COLUMBIA, S.C. — The police situation in Ferguson, Missouri, was “oppressive and abusive,” President Barack Obama said Friday, as he prepared to commemorate a half-century since the historic civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama.
“It turns out they weren’t just making it up. This was happening,” Obama said.
In his most expansive comments yet about the Justice Department’s report on racial bias in Ferguson, Obama said it was striking that investigators merely had to look at email sent by police officials to find evidence of bias. He said the City of Ferguson now must make a decision about how to move forward.
“Are they going to enter into some sort of agreement with the Justice Department to fix what is clearly a broken and racially biased system?” Obama said.
The Justice Department’s report cleared Darren Wilson, the white former Ferguson police officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, while on duty in a St. Louis suburb in August. But in a separate report, federal investigators found patterns of racial profiling, bigotry and profit-driven law enforcement and court practices within the Ferguson Police Department. Ferguson city leaders are to meet with Justice Department officials in about two weeks to put forth an improvement plan.