Posted on 08/20/2014 1:49:46 PM PDT by maggief
FERUGUSON, Mo. — Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday told a group of black college students here that he had been a victim of racial profiling.
Holder, who is in Ferguson as part of the Justice Department’s investigation of the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager, relayed a story about being stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike despite not breaking any laws.
“He told the story about how he was humiliated. They got him out of his car and searched his car,” said Bradley J. Reyford, a 22-year-old student who met with Holder. Holder told the story to a group of students at Florissant Valley Community College, a predominantly black school.
He met with a small group of students to hear their concerns about policing tactics in Ferguson, where riots and looting have broken out over the past week along with protests and demonstrations related to the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The attorney general wanted to “get a general idea of how police departments treat the community,” Reyford said
Holder said President Obama is keenly interested in how majority white police departments in communities such as Ferguson treat black youths, especially those from poor areas.
"He said the president wants to know what students are feeling about the police departments in the area," Reyford told reporters after the meeting.
Police and witnesses have given differing stories of how Brown was killed, with some witnesses saying Brown had his hands up when he was shot and police sources saying he had charged a police officer with his hands at his side.
An autopsy report found Brown had been shot at least six times. Police officer Darren Wilson has been identified as the shooter.
Holder recounted what he described as his humiliating experience of getting pulled over by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike despite not violating any laws.
Holder told a similar story to the NAACP last year after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
“I was pulled over twice and my car was searched on the New Jersey Turnpike when I’m sure I wasn’t speeding, or when I was stopped by a police officer," he told the group last year.
Holder has also recounted being stopped by a police officer while running to catch a movie in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington when he was a federal prosecutor.
Holder in the past has also spoken about his father coaching him on how to speak to police officers to avoid harassment.
The students told Holder that police are more likely to pull over a young black driver behind the wheel of a tricked-out car than someone driving a Mercedes-Benz.
He also heard from Molyric Welch, 27, whose brother died after Ferguson police shocked him with a taser in 2011.
Holder met separately with about 60 leaders from Ferguson and the surrounding communities, including Patrick Green, the mayor of Normandy.
“These young African-Americans want to know absolutely that not just I'm being heard but it's being taken serious through some action plan,” said Green. “We're going to implement the best practices. That's what DOJ is looking at. What are the best practices around the country that are working.”
Green called the meeting “very effective.”
He said they walked away from it with a “guaranteed commitment” that local communities would put in place guidelines to strengthen relationships between residents and local police departments.
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles did not attend the session, according to Green.
Seems like people walking down the middle of the street is a sign that society has collapsed in that area. I’ve seen that in many run down neighborhoods where I live.
Doesn’t he have a rap sheet?
So is he not profiling the white cop simply because he’s white?
It would seem that being a “victim” as a youth was imagined and based on his ‘racially biased’ worldview.
Now as a “beneficiary while black” AG, does he not see the irony?
Read between the lines here. If Holder can’t guarantee this officer is railroaded and convicted of a made up crime he is laying the groundwork for the civil right violation. Not only the officer, but the entire police force of Ferguson. I had the displeasure of hearing NPR this morning. I also hear news casts between radio programs. The media has convicted this officer despite any trial or evidence. Mike Brown is no longer even named. He is now only known as “the unarmed TEENAGER shot by a white police officer.” This is going to get ugly folks.
He wishes. Just like Obama was down in Selmuh. If the two of them pooled all their African blood together, they could make Colin Powell.
Did Holder ask the police what they would like to see done to change the behavior of young African American males? Did Holder mention to these young African-American students that they would do well to not rob convenience stores, not to assault or threaten shop keepers, not to lunge at police officers?
Which one in the picture is Holder?
5.56mm
If he hates this racist country, then he should blame his Daddy, who brought him here from Barbados.
Sure was .... how do you think he got into college and law school?
Alas poor Air Wick! Boo - frickin-hoo!
What the hell? Frikkin’ John Boehner looks more black than Holder.
Liberals never fail to tell lies even when there’s no reason to. It’s pathological with them.
Very, very ugly.
Columbia University, attended by who else?
Columbia Iniversity, where The Frankfurt School colonized mid 1900’s.
Frankfurt School minions - co-opting education, unions, the media and the DNC to broadcast Marxist-Socialist propaganda for decades.
Get Whitey Holder is a raciss.
And this idiot is the AG of the country. Unfit doesn’t begin to describe it.
I was pulled over once when I wasn’t “breaking the law” and it was because my car fit the description of one seen leaving the scene of an accident.
I didn’t whine like a baby as liberals do.
Although it was closer to the novel, I didn’t like Will Smith’s version of this story. Am I racist?
For Pete’s sake, who hasn’t been? I’m as white as a sheet, yet when (much younger) I accepted a black co-worker’s invitation to join him for dinner in a predominantly black part of Oklahoma City, you bet I was “profiled.” I was ignored by servers, intentionally shouldered by black men (followed by a unapologetic grin that meant, “Whatcha gonna do about it?”), and followed out to my car. Now, if this is how black people feel all the time in white environs, I’m very sympathetic, but none of us have completely clean hands.
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