The City of Ferguson has been under an agreement with the federal government since 2016, after the U.S. Department of Justice found the city engaged in unconstitutional practices that primarily targeted Black residents. That consent decree ordered the city to make significant reforms to its policing, municipal courts and municipal code. It came two years after a white Ferguson police officer killed Michael Brown Jr., a Black teenager.
Since 2016, the city has spent about $6 million on the consent decree but in June decided it had enough: The city council voted 4-3 to phase out consent decree funding after the end of the year. Proponents of the slimdown said that Ferguson has spent too much money on the decree and that cuts wouldn’t affect police training. Opponents of the cuts, including the St. Louis County NAACP, argue it will stall the city’s progress.
The Ferguson Police Department hired Patricia Washington as the city’s consent decree coordinator last year. St. Louis Public Radio’s Chad Davis spoke with Washington in an in-studio interview about the almost 10 years since the court-ordered consent decree was implemented and the roadblocks and strides the city has made over the past few years…