is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action.”

Holder added that the report is “only the beginning of a necessarily resource-intensive and inclusive process to promote reconciliation, to reduce and eliminate bias, and to bridge gaps and build understanding.”

The conclusions come nearly seven months after a confrontation with officer Darren Wilson left 18-year-old Michael Brown dead.

Separately on Wednesday, the DOJ announced that Wilson will not be charged in Brown’s death.

Here is a sampling of some of the 100-page report’s most scathing findings:

RACIST E-MAILS

• A May 2011 email stated — “An African-American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.’”

• A November 2008 email read — “President Barack Obama would not be President for very long” because “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”

• An email described a man seeking to obtain “welfare” for his dogs because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are.” (June 2011)

• An April 2011 email depicted President Obama as a chimpanzee.

• A December 2011 email included jokes based on offensive stereotypes about Muslims.

• An October 2011 email included a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women, apparently in Africa, with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”

POLICING PRACTICES

• “Conducting stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause” — both violations of the Fourth Amendment, according to the DOJ.

• Focused on revenue over public safety, leading to court practices that violate the 14th Amendment’s due process.

RACIAL BIAS

• Harmful municipal court and police practices are due, at least in part, to intentional discrimination as “demonstrated by direct evidence of racial bias and stereotyping about African Americans by certain Ferguson police and municipal court officials,” according to the DOJ.

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