In a warning to Ferguson Police officers, Moss said in his speech that if any officer does his or her job with disrespect to the badge, or make mistakes with malice, he will make sure that officer is prosecuted or removed from police service.
Advertisement
The Justice Department initiated a civil rights investigation into Ferguson’s policing after Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by a white officer in 2014.
Moss, 51, can continue preaching his gospel that not all cops are bad, as he’s done in Miami, but a large sector of Ferguson’s population wants more than talk.
“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, also acknowledging city leaders’ “faith” and the townspeople for the opportunity.
“Why aren’t there more women on the police department?”
Moss gave up the promise of a sandy retirement in Miami when he first heard about the shooting death of Missouri teen Mike Brown.
A Justice Department inquiry a year ago confirmed protesters’ suspicions that Ferguson police were stopping African-Americans much more frequently than whites, often without legal justification, for cash gains.
Some residents said they were anxious to see what Moss brings. He admitted he was planning to retire in September, and spend some time on the beach. “I think I’ve been doing the training for that challenge for the last 32 years”, said Moss. “And they were profoundly and fundamentally unconstitutional”. Within days of the report, Ferguson’s city manager, municipal judge and Police Chief Tom Jackson resigned. The report described police practices “shaped by the city’s focus on revenue”, not public needs. Mos said, as reported by AP.
“These violations were not only egregious, they were routine”.
And while the mood at that moment was hopeful, protesters had also gathered to demonstrate against city attorney Stephanie Karr, who has also served as the city’s prosecutor since 2011, a dual role that the Department of Justice called a conflict of interest. “They were driven, at least in part, by racial bias and they occurred disproportionately against African American residents of Ferguson”.
“He is an expert in police community relations and that is what that community needs now”, Miami Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes told the Herald.
Delrish Moss will be sworn in Monday as chief in the St. Louis County town where the fatal 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, by a white officer spurred months of unrest.
“The police profession has been assailed because people have decided that there’s no longer nobility in police work”, he said. First, a police officer searched him while he was walking in downtown Miami after dark and called him the N-word.
Advertisement
“In both of those experiences nothing was ever done to restore my dignity”.
