Friday, August 15, 2014

Justice Dept. Wrong Agency For Objective Investigation of Race



If any government agency is incapable of doing an objective investigation of a racially charged event, it is the Department of Justice. Its current leader famously declared that "white people are cowards." The current Secretary of Labor, when he was chief of the Civil Rights Division openly refused to prosecute violations in a race neutral manner, contrary to law. See, e.g., J. Christian Adams, Injustice; and John Fund and Hans van Spakovsky's Who's Counting?

[From article]
Both the police department and eyewitnesses agree that the officer pulled up alongside Brown as he walked on the sidewalk, but there are conflicting accounts about what happened next, according to The St. Louis Dispatch.
St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said Brown “physically assaulted” the officer, pushing him back into his car and trying to take his weapon.
“There was at least one shot fired within the car. After that the officer went back, came back out of the car, he exited his vehicle, and there was a shooting that occurred where the officer in fact shot the subject, and … they were fatal injuries,” Belmar said.
Dorian Johnson, who claims to have been walking with Brown at the time of the shooting, said the officer had demanded that they get off the sidewalk. When they continued walking, he claimed the officer drove up, grabbed Brown by the neck and then shot him.
[. . .]
The lawmakers praised Holder’s move, but said DOJ should consider taking over the investigation. They said the St. Louis County Police Department “may not be the most objective or credible body to investigate civil rights matters involving law enforcement given evidence of racial profiling by that department in the recent past.”
“Only the federal government has the resources, the experience, and the full independence to give this case the close scrutiny that the citizens of Ferguson and the greater St. Louis area deserve,” the lawmakers wrote.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/214911-lawmakers-call-on-doj-to-expand-probe-of-slain-missouri-teen

August 12, 2014, 09:02 am
Black lawmakers want DOJ to investigate St. Louis police
By Rebecca Shabad


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