The Ferguson City Council held their first meeting since the shooting of Ferguson teen Michael Brown. Turnout was in the hundreds, and residents let it be known that they're
in the mood to clean house:
“You are now on notice,” Ms. Gradford said. “It is evident that residents of Ferguson have for a long time been harassed. This must end.”
John Chasnoff of nearby University City told the officials that they had become the “face of structural racism.”
“You’ve lost your authority to govern this community,” Mr. Chasnoff said. “You’re going to have to step aside gracefully if this community is going to heal.”
For their part, the city council is scurrying to save face after national exposure turned the city's police department and court systems into national examples of incompetence and thievery.
The Council established a citizen review board to help reform the Ferguson Police Department, which is mostly made up of white officers. Ferguson is about two-thirds African-American.
The Council also decided to abolish a $50 warrant recall fee and a $15 notification fee, fines that are routinely issued if a defendant fails to show up for court. It created a special docket for defendants who have difficulty making payments on outstanding fines.
Which would be a good (though tiny) first start, but if it takes street protests met with tear gas to manage just
that much I think the crowd can be forgiven for remaining unimpressed. If that docket consists of the same squeezing of poor residents that already exists, for example, then it isn't really a reform now, is it?
This is the part where resident outrage will or won't translate into resident action. If this first meeting is any indication, the residents of Ferguson are no longer interested in the status quo.