By Christine Byers
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
FERGUSON, Mo. — Experts agree that the policies and procedures that the U.S. Justice Department outlined this past week in a proposed settlement with Ferguson are more extensive than similar agreements other cities have agreed to.
Furthermore, they could become another agency’s burden.
One clause in the settlement ensures that, once signed, the document will be in effect even if Ferguson chooses to contract with another police agency.
Ferguson residents and leaders will spend the coming days discussing whether the city should sign the document. The City Council is expected to vote on Feb. 9.
Dozens of reforms that extend beyond the police department and into the city’s municipal courts and codes, make the proposed agreement unique, said Samuel Walker, professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska, and an expert in police accountability.
“These issues have not come up in any other decrees because of the unique situation in Ferguson, where the police were being used as a revenue source,” said Walker, who has studied consent decrees. “Top to bottom, this represents the best thinking in police accountability.”
Others aren’t so sure.
Former St. Louis County police Chief Tim Fitch, who is a private security consultant and evaluator for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, said he’s unaware of any police department that fulfills all of the requirements that the Justice Department outlined in its proposed settlement with Ferguson.
Those requirements include:
—Officers must get a supervisor’s approval before arresting someone for failure to comply or for a peace disturbance.
—Officers who handle incidents without resorting to force shall be rewarded.
—Officers must complete neighborhood policing training beyond the state’s requirements to maintain their licenses.
“This goes way beyond, and I mean way beyond, what any accreditation requires,” Fitch said. “To expect that Ferguson, with a department of 50 officers, can pull that off is unrealistic.”
Fitch’s former department, and the North County Police Cooperative, would be the most likely to take over police services in Ferguson if budget problems and the high cost of reforms put the city’s force out of business.
City officials have not estimated the cost of the 400 or so reforms called for in the proposed settlement, but are already grappling with a financial shortfall, said Ferguson spokesman Jeff Small. The city is asking residents to approve two tax increases in April.
“We’re already $2.8 million in the hole, so anything on top of that will obviously be a challenge to overcome,” Small said.
In a cover letter to Ferguson city leaders, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta wrote: “Any transfer of authority would not eliminate or relieve the obligation to ensure constitutional policing and court services in Ferguson. Thus, a transfer of authority would not end this matter.”
The Ferguson agreement, once signed, would be in effect until two years after “full and effective compliance.”
The St. Louis County Police Department is in the midst of a collaborative reform with the Justice Department, which is similar to the consent decree process Ferguson is undergoing but without the intervention of the courts. At a police board meeting this past week, officials said they had achieved favorable rankings on “well over 50 percent,” of the federal government’s 106 findings and 50 recommendations.
County police Sgt. Brian Schellman issued a statement in which he said, “Our department is not in any current discussions regarding a policing contract with Ferguson, so we will refrain from commenting further.”
Fitch said he doubts any police department would agree to take on policing for Ferguson voluntarily.
“Why would any other department raise their hands and say, ‘I’ll do policing and be accountable for all of your sins of the past as if we committed them and implement all the reforms and associated costs that come with them?’” Fitch said. “This agreement virtually ensures or demands that Ferguson cannot eliminate its police department or municipal court.”
North County Police Cooperative Chief Tim Swope said his agency is reviewing the proposed settlement with its attorney, so he did not comment. But, he said, he’s not afraid of reforms.
“In part, that’s why we started this,” he said of the cooperative.
Walker noted that other police departments should take notice of the federal settlement regardless of whether they would be considered to take over policing in Ferguson.
“It’s going to be expensive and there are a lot of things that need to be done in terms of training and it’s going to take a lot of time. And I don’t think there is an excess of people in the police department sitting around in New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore and all cities with serious problems. But my position is, as with all of these cities, they are paying for measures they should have taken decades ago,” he said. “There is simply no excuse.
“If this will require help from the state, that might be one avenue, but the alternative is to let injustices continue and that is not acceptable.”
Copyright 2016 St. Louis Post-Dispatch