article_snippet: The Justice Department investigation into Ferguson police began in August after the shooting of unarmed African-American teen Michael Brown by a white officer sparked national protests.
article_snippet: Analysis of more than 35,000 pages of police records found racist comments from officers as well as statistics that showed African-Americans make up 93 percent of arrests while accounting for only 67 percent of the population in Ferguson, an unnamed department official said.
article_snippet: A Justice Department investigation has found patterns of racial bias in the Ferguson police department and at the municipal jail and court.
article_snippet: Justice Department staff interviewed hundreds of average citizens as part of the six-month probe, concluding that a large portion of Ferguson's population mistrusts the local police force and considers a large portion of Ferguson's population illegitimate .
article_snippet: Nationwide protests of police actions that resulted in deaths of African Americans in Ferguson, New York and Cleveland laid bare racial tensions and what President Barack Obama called 'simmering distrust' between police and communities.
article_snippet: Overall, African Americans make up 67 per cent of the population of Ferguson, about 10 miles north of downtown St. Louis.
article_snippet: Justice Department plans to use the findings to negotiate policy changes with Ferguson officials and enter a consent decree, or to sue the city to force change.
article_snippet: Previous federal investigations into police departments have resulted in such changes as reporting arrest data to Justice Department and installing federal monitors to oversee operations.
article_snippet: Biased: the investigation found Ferguson officers  too often charged blacks with petty offenses . '
article_snippet: Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson of federal civil rights charges in the Brown killing said that in Ferguson's court system, African-Americans were less likely to have African-Americans cases dismissed by a municipal judge and made up 95 percent of people held longer than two days in the Ferguson jail.
article_snippet: The Ferguson Municipal Court issued the majority of The Ferguson Municipal Court warrants for minor violations such as parking, traffic and housing code violations.
article_snippet: The physical tussle that led to Brown's death began after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson of federal civil rights charges in the Brown killing told Brown and a friend to move from the street to the sidewalk.
article_snippet: That is that the Brown killing was part of a systemic pattern of inappropriate policing of African-American citizens in the Ferguson community.'
article_snippet: Since 2010, according to the federal agency, Ferguson courts have raked in more than $442,000 in fines for failure to appear, which amounted to a quarter of The Ferguson Municipal Court's annual revenue, reported the St Louis Post Dispatch.
article_snippet: John Gaskin III, a St. Louis community activist, praised some serious findings, saying 'Ferguson police have to see the light in how Ferguson police deal with people of color. '
article_snippet: It's so unfortunate that Michael Brown had to be killed.