THE GREAT EUROPEAN PROBLEM: The Inherent Inferiority Complex Of Racial Discrimination And Pervasive War Against Black People - U.S. DOJ Reveals That Ferguson Police Used "Excessive Force" Against African Americans; "ONLY BLACK PEOPLE WERE BIT BY POLICE DOGS"; Racist Jokes Prompt Dismissal And Two Probes At The Ferguson Police Department; Picketing Protesters Arrested; Michael Brown's Family Officially Confirms Lawsuit Against Darren Wilson!

Reuters / Aaron P Bernstein

March 5, 2015 - MISSOURI, UNITED STATES - One Ferguson Police Department employee has been fired and two others have been placed on leave after federal authorities identified them as responsible for writing racist emails, the mayor of the city said.

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles made the announcement at a Wednesday evening press conference and the decision came after the US Justice Department tagged the three specifically for having made racist remarks in city emails.

The fallout comes as the Justice Department issued a 100-page report that found systematic racial discrimination by the Ferguson police officials and the court system against African Americans. Mayor Knowles said the city “must do better”to address racism.

“We must do better not only as a city but as a state and a country. We must all work to address issues of racial disparity in all aspects of our society,” he said.

Knowles said the two city workers on administrative leave were under investigation.

Ferguson mayor: Racist emails 'will not be tolerated': http://t.co/JRXKjoFfCV pic.twitter.com/Ot5UM9yRMY
— SpeedReads (@SpeedReads) March 5, 2015

The DOJ report cited racist emails exchanged by Ferguson city employees as examples of a culture that supported discriminatory behavior.

“Our review of documents revealed many additional email communications that exhibited racial or ethnic bias, as well as other forms of bias. Our investigation has not revealed any indication that any officer or court clerk engaged in these communications was ever disciplined,” the report said.

There were no accounts of senior officials asking others to stop sending the emails or any indication of reports being made about inappropriate emails.

– A November 2008 email about Barack Obama, then the president-elect, wondered “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”
– One March 2010 email mocked African Americans through speech stereotypes, using a story involving child support. One line from the email read: “I be so glad that dis be my last child support payment! Month after month, year after year, all dose payments!”
– An April 2011 email depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee.

– Meanwhile, a June 2011 email described a man seeking to obtain “welfare” for his dogs because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, last, can't speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are.”

– Another email, from October 2011, included a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women apparently in Africa, with the caption, “Michelle Obama's High School Reunion.”

– A December 2011 email included jokes that are based on offensive stereotypes about Muslims.

According to the DOJ report, each of these email exchanges involved supervisors of the Ferguson patrol and court operations.

A DOJ official told reporters that some of the emails were sent by people still involved in helping to negotiate a settlement with the agency. The DOJ declined to identify them.

Regarding the discoveries made by federal officials, Attorney General Eric Holder said that a “highly toxic environment” existed between Ferguson police officers and the city's African American residents even before the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The unarmed teenager was killed by Officer Darren Wilson in a confrontation that set of weeks of protests locally and nationwide.

“It's not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg,” Holder said.

He added that excessive force was overwhelmingly used against African American residents, noting that only African Americans were bit by police dogs. Holder said there was “no alternative explanation” except racial bias exists to explain it.

Holder also said Ferguson's police department violated residents’ First Amendment rights to record the activities of officers, regularly conducted illegal searches, unlawfully detained citizens and competed with each other to “see who can issue the largest number of citations in a single stop.”

He said the city’s municipal courts and local government “relies on the police force to serve essentially as a collection agency.”WATCH: Dogs, Tasers used predominately on African Americans – DOJ report on Ferguson.

 

Arrests in Ferguson after police dept picketed by protesters

A small but vocal group of protesters gathered at the Ferguson Police Department on Wednesday after a scathing DoJ report confirmed the presence of ‘racial bias’ against black residents of the city. At least two people were arrested.

The group of some 50 protesters started their demonstration by chanting on the sidewalks, but later moved into the street in front of the police headquarters, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported.

