Police response to Ferguson protests comes under detailed, biting criticism in a 16-page document obtained by The American that was prepared by the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR) for the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).
The document, titled “Appendix A: Findings and Lessons Learned,” ends on page 195, so it’s a summary of a much longer report that has not yet been released. It is addressed to the leadership of the St. Louis County Police Department, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Ferguson Police Department.
The document ends with a section that is sensitive to the stress, safety and health of police officers and their families, but it’s otherwise stringently critical of police command and performance in Ferguson protests.
Like Judge Carol Jackson’s findings of fact in her December 11 restraining order against police use of tear gas, the IIR/COPS document describes Ferguson protests – and underlying community conflicts with police – that countless protestors experienced and described in social media and news reports.
“The Ferguson PD lacked community relationships with the residents of Canfield Green Apartments and with the African-American community in general,” the report notes, establishing the background of community distrust that sparked into rage after the Ferguson police killing of Michael Brown Jr. on August 9.
The initial protestors were looking for answers from police leadership – and met with silence, followed (after almost a week) by the manipulative release of selected pieces of evidence.
“Law enforcement agencies initially offered limited public information and did not commit to proactive communications with the public,” the report states, “both of which set a negative tone for media relations for the rest of the incident.”
The use of canines to police protests from day one also set a “negative tone.”
“The St. Louis County PD and Ferguson PD used canine units for protest crowd control on the first day,” the report notes, seconding an often-cited community grievance. “While consistent with both agencies’ policy, such use is inconsistent with widely accepted policing strategies and in fact exacerbated tensions by unnecessarily inciting fear and anger among amassing crowds.”
Many protestors also cited the swift deployment of heavily armored tactical units as a provocative police act – and this report concurs.
“While a tactical response was warranted at times during the Ferguson incident because of threats to public safety, the highly elevated initial response of tactical units limited options for a measured, strategic approach. The elevated daytime response was not justified and served to escalate rather than de-escalate the overall situation,” the report notes.
“The use of tactical units should be limited to a specific and deliberate mission because their use can undermine the police’s peacekeeping mission. Such units can anger and frighten citizens, resulting in greater animosity toward the police, which in turn can fuel more conflict.”
This is the “militarized police response” which terrified and angered protestors – and an international audience watching on television and social media. It comes under sustained attack in the report.
“Law enforcement staged armored vehicles visibly in a way that was perceived to be threatening to the community and at times used them absent of peril to citizens or officers,” the report states. “Community members who are lawfully protesting will likely view the presence of armored vehicles as intimidating or as an attempt to intimidate them.”
Armored vehicles were overmatched in intimidating effect by the police snipers at times perched on top of them, which (we learn here) is called the “overwatch tactic.”
“The overwatch tactic, in which police snipers took positions on top of tactical vehicles and used their rifle sights to monitor the crowd, is inappropriate as a crowd control measure,” the report states. “Further, it served only to exacerbate tensions between the protestors and police.”
Once those tensions were fully exacerbated, police attempted to dispel raging crowds with tear gas and “less-lethal weapons,” but did not do so properly, according to the report.
“The assessment team identified a lack of thorough documentation of the use of CS gas (tear gas), including justification, deployment strategy, and outcomes. The team also identified instances of tear gas being deployed inappropriately without proper warnings, without sufficient attention paid to safe egress, and without consideration for environmental conditions,” the report states, consistent with Judge Jackson’s previous findings of fact.
As for “non-lethal weapons,” surprisingly the investigators found no evidence of the use of rubber bullets, although they were frequently reported by protestors and media. Instead, they found the use of “Stingerballs, PepperBalls, bean bag rounds and baton rounds.”
The more than 50 police agencies who sent officers to Ferguson protests used “varying levels of force,” the protest notes, with little or no accounting for when or why. “The unprecedented nature of this event does not justify the lack of documentation and need to track the use of less-lethal responses,” the report notes.
If officers fired these poorly documented “Stingerballs, PepperBalls, bean bag rounds and baton rounds” at protestors on the same grounds that they initiated arrests, then their judgment should be questioned, according to the report.
“Incident command failed to establish identifying factors for arrest decisions consistent with enacted laws and constitutional principles,” the report states. In other words, the enforcers of the law were not clearly instructed to obey the law – and, in many cases, clearly did not obey it.
“Because of the lack of clear direction for unified operational policies, officers from more than 50 law enforcement agencies involved in the response to the mass gatherings typically relied on their parent agency’s policies to govern their actions,” the report cites. “That lack of consistency in policy led to unclear arrest decisions, ambiguous authority on tactical orders, and a confusing citizen complaint process.”
That “confusing citizen complaint process” might better be described as a non-existent one. Amazingly, we learn that the four police agencies most responsible for policing Ferguson protestors registered a collective total of two complaints against officers at protests.
“The St. Louis County PD and the St. Louis Metropolitan PD each reported one officer complaint during the assessment period. Neither the Ferguson PD nor the Missouri State Highway Patrol reported receiving a complaint against any officer or trooper during the assessment period,” the report states. “However, given the size and scope of the protest and the findings outlined in this report, the limited number of filed complaints is misleading.”
The report does not make the connection explicitly, but it’s difficult to file a complaint against an officer you can’t name.
“During the law enforcement response to protests, some officers removed their nameplates,” the report states. “This behavior defeated an essential level of on-scene accountability that is fundamental to the perception of procedural justice and legitimacy.”
Protestors often did not know the police officers they confronted by name, but the report notes that the ignorance on the other side of the skirmish line was just as profound. The report sides with protestors who claimed that police could not distinguish between peaceful protestors and those with a more destructive agenda.
“Monitoring crowd behaviors is essential for incident and response planning because the character of the crowd can change depending on the time of day, environmental condition and who decides to participate in the demonstration,” the report states.
“Officers deployed for incident management received little intelligence about threats and protestor strategies, which inhibited their ability to manage public interactions and make informed decisions.”
Perhaps as a final insult, investigators note that the riot police failed to even direct traffic effectively.
“At times, law enforcement did not effectively control civilian vehicle traffic,” the report states, “which resulted in tactical advantages to the protestors and activists and safety hazards to the deployed officers.”
This 16-page document was named with the date “June 22, 2015” and submitted to police commanders in advance of a scheduled June 23 conference call. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch first obtained the document and published a story on June 29.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety, which oversees the highway patrol, did not respond to the Post’s request for comment. Ferguson officials issued a statement saying they are “reviewing these latest findings and will act accordingly.” St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told the Post he wouldn’t comment until he had seen the full report, and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said he would respond directly to federal officials.
