The Justice Department is suing Ferguson, Missouri, after city councilors voted Tuesday to reject some of the terms the DOJ and the city had spent more than six months negotiating, to fix a racist police department.
Last March, the Justice Department released a report on Ferguson that found, among other issues, although Ferguson's population is 67-percent black, black men and women accounted for 93-percent of arrests.
A single missed payment of a fine or citation in Ferguson frequently lands people in jail, and those people most often black. And the city's law enforcement practices are shaped by revenue instead of public need.
"There is no reason to enter into an agreement we know that we can not live up to. And financially impossible for us to live up to. And it serves no ones purpose for us to fail," said Ferguson Mayor James Knowles.
"The residents of Ferguson have suffered the deprivation of their constitutional rights, the rights guaranteed to all Americans, for decades. They have waited decades for justice. They should not be forced to wait any longer," U. S Attorney General Loretta Lynch responded.
Attorney Natashia Tidwell and ACLU Massachusetts' Director of Racial Justice, Rahsaan Hall ( @rahsaandhall), discuss.
