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POLICE IN THE Ferguson had routinely discriminated against African-Americans for years, according to media reports citing a Justice Department probe.
The Missouri town was rocked by racially charged riots last year after the shooting of a black teenager by a white officer
The Justice Department investigation into the police department in Ferguson uncovered a widespread pattern of racial discrimination and multiple violations of citizens’ constitutional rights, several US media outlets reported.
The findings, due out today, follow the 9 August shooting of African-American teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer in the St Louis suburb of 21,000 with a black majority population but an overwhelmingly white police force and city council.
In one finding, the Department of Justice report also unearthed racial bias in emails written by Ferguson police and municipal court officials.
One such email, in November 2008, suggested that President Barack Obama was unlikely to remain in the White House for long because, it said, “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”
Bias
Hundreds of interviews, plus thousands of pages of official documents, indicated that Ferguson police officers regularly pulled over motorists without reasonable suspicion, carried out arrests without probable cause and used excessive force, according to the Washington Post and other news media.
While African-Americans make up 67% of Ferguson’s overall population, they accounted for 93% of all arrests in 2012 through 2014, the report is expected to reveal.
African-Americans accounted for 85% of all people stopped by Ferguson police, 90% of all citations issued and 88% of instances in which force was used.
Ferguson’s local judicial system also comes under a harsh light in the report, which says African-Americans were 68% less likely than others to have their cases dismissed by a municipal judge, the Post reported.
Ferguson became a flashpoint for tense relations between African-Americans and law enforcement after Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in broad daylight on a residential street.
The violence, and the Ferguson police force’s use of military-style weapons and vehicles to tackle protesters, triggered an outcry and gained international media attention.
Anger was rekindled when a grand jury in St Louis County, which encompasses Ferguson, decided in late November not to indict Wilson on murder or manslaughter charges.
In a statement on Tuesday, human rights group Amnesty International said the findings should prompt Obama to set up a task force to come up with recommendations for criminal justice reform.
“The United States still has a long way to go before it has truly accountable policing,” its US director Steven Hawkins said.
“This country’s long history of racial profiling and other police abuses is only matched by its equally long history of inadequate accountability for those responsible.”
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So the DUP don’t like being told NO?
@KTH: typo in the headline ‘UK Gov’, should read ‘English Gov’.
Didn’t the DUP blackmail the Tories for £1billion to prop up the government
@Darren McCarthy: where did that dosh
@Darren McCarthy: That £1Bn went to Stormont to allocate as they saw fit, the entire community benefited with Fibre broadband infrastructure, health and infrastructure amongst other things
https://factcheckni.org/topics/economy/has-the-dup-brought-an-extra-1bn/
@Gertrude Gilmore: Gertrude the unionist.
@Mike smith: Is that a problem, Mike?
If the elected members of the DUP would get off their dupas and do their job…
@Todd Hebert: If Sinn Fein would get on with the job and take their seats at Westminster and fight Northern Ireland’s corner regarding funding
I am one of those who have no Westminster representation as my Sinn Fein MP refuses to take their seat
They should let the next party, in order of electoral votes take it instead
@Gertrude Gilmore: Does the same argument apply for Stormont? The DUP have kept Stormont closed now for 2 years. Meanwhile, in Westminster, the Tories ignore them. Maybe one day, the penny will drop.
@Gertrude Gilmore: So just redraw the electoral system when it’s not suiting you Gerty!! Eh.. No! Those days are gone forever. Get used to it xx
@Anthony Curran: Whataboutery is not an acceptable answer.
@Gertrude Gilmore: and yet you were first in with whataboutery
@Gertrude Gilmore: SF says from the start that they will not sit in a English parliament,they are elected on this condition.
@Daniel Roche: Just like the DUP said from the start they will not sit in Stormont while the protocol remains, they are elected on this condition.
Sammy hasn’t gone away you know
@Eddienowy Byrne: he should be put away.
The people that get into power are of such low quality is amazing we’re all still here.
@Peter Murray: sure FG/FF are a wonderful job aren’t they?
