From Matt Pearce at the LA Times: “If you don’t already have a copy, you can read the DOJ’s Ferguson investigation here“:

 

There’s lots of information in here that confirms what local black residents have been telling reporters for months. I’m (very much) not a journalist, so I don’t have loads of analysis or insight to add here, but I think it’s important for as many people as possible to read this.

It’s unlikely that you’ll find a great deal of information that will surprise you, given everything that’s been coming out of Ferguson since last August, but there’s something particularly astonishing about having everything laid out in a single, exhaustive document. What’s happening in Ferguson isn’t limited to a couple of bad apples; Ferguson itself isn’t an exception among other American police departments. What’s wrong there is wrong everywhere.

It is incredibly disheartening that one of the Department of Justice’s official recommendations is “FPD officers must be trained and required to abide by the law.” But it needs to be said, and it needs to be done.