‘Sad to read and sadder to live’: Members of Ferguson Commission react to DOJ report

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report based on the findings of their months-long investigation of the Ferguson, Missouri, police department. While the Justice Department will not file charges against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown last August, the report faulted the city of Ferguson and its law enforcement for a pattern of racial bias demonstrated by repeated civil rights abuses.

The findings, which Attorney General Eric Holder has called “searing,” have stirred up many of the feelings expressed during the weeks of protests that followed Brown’s death. President Obama has said that while he does not believe the acts of racial bias described in the report are “typical of what happens across the country,” he also does not believe this type of behavior is exclusive to Ferguson. “It’s not an isolated incident,” he said in a radio interview.

Several members of the Ferguson Commission, an independent group set up by the state of Missouri to study the social and economic conditions underscored by the protests that followed Brown’s death, shared their reactions to the Justice Department report on the NewsHour last Friday. We continued the conversation on Twitter with Ferguson Commission members Brittany Packnett (@MsPackyetti), executive director for Teach For America in St. Louis, and community activist and organizer Rasheen Aldridge, Jr. (@SheenBean32). Read the full conversation below.