Federal government expected to sue Ferguson

FERGUSON, Mo. -- The federal government was expected to file a civil-rights lawsuit against the city of Ferguson on Wednesday, one day after the city council voted to revise an agreement aimed at improving the way police and courts treat poor people and minorities in the St. Louis suburb.

The lawsuit was confirmed by a law-enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement had not yet been made.

Messages seeking comment from Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III were not returned.

Ferguson has been under Justice Department scrutiny since 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, was fatally shot by white officer Darren Wilson 18 months ago. A grand jury and the Justice Department declined to prosecute Wilson, who resigned in November 2014.

But a scathing Justice Department report was critical of police and a profit-driven municipal court system. After months of negotiations, an agreement between the federal agency and Ferguson was announced in January.

A recent financial analysis determined the agreement would cost the struggling city nearly $4 million in the first year alone. The council voted 6-0 Tuesday to adopt the deal, but with seven amendments.

Hours before the lawsuit was to be announced, Ferguson leaders said they were willing to sit down with Justice Department negotiators and hammer out a new agreement.

"We ask that if they (the Justice Department) feel there needs to be some additional changes to the agreement, we sit down and talk," Knowles said.

That seemed unlikely from the outset. Within hours of the Tuesday vote, Vanita Gupta, leader of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement the department would take "the necessary legal actions" to ensure Ferguson's police and court practices comply with the Constitution and federal laws.

Knowles said the seven amendments were formulated after the analysis showed the deal was so expensive, it could lead to dissolution of Ferguson. The analysis suggested the first-year cost of the agreement would be $2.2 million to $3.7 million, with second- and third-year costs between $1.8 million and $3 million in each year.

Ferguson has an operating budget of $14.5 million and faces a $2.8 million deficit. Voters will be asked to approve two tax hikes in April, but approval of both still would leave the city short.

A big part of the cost was the requirement that Ferguson raise police salaries to attract better candidates, including more minority officers. Removal of the pay-raise clause was among the seven amendments.

Another new provision states the agreement will not apply to any other governmental entity that might take over duties currently provided by Ferguson. That means, for example, that St. Louis County would not be beholden to the agreement if it takes over policing in Ferguson.

St. Louis County police spokesman Brian Schellman said if the county ever were asked to take over policing in Ferguson, "we would consider the implications of the consent decree before entering into such an agreement."

Knowles doesn't believe neighboring municipal departments would agree to cover Ferguson under the Justice Department's requirements.

Ferguson's defiance to the initial proposal wasn't surprising.

Days after Brown's death, then-Police Chief Tom Jackson released surveillance video showing Brown's involvement in a theft at a small grocery store just moments before the shooting, with the burly teenager pushing the store owner. The video's release only heightened anger among protesters.

Knowles has defended Ferguson. Even as protesters and civil-rights leaders called for reforms, the mayor noted Ferguson already was making changes to municipal courts aimed at easing the burden on people accused of minor violations. In fact, city revenue from court fees and fines has declined by hundreds of thousands of dollars since the shooting.

It's not uncommon for local governments to seek changes to agreements even after negotiations, but the overwhelming majority of investigations end up in a settlement.

Samuel Bagenstos, the former No. 2 official at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, warned the federal agency "is serious about bringing a lawsuit if they don't get a deal."

"If Ferguson insists on making significant changes to the deal they've already worked out, that's probably not going to work out well for them," said Bagenstos, now a law professor at the University of Michigan. "And I think at the end of the day, Ferguson understands that, and we'll probably see a deal pretty soon."

The Justice Department has initiated more than 20 civil-rights investigations into law-enforcement agencies in the last six years, including in Baltimore and Chicago. In the last 18 months, the department has reached settlements with police departments that included Cleveland and Albuquerque.

There have been occasional disagreements.

In 2012, the Justice Department sued Maricopa County, Arizona, after failing to reach agreement on allegations the sheriff's office targeted Latinos with discriminatory stops and arrests. County officials voted in July to settle parts of that lawsuit.

The federal government also sued North Carolina's Alamance County after an investigation that alleged biased policing practices against Latinos there. But a federal judge in August ruled in the county's favor, saying the Justice Department failed to prove the sheriff ordered deputies to target Hispanic residents. That case is on appeal.