The United States Justice Department found that police in Ferguson, Missouri regularly engaged in discriminatory tactics against black residents.  Protest leaders and community organizers in the town where a white cop gunned down an unarmed black teen last year, setting off weeks of demonstrations and confrontations, say they are vindicated.

“Ray Charles could see the institutional racism that’s going on here in Ferguson,” said state Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who is particularly incensed over statistics showing black people being bitten by police dogs while in custody.  In fact, out of 13 out of 14 police canine biting incidents involved black victims.  “We’re allowing police dogs to bite people?” asked Senator Chappelle-Nadal, “What is this, 1955?”

The Justice Department review found that African-Americans accounted for 93 percent of all arrests between 2012 and 2014 – even though they make up just 67 percent of the population.  They’re ticketed more often as well, and for trivial matters.  DOJ says black people accounted for 85 percent of all people stopped by Ferguson police officers and 90 percent of all citations issued.

But the infuriating part was the series of racist jokes sent by city and police officials via email.  One sent in 2008 claimed that says President Barack Obama wouldn't be in office long, because “what black man holds a steady job for four years” (Reality check, he’s in for two terms and Obama’s Justice Department is serving up the report on Ferguson).  Another attempt at humor told of a black woman in New Orleans who was admitted to a hospital for an abortion, and then got a reward from “Crime Stoppers”. 

“I live in Ferguson so I knew this.  We always knew what was going on,” said Tony Rice, one of the young people who coordinated protests outside the Ferguson police department.  “The way the police treat us, that’s nothing new to us.”

Critics say at the very least, Ferguson’s police chief who presided over these human rights violations should resign.  Other say the police force itself should be disbanded, as has happened with other towns in the region.

It was an officer who previously worked for one of those disbanded departments, Darren Wilson, who fired the shots that forced Ferguson’s disgusting little secrets to spill over into national news.  Wilson was on patrol last August, when he stopped 18-year old Michael Brown, and within minutes shot and killed the unarmed and college-bound black teen.  That set off weeks of demonstrations and violent clashes (mostly instigated by police) – so bad, that America’s ranking on Amnesty International’s annual human rights report fell as a result.