AG Holder Is Prepared to Use ‘All the Power We Have’ to Dismantle Ferguson Police Department

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. attends a White Meeting meeting with the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, which delivered a 90-day report on its progress. The task force released its first report to President Barack Obama, outline a broad set of guiding principles and recommendations.
OLIVIER DOULIERY-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Friday that the Department of Justice is prepared to dismantle the Ferguson, Mo., police department after Justice found a widespread pattern of racial bias against blacks on the the city’s force, Reuters reports.

“We are prepared to use all the power that we have … to ensure that the situation changes there,” Holder told reporters, according to Reuters.

He went further when asked whether that power includes dismantling the Ferguson Police Department, saying, “If that’s what’s necessary, we’re prepared to do that,” Reuters says.

The DOJ released a scathing report this week that found outsize racial bias on the city’s white police force, which overwhelmingly arrested and issued traffic citations to black residents. The practice caused the city’s poor citizens to rack up exorbitant fees and jail time when they were unable to pay. The DOJ investigation was triggered by protests that flared up after a white Ferguson officer shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

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Source: The Root