ST. LOUIS—The Ferguson Police Department has agreed to overhaul its policies, training and practices as part of a sweeping deal with the Justice Department following the 2014 fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The recommendations, detailed in a 131-page proposed consent decree released Wednesday, are meant to correct problems identified in a scathing Justice Department report last year that identified unconstitutional and discriminatory practices across the city police force and municipal court system.
The city had been under federal scrutiny since the August 2014 shooting of Brown, who was black and unarmed, by white police officer Darren Wilson. The killing led to protests and promoted a wave of national scrutiny about police use of force and law enforcement’s interactions with minorities.
Wilson was cleared in the shooting, but a federal investigation into the Ferguson police force found patterns of racial bias throughout the city’s criminal justice system. A Justice Department report in March found officers routinely used excessive force, issued petty citations and made baseless traffic stops in the city of about 21,000 residents, about two-thirds of whom are black. It also criticized the police force, which was nearly all white, and the court system for leaning heavily on fines for petty municipal violations as a source of revenue for the city government.
The recommended overhaul follows seven months of negotiations and likely averts a civil rights lawsuit that federal officials can bring against departments that resist changing their policing practices. Ferguson officials posted the tentative deal on the city’s website and scheduled three public sessions for input from residents. A City Council vote is scheduled for Feb. 9.
The agreement envisions a top-to-bottom reshaping of basic policing practices as the Justice Department calls for fundamental changes in how officers conduct stops, searches and arrests, use their firearms and respond to demonstrations. Ferguson officials also agreed to rewrite their municipal code to restrict the use of fines and jail time for petty violations.
“The agreement also will ensure that the city’s stated commitment to refocusing police and municipal court practices on public safety, rather than revenue generation, takes root and will not be undone,” Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote in a letter to Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III.
Among the highlights of the deal is a requirement that all patrol officers, supervisors and jail workers be outfitted with body-worn cameras and microphones within 180 days of the agreement taking effect. The cameras, meant to promote accountability, are to be activated for all traffic stops, arrests, searches and encounters with people believed to be experiencing a mental health crisis.
