Moss was sworn in as police chief Monday at the Ferguson Community Center in front of city residents, officers from other nearby departments and even a handful of officers from the Miami Police Department, with which Moss spent over 30 years. He will be the second black chief of police in Ferguson, a 21,000-resident inner suburb of St. Louis, after Interim Chief Andre Anderson resigned in December.
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“If you work hard, if you stay honest and committed, if you maintain respect for the community and do your job well, we will get along just fine”, he said, addressing the police officers in attendance.
Brown’s shooting by white police officer Darren Wilson brought national attention to Ferguson’s racial wounds. He was chosen from an application pool of 54 for the post of police chief of Ferguson. And I decided then and there that I need to become a police officer.
“I don’t think I come in here offering some magic pill or magic solution curing all the problems of Ferguson”, Moss said.
The city of Ferguson, Mo., is hoping to turn a corner in community-police relations with the induction of a brand new police chief. He said his primary goal is to build trust and continue strengthening the community policing efforts implanted in Ferguson over the a year ago.
In Miami, Moss was not only a police officer – he grew up there.
After he was sworn in, Moss said it’s the department’s task to bring “nobility” back to police work.
He has pledged to hire more women and black police officers in a department where the gender and racial makeup doesn’t come close to mirroring its community.
Moss said he believes that this allows him a sensitivity to do the job that is needed in Ferguson.
Moss is a former homicide detective who most recently served as spokesman for the Miami Police Department. He will be the first black person to lead the department.
As of July of past year, the Ferguson Police Department was comprised of 50 officers: 38 whites, 5 blacks, 4 women, 3 Filipino-Americans, and 1 Latino-American.
In its report previous year, the Justice Department highlighted a policing system that uses arrest warrants as generators of income.
Prior to its reforms, a federal investigation found that police officers in the city of 21,000 “routinely” pulled over drivers without a lawful reason, carried out arrests without justification and used “unreasonable force” against suspects.
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Ferguson City Manager De’Carlon Seewood said that Moss knows how to communicate with citizens and the press. I have said it time and again: I was mistreated by police officers. A judge last month approved Ferguson’s settlement with the U.S. Justice Department that seeks to eliminate bias and reform the municipal court and police department. I was determined to be a better service provider than I had gotten.
