Monitor is chosen for reforms in Ferguson

ST. LOUIS — A federal judge Monday chose a monitor team to oversee reforms of Ferguson’s policing and court system, a process expected to cost the St. Louis suburb more than $1 million.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry announced that Squire Patton Boggs, a law firm based in Cleveland, was picked from four finalists to make sure reforms are adequate in Ferguson. City officials say the cost of the monitoring will not exceed $1.25 million over five years, or $350,000 for any single year.

The team will be led by Clark Ervin, who was inspector general for the U.S. State Department and Homeland Security before becoming a partner at Squire Patton Boggs.

A consent decree between the city and the U.S. Department of Justice, approved by Perry in April, calls for diversity training for police, outfitting officers and jail workers with body cameras, and other reforms.

Ferguson’s justice system came under scrutiny after the fatal 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown, a black, unarmed 18-year-old. A county grand jury and the Department of Justice cleared Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson officer who killed Brown. But the Justice Department found patterns of racial bias in Ferguson’s policing and a municipal court system that generated revenue largely on the backs of poor and minority residents.