Feds Need Look No Further Than Rodney King for the Case against Wilson

[Teamster Jeff]

>>>
In August 1992 nearly three months to the day after the four LAPD officers that beat black motorist Rodney King were acquitted on nearly all charges by a jury with no blacks on it, Lourdes G. Baird, the United States Attorney for California's Central District, stepped before a battery of news cameras and reporters and announced that three of the officers would face federal charges. The charges were violating King's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable arrest and with depriving him of his 14th Amendment due-process rights during his March, 1991 arrest. The four would face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted.

The Justice Department's decision to prosecute rested squarely on two compelling legal and public interest points, neither of which significantly involved any need to proof racial animus. The legal charges were that the officers who beat King acted under the color of the law. This violated a near century old federal statute that makes it a crime to deprive any person of a Constitutional right under the color of law. The statute specifically targeted police officers and public officials who abuse their authority and violate public trust by physically victimizing citizens.
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Twenty two years later, the situation with Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson is nearly identical. The instant the call went up for a federal investigation and prosecution of Wilson on civil rights charges in the slaying of Michael Brown the same loud scream was heard that Wilson broke no law, acted under color of authority, and that any federal action against him was done solely to appease civil rights organizations that clamored for his head. The Ferguson grand jury decision not to indict him brought the same outcry that the state trial and acquittal of the four LAPD cops who beat King brought, namely that there are no grounds for a separate federal action against him.

Federal prosecutors in the King case knocked that down when they made clear that the jury decision did not satisfy the federal requirement for the presentation of fair, unbiased evidence and witness testimony in a publicly charged trial. The same argument stands with the Ferguson grand jury. The gaping holes, inconsistencies, contradictions, and omission in and of the testimony and evidence presented to the grand jury, as well as the dismissal of witness testimony that would have rebutted Wilson's story was ignored. This violated the fundamental precept of how a grand jury is supposed to function.
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Brown as was King was unarmed. Brown and King were not charged with a crime when detained. Brown as King received injuries after he ceased resisting. Brown as King was abused during an official stop. These as they were with King are compelling civil rights violations.
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The Justice Department should take the same step in the Brown slaying it took twenty two years ago in the King beating case. That is to fulfill its responsibility and prosecute Wilson.
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Feds-Need-Look-No-Further-by-earl-ofari-hutchin-Federal-Agency-FBI_Federal-Investigations_LAPD_Michael-Brown-141128-263.html

[VanillaRhapsody]

1. Which led to this song being written later that year...

[G_j]

5. +100

[ucrdem]

2. K'n'R

p.s.

Powell, Koon, Wind and Ofc. Theodore Briseno's acquittal in a Simi Valley, Calif., court sparked the riots, but a year later, both Powell and Koon were found guilty of violating King's civil rights and sentenced to 30 months in federal prison (Wind and Briseno were acquitted).

http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/la_riot/article/0,28804,1614117_1614084_1614517,00.html

[Teamster Jeff]

3. .

[Moostache]

4. K&R

FUCK YOU!!! I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!!

I am admittedly out of the modern music scene (Rage Against The Machine was in my wheel house though)...are there any modern groups that bother to make socially conscious music?