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SUMMARY: A U.S. Justice Department investigation into law enforcement in Ferguson discovered many disturbing incidents that helped drive distrust and hostility between the community and police. Gwen Ifill discusses the report’s findings with Rev. Starsky Wilson and Kevin Ahlbrand of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, two members of an independent commission set up by the state of Missouri.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): We turn now to two members of the independent commission set up by the state of Missouri to look into the events in Ferguson. Starsky Wilson chairs the commission and is pastor of Saint John’s Church in Saint Louis, and Kevin Ahlbrand is a police detective in Saint Louis and president of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police. Tonight, he’s in San Diego.
Reverend Wilson, that was just scraping the surface of the findings in that Department of Justice report. What surprised you the most about what you read?
REV. STARSKY WILSON, Co-Chair, Ferguson Commission: Quite frankly, while the report was disheartening, the overall findings were not surprising.
We knew, based on the testimony we have heard from people not only in the streets, but through our commission’s work over the first 100 days, that people experience racialized policing, that they believed in their truth that this was driven by profit. We now see the evidence of that.
The things that surprised me, quite frankly, were the kind of salacious narrative of the fact that we have an e-mail from the finance director of the city directly to the chief of police suggesting that revenues be raised through direct policing practices. These are the kinds of things that should never be in public — in the public administration of justice, quite frankly, and they’re the kind of things that undermine the trust in governance that we need for the project of inclusive democracy to work.
GWEN IFILL: Kevin Ahlbrand, what struck you, especially this part about policing for profit that Reverend Wilson just brought up? What struck you the most about that report?
KEVIN AHLBRAND, Ferguson Commission: Well, and — basically that, the whole municipal court system.
We have known for a long time that it’s been a problem. We have never condoned ticket quotas. We are vehemently opposed to them. We are supporting a bill that is currently making the way through the Missouri legislature which would reduce the percentage that cities could use fees and fines for their budget. And we have always been opposed to that.
Part of the big problem is, if the police officer has to write X-number of tickets, that’s time that he can’t be out there in the community doing community-oriented policing. And that’s what we have gotten away from, and I think really that is what we need to get back to.
"‘Searing’ Ferguson report claims revenue came before public safety" PBS NewsHour 3/5/2015
Excerpt
SUMMARY: An extensive federal investigation into police practices in Ferguson, Missouri, uncovered new details about the department's racially based and profit-driven enforcement and prosecution. While the U.S. Justice Department declined to bring a civil rights case against former policeman Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown, Brown’s family to filed a wrongful death suit Thursday. Gwen Ifill reports.
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