Ferguson needs to make more progress on 2016 consent decree, federal officials say
ST. LOUIS — The city of Ferguson needs to make more progress on implementing the 2016 consent decree, federal officials and an independent monitor told a federal judge here Tuesday.
In a departure from past quarterly status conferences that typically feature polite but dense bureaucratic progress reports, Natashia Tidwell, the independent monitor, told U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry that many of the goals for the third year of the process were incomplete. Rather than simply pushing those goals to the next year, Tidwell said “more needs to be done.”
Tidwell said that officials are largely done developing policies on police and court reforms. The city, she said, needs to take on more responsibility and implement those policies.
Ferguson officials are “long overdue” to hire a consent decree coordinator who could correct an “absence of forward thinking and planning,” she said. Tidwell also said the city still needs to do a staffing study, implement community engagement and neighborhood policing plans, and collect data on police use of force and other police actions.
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