Justice Dept Files Lawsuit Against Ferguson

Justice Department suing Ferguson - CNN.com

"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," Lynch said. "They should not be forced to wait any longer."

Some of that was tough to follow. Ferguson is not a huge community, so I have no way of understanding how they can come close to footing the bill for all that has transpired and for all now being required of them.

Thanks Beyonce.

This is going to bankrupt the town and hurt the people who it was suppose to help. Ferguson is already running at a 2.5 million dollar deficit since the riots. They just can't afford the DOJ proposal.

I agree some of that is hard to follow.

If I do follow the part about their court system correctly I agree wholeheartedly that City Court systems are corrupt as hell. For any matters other than Code Enforcement (non-criminal, non-police matters) cities should not be allowed to have their own court system. Everything should be sent on to a state court.

Here are more details about issues with the FPD.

Ferguson sued by Justice Department - Business Insider

Based on the small amount of information in that article (and assuming the dozens of other examples are similar) the Ferguson PD sounded over the line for sure and even out of control at times.

In my experience, a couple of those examples would have resulted in anywhere from "don't you dare ever do that again" to a written reprimand but if the one about the K9 is true that one is potentially very serious.

So the natives are getting what they want. They want to be allowed to roam free with no rules. The DOJ just gave them permission too.

Taking the DOJ's side, they want the Ferguson Police Department/City Government to follow the rules.

The problem I see is the DOJ is using race and statistics as their trump cards and that gives Ferguson a defense.