Surprise not a Surprise: Darren Wilson Was Part of a Police Force Disbanded For Being Racist

According to NYDN, Officer Darren Wilson was a member of the 45-employee Jennings, Mo., Police Department that was fired by its city council in 2011 and replaced by St. Louis County Police, the Washington Post reported.

Wilson, 28, didn’t rack up any disciplinary issues during his tenure in Jennings, but the nearly all-white police force came under fire for its poor relations with the predominantly black community.

“The straw that broke the camel’s back — an officer shot at a (black) female,” Rodney Epps, a Jennings city council member, told the newspaper.

“She was stopped for a traffic violation. She had a child in the back (of the) car and was probably worried about getting locked up. And this officer chased her down Highway 70, past city limits, and took a shot at her. Just ridiculous,” Epps said.

A black Jennings resident, Cassandra Fuller, said cops beat her in 2009 on her front porch after she joked about a car that crashed into her van in front of her house.

“It’s like a horror story in my mind,” she said. “I never thought police would pull me off my porch and beat me to the ground, for just laughing,” said Fuller, who sued the department.

Wilson, who was raised in Texas, was among the officers given the chance to reapply for their jobs, but he left Jennings for the nearby Ferguson Police Department.