The protesters refused to leave when officers ordered them to. Two female protesters sitting in the street were arrested by the police, Democratic committeewoman Patricia Bynes said. Otherwise the protest remained peaceful.

Protesters in the street are getting arrested. #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/syvH3z2X4B
— Michael Calhoun (@michaelcalhoun) March 5, 2015

The arrests came hours after US Attorney General Eric Holder presented a searing report on law enforcement in Ferguson, which said systematic racial bias created “toxic environment” of mistrust in the predominantly black St. Louis suburb.

The report concludes a year-long federal investigation triggered by the street protests, which started after white Police Officer Darren Wilson shot to death unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown last August.
This week the Department of Justice cleared Wilson, who has since retired from the force, of civil rights violations in relation to the Brown death.

The situation in Ferguson and a number of similarly-loaded cases of black people killed by white officers of the law started a heated nationwide debate on police brutality and racial bias in the US.

Michael Brown's family officially confirms lawsuit against Darren Wilson

The victim's mother, Lesley McSpadden (L) and father, Michael Brown Sr. (Reuters/Denis Balibouse)

The family of Michael Brown ‒ the unarmed teenager shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in August ‒ will file suit against Darren Wilson, their lawyers announced. They wanted to wait until after the federal and state investigations concluded.

“We are officially in the process of formulating a civil case that we anticipate will be filed very shortly on behalf of the family,” Anthony Gray, a St. Louis attorney representing the Brown family, told reporters at a Thursday press conference. “In our case, we plan to show and outline pretty much the same evidence; however, you will get a more clearer, a more accurate of what took place that day.”

“We feel and we’ve always felt from the very beginning that Officer Darren Wilson did not have to shoot and kill Mike Brown, Jr. in broad daylight in the manner that he did, that he had other options available to him,” Gray continued.

“We are now entering a different phase of this action,” Darryl Parks, another of the family’s attorneys, said. “As the other investigations were going, we think it would not have been proper for us to be doing an investigation and prosecution of our own while you had [the Department of Justice involved]. They take precedence… They have priority over the priority of a civil action.”

On Wednesday, as widely expected, the Justice Department announced it would not charge Wilson with any civil rights violations in Brown’s death, which closed the book on the federal investigation into the shooting.

The DOJ said forensic evidence and other witnesses backed up Wilson’s account that Brown fought with him, reached for the officer’s gun, then charged him. Wilson repeatedly told investigators ‒ both state and federal ‒ that he feared for his life.

Officer Darren Wilson.

But the family disagreed with the government’s assessment, which will form the basis of their lawsuit.

“The issue is that we have not accepted [the DOJ’s] decision. They have accepted his self-defense [argument], we do not,” Parks said. “We do not accept his self-defense.”

In a civil case, a plaintiff needs to show liability only by the preponderance of the evidence, not prove fault beyond a reasonable doubt. Brown’s parents believe that Wilson had other options available to subdue their son without using lethal force, Parks said.

"There might be a lot of political forces that would be at work that would give the Brown family a chance at a quick settlement," New York lawyer and former prosecutor Paul Callan told Reuters in January.

One of those forces could include the “searing” findings of a six-month Justice Department probe into what federal officials labeled as a pattern of unlawful conduct exhibited by the Ferguson Police Department that is laden with constitutional violations.

Among the findings published in the 102-page report are well-documented trends showing that Ferguson police officers routinely detain and arrest residents without probable cause or suspicion, and too frequently resort to using excessive force.


WATCH: Discrimination in Ferguson is happening across America – retired Chief Deputy US Marshal.

Justice specifically mentioned three Ferguson PD employees who had made racist remarks in city emails. One of them has been fired, while the other two have been placed on administrative leave and are under investigation, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles announced Wednesday night.

Brown’s death kicked off months of protests across the country against police brutality and racism. Several days of rioting occurred in Ferguson after Prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced the grand jury’s ruling in November. After the DOJ’s announcements on Wednesday, a small but vocal group picketed the Ferguson PD, and at least two people were arrested. - RT News.

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