(Newswire.net — March 7, 2015) — Department of Justice will use “all the power” it has to implement reforms at the Ferguson Police Department, even if that involves dismantling the entire department, said US Attorney General Eric Holder, according to Reuters report.
Holder stated that the DOJ will “ensure the situation changes” in Ferguson, which means “everything from working with them to coming up with an entirely new structure,” he added, according to a transcript released by Buzzfeed’s Jon Passantino.
Asked if “all necessary means” includes dismantling the force completely, Holder replied, “If that’s what’s necessary, we’re prepared to do that.”
Reuters reported that the attorney general’s comment comes the same week the Justice Department issued a report detailing systematic racial discrimination and a ‘highly toxic environment’ at the Ferguson Police Department. The report found that police officers used excessive force primarily against African Americans and that they often detained and arrested individuals without probable cause.
Holder said he was “shocked” as investigators uncovered racists and unlawful behavior of the Ferguson police department.
“The notion that you would use a law enforcement agency or law enforcement generally to generate revenue, and then the callous way in which that was done and the impact that it had on the lives of ordinary citizens of that municipality, was just appalling,” he said.
“That is not something we’re going to tolerate,” Holder said.
In the past, the Justice Department has helped implement reforms at police department’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Cleveland, Ohio, finding patterns of excessive force and systematic failures.
In a wake of negotiations between the federal government and Ferguson officials, Holder said he hopes they are paying attention to the government’s strong feelings about ensuring “that we use all the tools that we can to make sure that what happened in Ferguson is uncovered and simply does not happen in any other part of the country.”
If the federal government and the Ferguson police department negotiations fail, the Justice Department has the power to sue and make reforms mandatory.
“I also want to make people understand, there are 18,000 police departments in this country, and I think that what we saw in Ferguson was an anomaly,” Holder said.
Meanwhile, two Ferguson police officers – Rick Henke and William Mudd – resigned after the DOJ uncovered multiple racist emails drafted by the department, CNN reported.