The U.S. Justice Department said yesterday that it will not file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman, a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012.
The department said it had not found sufficient evidence that Zimmerman intentionally violated the civil rights of Martin, 17.
The announcement comes as the Justice Department also investigates Darren Wilson, a police officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August.
Both incidents sparked nationwide outcry from civil rights advocates who have pressured the Obama administration to press charges against the two men for acting on racial bias.
Thursday will be the third anniversary of Martin's shooting.
"Though a comprehensive investigation found that the high standard for a federal hate crime prosecution cannot be met under the circumstances here, this young man's premature death necessitates that we continue the dialog and be unafraid of confronting the issues and tensions his passing brought to the surface," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
And all of that means what? A whole lot of nothing..
A source familiar with the investigation said it has been clear for some time that there would be no federal charges against Zimmerman. The justice department's civil rights division has been investigating for more than two years.
Zimmerman claimed he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Martin in the chest during a confrontation in a neighborhood in Sanford, Florida, after following and stopping the teenager because he thought he was suspicious.
In 2013, he was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter.
A spokesman for Martin's family earlier said they were meeting with Justice Department officials on Tuesday.
Zimmerman's attorney, Don West, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
You know my wife had no faith from the beginning that the Federal Government would do anything about this... I assured her they would...I was wrong...They did nothing about Dan Wilson and Mike Brown in Ferguson and I don't expect them to do anything for Eric Garner and Tamir Rice either...
If this was a drug case or computer porn or income tax evasion...The government would charge you regardless of race with a quickness...but a trigger happy cop killing a black boy, a wanna be cop shooting a black boy, a cop who went above and beyond and choked a black man and you get blank stares...
There is an idiot troll who comments on these type of posts that I write from time to time and accuses me of being a grumpy and racist old black man....It's hard to not be in a bad mood if you are black when you look at these cases of blatant disregard for Black life...That is if you're intelligent..He and people who think like him expect us to just take these events on the chin and be quiet...
Not gonna ever happen here.
1 comment:
I'm with you cousin. I just went back to your post from yesterday and reread the lyrics from Common and John. We'll one day sing "Glory" because justice will flow like a river. Truth will not be crushed to earth. And lawyers won't be able to elucidate and equivocate what is right and wrong as they do now. One day! When we all get to heaven!!
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