Free Republic

TWO FERGUSON POLICE OFFICERS WERE SHOT TONIGHT OUTSIDE THE POLICE DEPARTMENT!

Conservatives are typically eager to disparage politicians and bureaucrats who conspire to seize wealth. So you'd think that they'd be outraged to learn that officials in one municipality treat residents as revenue sources rather than citizens. In this city, policymakers have made maximizing the intake of money their number one priority. They urge police to cite residents as aggressively as possible and evaluate their municipal court judge based on the fines that he levies. Challenges to the city's system are thwarted by a deliberately complicated thicket of rules and red tape. And violations of the Constitution are frequent and unpunished....

Following the scathing report that Eric Holder’s office issued which essentially indicted the entire Ferguson police department as hateful racists, rather than finding specific incidents of wrongdoing, a question arose. Can the Department of Justice in Washington reach out into the state and local levels of law enforcement and essentially close up a shop? Check out this video of a Fox News interview on the subject provided by Michael van der Galien at PJ Media. J. Christian Adams takes Attorney General Eric Holder to task for his unconstitutional and even downright dictatorial wish to shut down police departments that...

A Missouri appeals court judge was appointed Monday to take over Ferguson's municipal court and make "needed reforms" after a highly critical U.S. Department of Justice report that was prompted by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown. The Missouri Supreme Court said it is assigning state appeals Judge Roy Richter to hear all of Ferguson's pending and future municipal court cases. The high court said Richter also will have the authority to overhaul court policies to ensure defendants' rights are respected and to "restore the integrity of the system." Ferguson Municipal Judge Ronald J. Brockmeyer resigned Monday, saying through...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. vowed a firm response on Friday to what he called “appalling” racial misconduct by law enforcement officials in Ferguson, Mo., suggesting he was prepared to seek the dismantling of the police force there if necessary. “We are prepared to use all the powers that we have, all the power that we have, to ensure that the situation changes there,” Mr. Holder told reporters here after returning from Columbia, S.C., where he appeared with President Obama at a town hall-style meeting at Benedict College. “That means everything from working with them to coming up with...

Racial Politics: Unable to pin racism charges on Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder is using half-baked data to manufacture a case of racism against his entire police force. Holder's race-baiting civil rights crew combed through several years of Ferguson Police Department data on traffic stops, searches and arrests and "found a pattern of racial disparities in Ferguson's police activities." "African Americans are overrepresented in FPD's vehicular stops" and victims of "racial bias," Holder concludes in his report.

The Talk Shows March 8th, 2015 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. ; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Lewis.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.; Benjamin Crump, lawyer for the family of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson.THIS WEEK (ABC): Mayor James Knowles of Ferguson, Missouri;...

Holder Says He’s ‘Prepared’ To Dismantle Ferguson Police Department If Necessary By Katie Zezima March 6 Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday the Department of Justice is ready to take any and all steps that are needed to reform the Ferguson, Mo., police department, including the potential dismantling of the force. Speaking to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base after a trip to South Carolina with President Obama, Holder said he was stunned by what the investigation uncovered, and will go to all necessary lengths to address racial bias and other systemic issues within the force. A Department of Justice...

Obama Says Other Police Departments Are Racist In First Remarks On Ferguson President Obama said the type of racial discrimination found in Ferguson, Missouri, is not unique to that police department, and he cast law enforcement reform as a chief struggle for today's civil rights movement. Obama said improving civil rights and civil liberties with police is one of the areas that 'requires collective action and mobilization' 50 years after pivotal civil rights marches brought change to the country. The president made his first remarks about this week's Justice Department report of racial bias in Ferguson, which found officers routinely...

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the killing of Michael Brown, many black residents of Ferguson, Missouri, immediately thought that he was the victim of a wrongful death at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson, who shot him after a scuffle.

They were four words that became the national rallying cry of a new civil rights movement: “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Protesters chanted it, arms raised, in cities across the country in solidarity for Michael Brown, the black teenager who some witnesses said was surrendering when he was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The slogan was embraced by members of Congress, recording artists and football players with the St. Louis Rams. It inspired posters and songs, T-shirts and new advocacy groups, a powerful distillation of simmering anger over police violence and racial injustice in Ferguson...

I barely glanced at this in posting it to Headlines because I thought I already knew what it would say. Holder’s whining last week about how high the standard is to convict someone of a federal civil rights violation suggested that the tone of the DOJ’s Ferguson report would be more “he’s probably guilty but we just can’t prove it” than “he’s innocent and was railroaded by the media.” My mistake. The DOJ — Eric Holder’s DOJ — is clear as can be that it thinks Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown. Rarely do I send you off somewhere...

Lawyers for the parents of an unarmed, black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson have announced plans to file a civil lawsuit in their son's death. Attorney Daryl Parks said the City of Ferguson and former Officer Darren Wilson will be named in the suit.

According to an 86-page report issued by the Department of Justice, six of the most credible witnesses to the shooting of Michael Brown were afraid to give testimony in support of Ferguson, MO, police officer Darren Wilson, because they knew it would undercut the “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative being advanced by their neighbors and, eventually, by the media. Several expressed concern for their safety should they choose to contradict that narrative publicly. As one witness noted, there were signs in the neighborhood reading “snitches get stitches.” The fear experienced by witnesses to the incident is a constant refrain in...

Michael Brown’s uncle says a Department of Justice decision not to charge the Ferguson police officer who fatally shot his nephew is deflating. Brown was killed during a confrontation with Darren Wilson on Aug. 9 in the St. Louis suburb. A St. Louis County grand jury decided in November not to file state charges against Wilson, who has since left the department. …

In August of 2014, Ferguson, Missouri, and the surrounding towns erupted in violence as outraged protesters clashed with police following the shooting death of local teen Michael Brown. In November, that city was again rocked by riots and protests after a local grand jury determined that the officer responsible for that shooting did not violate the law when he used lethal force to subdue Brown. At the heart of these clashes was the contention that racial bias – in the actions of Officer Darren Wilson, in the efforts of riot police to suppress peaceful demonstrators as well as rioters, and...

WASHINGTON (CNN) —A Justice Department civil rights investigation has concluded that the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court engaged in a "pattern and practice" of discrimination against African-Americans, targeting them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force, and jail sentences, according to a U.S. law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. ... Among the findings, reviewed by CNN: from 2012 to 2014, 85% of people subject to vehicle stops by Ferguson police were African-American; 90% of those who received citations were black; and 93% of people arrested were black. This while 67% of the Ferguson population is black....

The Justice Department has cleared a Ferguson, Mo., police officer of civil rights violations in the shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager whose death set off racially charged and sometimes violent protests last year. The decision, which was announced on Wednesday, ends a lengthy investigation into the shooting last August, in which Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Mr. Brown in the street. Many witnesses said Mr. Brown had his hands up in surrender when he died, leading to nationwide protest chants of “Hands up, don’t shoot.” But federal agents and civil rights prosecutors rejected that story, just as...