Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday said the Justice Department did not have enough evidence to bring civil rights charges against Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, but pledged that the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown would lead to law enforcement reforms in the St. Louis suburb.
“It is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action,” Holder said, accusing the Ferguson Police Department and judicial system in the Missouri town of consistent racial bias. “Let me be clear: the United States Department of Justice reserves all its rights and abilities to force compliance and implement basic change.”
At least so far, the Justice Department has not brought charges against the Ferguson Police Department, but will instead work to reach a settlement on reforms.
Holder said that police officers disproportionately conducted traffic stops of minority residents, even without cause, simply to raise revenue.
Though a scathing indictment of Ferguson officers, the lack of charges against Wilson, who shot and killed Brown, has disappointed those who protested on the teenager’s behalf.
Holder insisted that he never promised a specific punishment for Wilson.
“The promise I made when I went to Ferguson was not that we would arrive at a particular outcome,” he said.
“Our investigation has been both fair and rigorous from the start,” he added.
To those disappointed by the legal findings, Holder said simply, “I urge you to read this report in full.”
Wilson has repeatedly asserted that he acted in self-defense when he killed Brown last August. However, protesters in Ferguson said that behavior was typical of the type of disregard officers showed residents in an area with a large black population.
