Police department and court system ‘reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias’. Investigators outline 26 recommendations to reform Ferguson’s policing. DOJ could file a lawsuit against Ferguson to force them to change.
There are calls for the Police Chief to resign. Unveiling the report at a press conference in Washington, the US attorney general, Eric Holder, blamed Ferguson police for creating a “toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment” that had been set off “like a powder keg” by a white officer shooting dead an unarmed black 18-year-old.
“It is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action,” said Holder. “Let me be clear: the United States Department of Justice reserves all its rights and abilities to force compliance and implement basic change. Nothing is off the table.”
In addition to this the DOJ found racist email depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee, among other nasty messages.
Watch Holder speak below: