Department of Justice Sues Ferguson, Which Reversed Course on Agreement

I understand that the Public Safety portion of the City Budget is huge, but from my understanding every part of their budget is suffering. So where is the money going to come from....Yes, Yes, Yes I hear everyone saying find it, but what programs are going to suffer? Additionally, with all of the media going on about Ferguson, How would you Market those positions that would make any LEO say, "You know honey, Ferguson looks like a great place to live, work and raise a family." That Marketing Guy/Gal better be the shiznit with the plan.

Will this city ever recover? It will be in a Galaxy Far, far, far away from here. The City Management won't work if the citizens of the city don't buy into that plan and also start helping to rebuild the city. No buy-in from all stake holders is a Plan/Project that will never succeed.

As a Retired Police Officer I think I might be able to answer this one....
1) One of the problems early on in the Ferguson issue was that there were not enough local Black residents on the FPD. There might be a reason.....
2) Talking to some of my Missouri Buddies they said that most local applicants can't qualify through testing (physical/mental), criminal history, or could not pass a background investigation or polygraph.
3) The DOJ knows that the training program in Missouri is adequate regarding the "probable cause" issue.

That being said, it's nice that the City Council understands and recognizes the real problem. I don't know if they can afford to fight it. Maybe they only have to fight it till November/January. But what do I know...... LOL

My concern about this is it amounts to another "Federal Unfunded Mandate?" It is great for the Feds to tell you you need to do abc to comply with Federal Law, but if you do not have the money to "get er done," and they are not offering you the funding to accomplish their mandate, what are the local agencies (police departments or education school districts) supposed to do?

My mother, a retired LA Unified School District Superintendent, used to complain about all the Federal Mandates to provide an equal education for students with disabilities, but provided no money to make those very expensive Federal Mandates happen. So invariably the School districts get sued by Disabled Students Attorney Advocates (AKA mostly private for profit Attorneys looking to get paid) for violating "Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, (Section 504) a civil rights statute which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. OCR also enforces Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title II), which extends this prohibition against discrimination to the full range of state and local government services, programs, and activities (including public schools) regardless of whether they receive any Federal financial assistance. The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (Amendments Act), effective January 1, 2009, amended the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and included a conforming amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act) that affects the meaning of disability in Section 504. The standards adopted by the ADA were designed not to restrict the rights or remedies available under Section 504. The Title II regulations applicable to free appropriate public education issues do not provide greater protection than applicable Section 504 regulations." See http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/sec504.index.htm

The Disabled Students Attorneys usually win their client's cases and receive a settlement from the school districts which also pays the plaintiff's attorney's fees, because without the appropriate funding from Uncle Sam or the State, the school districts cannot possibly hope to provide all of the range of services that are required by special needs students who are covered under these broad Federal Laws which require that students with disabilities receive a comparable education that is in line with what non-disabled students get. My mother told me how in settlement negotiations, one of those Plaintiff's attorneys who specializes in these cases, told my mother, "you know Maria, I am going to retire off of this case." And my mother knew the attorney was right and the the school district, even one as large and well funded as LAUSD had probably violated the federal law, not intentionally or because they did not know what the law required of the school district, but because they just did not have the money to comply with the law.

I would hate to see this happen to smaller cities' police departments. I think the Missouri state's cities should ban together and fund a litigation fund to fight the Feds from trying to demand changes that are costly (or impossible) to implement without the Feds being willing to commit to some kind of funding plan that is acceptable to cities like Ferguson.
MAJ Jim Woods SMSgt Thor Merich SSG Keith Cashion CPT (Join to see)