Ferguson

The Justice Department enters its court fight against the city of Ferguson with the apparent upper hand, given a months-long investigation that found vast problems in the way police and courts treat poor people and minorities in the St. Louis suburb.

Ferguson city leaders have spent months negotiating a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, a plan that calls for sweeping changes to police practices in the St. Louis suburb where 18-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot. Now, residents get their say.

The Ferguson Police Department has agreed to overhaul its policies, training and practices as part of a sweeping deal with the Justice Department following the 2014 fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Ferguson was a community on edge again Monday, a day after a protest marking the anniversary of Michael Brown's death was punctuated with gunshots and police critically wounded a black 18-year-old accused of opening fire on officers.

A year ago, Ferguson, Missouri, was a mostly quiet working-class suburban town. The uneasy relationship between its growing black population and its mostly white police force barely registered in local headlines.

Ferguson's mostly white police force, widely maligned after the fatal shooting of a black man by a white officer last summer, is trying to become more diverse despite the St. Louis suburb's battered image and regional competition from better-paying police agencies, the interim police chief said.

Ferguson city leaders project a $2.5 million budget shortfall during the current fiscal year and a similar shortage in fiscal 2016, largely due to the unrest and fallout after the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, the town's mayor said Thursday.

African-Americans in the Garden State trust police and the criminal justice far less than whites, according to the latest Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released Wednesday.

Protests seem to be popping up everywhere lately. We've seen Ferguson protests, The Eric Garner “Die Ins,” and even New Jersey bear hunt protests.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) -- Police cars have been vandalized and several gunshots have been heard on the streets of Ferguson after the announcement that a white police officer will not be indicted in the shooting death of an unarmed black 18-year-old.