This is significant and puts other police departments on notice that DoJ isn’t going to turn a blind eye anymore:
Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday announced a sweeping federal civil rights investigation of the police department of Ferguson, Missouri, citing a “deep mistrust” between officers and the people who live there.
Holder said the investigation would determine whether officers in Ferguson had “engaged in a pattern or practice of violations of the U.S. Constitution or federal law.”
He said that the investigation would analyze police use of force, traffic stops, searches and the treatment of detainees. It will go beyond the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white officer, Darren Wilson, on Aug. 9.
[…] He said that Justice Department officials had also reviewed records, including racial statistics for police stops, before deciding the open the investigation. The Justice Department is investigating the Brown shooting separately, as is a grand jury in the St. Louis area.
Thanks to Steve Duckett Attorney at Law.
What, exactly, has the DOJ, and in particular Holder, been investigating for the last years? We all know what Darrell Issa and the Republicans have been investigating. And we all know what needs to be investigated. The NSA for one thing. Wall Street for another. What has the DOJ spent its money on ? It’s continued and intensified the Drug War. Rooted out illegal aliens. Been vigilant in locating pseudo-terrorists. Persecuted more investigative journalists and leakers than any other administration in history. Written legal opinions justifying Obama’s war crimes. Looks the other way when the oligarchy breaks the law with its corrupting dark money shenanigans. All-in-all Holder has been worst than a zero. Will he redeem himself with the Ferguson investigation? That’s very doubtful. Where, Mr. Holder, is that 6300 page Senate report outlining CIA torture?
“federal civil rights investigation of the police department” Only a century too late. I’m getting pretty sick of it taking decades for the ‘protectors of the rule of law’ to get around to investigating well established patterns of perfidy and criminality.
Sounds like they are just making a feeble attempt at going thru the motions before they will quietly ditch the whole effort.