@Nigel Hayden: “doing”
@Peter Murray: sad comment…says it all about you really
@Peter Murray: this has nothing to do with SF, try reading the article
Ah shucks ! We can’t have our cake and eat it guys As long as we get paid ourselves who cares about N. I .? Sing the same old victim tune and make a few loyalty to the union burps to keep the home fires burning and we can continue on our merry way …..
You get what you vote for. DUP believe they are British , gove is telling them they’re living in an alien country to mainland Britain. Surely the DUP are aware people just want to get on with their lives the best way they can.
It’s great to see the tables being turned on the DUP, when someone else says No.
Ah the poor old DUP won’t do their jobs but take the money and expect someone else to do the work. It’s way past time that Westminster told them to F.. off.
They’re the ones blocking everything and messing everything up. They’ve no right to complain in my book.
@Anna Carr (Morrigan_Dubh): Those pesky prods eh….up to no good
Sorry my dear, but we have every right to complain, and you and people like you will not deny us our rights.
@Gertrude Gilmore: Anna never mentioned religion. You did! Forever stoking sectarian division and then demanding your “rights” to do so. Bottom feeders
@Sean: yes Sean, Anna just referred to them as “they” – It amounts to the same, don’t you think? Loyalist/Prods whatever…She was hardly talking about Hindus
@SYaxJ2Ts: how about just unionists ?
@Gertrude Gilmore: complaining that you don’t get special treatment anymore and the mainland uk wants absolutely nothing got to do with you so instead of acting like grow ups refuse to go back to work till you get special treatment hahahah
@Gertrude Gilmore: I think the great great British government is doing that by their actions. It’s got nothing to do with religion Britney has is bankrupting the Britain while Northern Ireland and Ireland enjoy the European market.
Time to accept that Northern Ireland is alien to mainland Britain .
@SYaxJ2Ts: “They” as in the DUP kev. Where the hell are you and Gerty getting any religious element from what was said? That type of sectarian mindset is to be pitied. Some of our greatest republicans were Protestant, including the “Father” of Irish Republicanism, Wolfe Tone
@Sean: Fair enough Sean. A mis read on my part. I have far from a sectarian mindset
@Gertrude Gilmore: Why bring religion into it,I fully support your rights,I support the rights of every Irish person on the island of Ireland.
@SYaxJ2Ts: No it doesn’t,the father of republicanism was a Protestant,a president of the GAA was a Protestant,there are republican songs celebrating protestants,the Catholic church was no friend to republicans,the Catholic church supported king Billy,so no you can’t bring religion into it.
@SYaxJ2Ts: Fair enough Kevin
Thats how the world works Sammy.you have to go to work.
It must be a requirement to have an IQ of less than 7 to join the DUP.Will they ever cop on to the fact that the Union does not want them?.They really are letting everyone down by not returning to the Assembly and unfortunately it’s the ordinary folk from both communities that’s suffering because of them.
Good, delighted.
Sammy the knuckle dragger.
But but the DUP are loyal flegggggggggg loving servants to king charlie and the crown and the westminister knob heads said nooooooooo to them…….How will orange sammy and Jeremy take such devasting news
Who is it that the Loyalists are Loyal to again?
I don’t understand why The Journal only allows comments on a small selection of their articles. Looks like censorship to me. Disappointing.
NO work= NO pay
Ha féicin ha!
Micheal Gove always struck me as possibly being that oxymoron, a Reasonable Tory.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Yeah, he likes to sing the Sash….let her rip !!!
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Your reason radar might be on the blink Sean
Piggies squealing that their trough isn’t being filled. Get back to work and earn it DUP
Another circular firing squad.
The usual tribal mix at play. DUP has failed NI economically, politically and socially. However the beauts in SF want to use that as a stick to tell us “we told you so so you better elect us for governing the whole island etc…”.
Is this going to make the DUP see the light? SF have nothing to offer us except FFG without the suits and accents, but the same BS. If this is the quality of public representation, we’re all goosed.
have your say