At Ferguson City Council Debate, Some Still Don't See A Problem After Brutal DOJ Report
FERGUSON, Mo. -- Members of Ferguson's city council met Monday night behind closed doors to discuss the Justice Department’s blistering report on the city’s police force and municipal court -- and in a debate before a mostly elderly, white audience, some candidates for a council seat claimed the problems in the report were overblown.
In the wake of last week’s federal investigation into the city’s law enforcement practices, the judge who ran Ferguson’s municipal court has resigned, a top court clerk who sent a racist email was fired, and two police department officials connected to racist emails have stepped down. The report highlighted problems with St. Louis County’s fractured network of municipal courts that extend beyond Ferguson.
But some people looking to join Ferguson's government think the Justice Department was unfair to the city. Two black women and two white men are running in an election next month to replace Kim Tihen, one of two representatives for Ferguson’s Ward 1. Tihen, a former police officer, was one of the officers involved in a 2009 incident in which a man was wrongfully arrested, allegedly beaten, and charged with destruction of property for bleeding on police uniforms.
Mike McGrath, one of the white candidates, believes Tihen did a good job on the council and that the Justice Department report on Ferguson was unfair.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/10/ferguson-doj-report-city-council_n_6840324.html
Unfair? Instead of addressing it they call it unfair because DOJ addressed it for them.