Posted on 07/09/2010 7:37:56 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct an independent review of the Johannes Mehserle case in order to determine whether or not the shooting merits federal prosecution, according the department.
"The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution," the department said in a statement.
"The Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state's prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution."
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said she has been in touch with the justice department.
"I remain in close contact with the Department of Justice and will continue to work with them, the family and the community in the days ahead," she said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
Elections have consequences.
B. Hussein Obama
“They don’t re-try them on the same charge, they try them on a civil rights charge.”
What you say is true.
However, there’s one major difference between the Rodney King beating and the Oakland case: one was intentional, the other clearly accidental. Both on video.
If he is tried he will be tried for violating the decedent's federally-guaranteed civil rights in a federal court, which are different charges in a different jurisdiction.
One thing about the whole story that strikes me as very questionable is Ofc. Mehserle's contention that he confused his sidearm with his taser and that he intended to tase Grant, not shoot him.
This claim is simply not believable. The weapons look and feel and weigh differently from one another and in these situations muscle memory kicks in.
It seems very unlikely that he would have drawn from the opposite side and pulled out a heavier weapon with a different handfeel and not have noticed. This would be plausible if he had switched the normal positioning of the respective holsters, but he hadn't - they were where they usually were.
According to our progressive friends, The Black Panther incident and a white cop are totally two different events.
One is ‘fighting’ for social justice while the other one is promoting ‘hate’ along with ‘intolerance’.
Alice, welcome to wonderland....and Annie,get your gun,there is a bad moon rising.
You raise an interesting point. If a black cop shot a white man, would the Holder Justice Department be interested? Holder has said that hate crime laws only apply if the victim is a minority.
Read the story and watched two videos and still don’t know anything about the circumstances of the shooting.
Watch the interviews of the enraged blacks responding to the verdict. They all “know” what crime was committed therefore the outcome is unjust. Holder uses the same “logic”.
Note how carefully the rioters chose the stores to loot to vent their “outrage”. A new pair of Nikes and big screen TV goes a long way toward righting their perceived social injustice.
This is what we’re up against folks.
Maybe the Holder Justice Department can do something about lawlessness on the BART system. That would benefit the people of Oakland.
What was the jury’s makeup - I doubt the LA jury was an all white KKK card carrying jury... But I can’t find any info on the jury, who could have convicte him of second degree murder, but chose the lesser charge... ( The jury , not the media or cops get to convict people, and determine the severity of the crime) 12 people agreed..
That is not uniformly true, but it is often true.
The problem here is that Ofc. Mehserle's superior at the scene, Ofc. Pirone, was caught on tape yelling a racial epithet at the decedent.
Sadly, that fact alone gives Holder's DOJ all the justification it needs for retrying Ofc. Mehserle.
Its worse than that - its racial. Not a bit different than a bunch of crackers dragging a black accused of raping a white girl from his cell and lynching him.
It sounds to me like the jury simply didn’t feel that there was evidence of intent to commit murder.
It was a reasonable verdict and Obama knows it....just like Obama knows he has to keep black Americans stirred up and believing they are oppressed. Otherwise where would the commies get their votes?
The situation is actually far more complicated than that.
Mr. Grant was not shot in the head, but in the lower back - and he actually would have survived the initial bullet wound, according to testimony, if the round had not ricocheted off the poured concrete beneath Grant into his lung.
Also, pretty much every witness agrees that Ofc. Mehserle was not holding him down but was attempting to get Mr. Grant's hand out of his waistband and into cuffing position.
It was a fluid situation which was out of Ofc. Mehserle's control as he tried to restrain a suspect in the midst of a crowd that was turning on him.
I don't think he intended to murder Grant, but I do think he was extremely angry and frightened and did intend to shoot him - in order to neutralize Mr. Grant's attempts at resisting and to make the gathering crowd think twice about rushing the officers.
A crowd of angry drunks on New Year's Eve is a crowd that will not be deterred by a single tasing.
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