Ferguson leaders are developing a plan to get out from under federal oversight of the city’s police department, even though the city has not yet demonstrated that it meets the requirements for ending a decade-old consent decree.
The city has introduced a “readiness document,” described as a roadmap to phase out federal monitoring once Ferguson reaches compliance. But the agreement requires two consecutive years of full compliance with mandated reforms before it can be terminated. It remains unclear how close the city is to meeting that requirement.
On Tuesday, the city’s consent decree coordinator, a representative of the U.S. Justice Department and the monitoring team met with U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry for a status hearing.
Some Ferguson residents, consent decree leaders and members of the monitoring team agree the city has made significant progress in meeting the decree’s demands, but they also admit more work is needed.
The monitoring team noted areas that still needed work. For example, its latest audit didn’t find systemic constitutional violations involving the Fourth Amendment. It did, however, find procedural errors in which officers didn’t provide proper notifications during stops, searches and arrests.
Monitoring team leader Natashia Tidwell said the problems could be corrected through additional training. The city also has selected and trained nine new officers for its Police Training Officer program, an initiative that had been in development for at least three years.
The community readiness plan will help transition the city from federal oversight to sustainable city-run oversight once the consent decree ends, said Patricia Washington, Ferguson’s consent decree coordinator. The city is still working to make improvements, she told reporters Tuesday.
“I’m using this document as a framework to try and create really a transition strategy to what does oversight looks like; who has accountability for monitoring … and how is that spread out through city government,” Washington said.
Although no formal motion has been filed to end the consent decree, Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Murray said the department is pleased with the city’s progress, adding that the framework document could help demonstrate that reforms will last beyond the end of federal oversight.
The agreement dates to 2016, two years after the police shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. A Justice Department investigation found that Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices disproportionately harmed Black residents and that officers were pressured to generate revenue through fines and fees.
The Ferguson City Council initially tried to amend parts of the proposed agreement. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in February 2016, and the council subsequently approved the decree in its entirety. Perry approved the agreement in April of that year.
The federal consent decree outlined fundamental changes, including police body cameras, increased training hours, a method to track compliance, improved oversight and accountability measures and a plan to end the municipal court’s practice of extracting money from poor people through excessive and spiraling fines.
The decree has no fixed expiration date. It requires Ferguson to maintain full and effective compliance with mandated reforms, including sustained improvements in constitutional policing and public trust, before federal oversight can end.
In June, Ferguson City Council members voted 4-3 to slash spending on the decree from $412,700 to $206,350, with plans to phase out the funding during the second half of the fiscal year.
The cuts came as Ferguson faced broader financial problems that forced the city to reduce spending by $2.2 million and eliminate 12 full-time positions.
John Bowman, president of the St. Louis County NAACP, strongly criticized the consent decree budget cuts and chastised the city for not complying with the decree’s mandates.
“Trying to escape the federal consent decree too soon by cutting the budget and rushing remaining mandatory reforms says that you prioritize checking off boxes over achieving the necessary results to make Ferguson safer and more united.”
Many residents and local civil rights organizations argued that pulling back federal monitoring too quickly could undo a decade’s worth of hard-earned progress.
Mildred Clines, a Ferguson resident speaking at the federal status hearing, expressed concern over the city’s ability to meet its future compliance requirements.
“Ferguson is so vulnerable,” Clines said. “I’m concerned about what’s going to keep us from going back.”
Chris Sudik, an engineer, an active critic of the city’s efforts to build a data center and a member of Ferguson’s Advocates for Civic Transparency committee, also expressed doubts about the city coming out from under the decree.
Sudik said he was aware of audit findings alleging that 88 of 98 police stops failed multiple conditions.
“The police are still not up to par; they’re still not doing what they should and they’re still taking orders from rich people to bully poor and Black people,” Sudik charged. “So, clearly, this consent decree is still needed because we’re not doing the work to get out from under this.”
Although an official motion to end the consent decree has not been filed, Perry complimented the city for demonstrating a path toward “positive change.”
The goal, as Washington noted, is to show Ferguson can sustain mandated changes without federal monitoring, which Perry said can’t happen “until the job is done.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.