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 ...
can you do that? try the guy twice for the same thing?
They’ll use a different charge: civil rights violations. Isn’t that what they did to the cops who beat “the motorist” Rodney King?
Marxist governments can do whatever they please.
Its not the same thing to the law - they deprived him of his civil right to live - thats what they will charge him with.
Of course, they will certainly issue warrants for the arrest of the black panthers in Phila also...
Obama’s personal department of retribution.
Yes.
that cop needs political asylum
he is definitely now in the cross hairs of an eric holder witch hunt. trial by jury didnt give the blacks what they want, maybe holder can order him to be waterboarded and sent to GITMO
oh wait....they’d have to free up a cell by sending some GITMO terrorists to Bermuda or something
It's exactly what Goerge Bush Sr. did to the cops in the Rodney King case, after the black community didn't like the outcome and started rioting. They don't re-try them on the same charge, they try them on a civil rights charge
“that cop needs political asylum”
He should come to Texas and declare political asylum.
White perp, black victim....
check, that meets the proper criteria for the Civil Rights Division.
I don't think I can ever forgive the Rat party for forcing this monster on the rest of us.
This is brazen and political. This is not about "justice".
When the only tool you have is a hammer... all your problems look like nails!
As usual, the most racist people in America are liberal black people.
We have a new rule of law, now. Verdict first, trial afterwards.
Only if he is white.
...this is a two-fer for the Dems...they pander to the black vote....AND....at the same time the ACLU wing of Jewish vote which is obsessed with victimization and opression.
My head is exploding this morning.
This.
And the apparent determination by Justice to undermine our voting system.
And the Dem agenda for the lame duck session: To force Cap and Trade, card check, pork, etc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704293604575343262629361470.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE EVIL IDIOTS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
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.
I stand corrected.
Holder = Racist
Obama = Racist
Democrats support Racists.
Why have more people not noticed this? Why do black democrats continue to vote for racists?
The jury did not believe that he shot to kill - and I don't believe he shot to kill either.
But in a situation where you think you might be rushed by an angry crowd of drunks you are definitely not thinking: "How would it look tomorrow if I shot this punk" - but you well may be thinking: "If I wing this punk right now, this crowd that could rush me will think twice."
And I'm a little tired of the "doting father Oscar Grant" angle - it's about as believable as the "loving fiance Sean Bell" narrative in NYC.
The valorizing of violent, drunken thugs wandering the streets in the wee hours doing dirt is extremely tiresome.
Oh, I agree with you. But Ofc. Pirone’s on-scene comments gave Holder’s DOJ an engraved invitation on a silver platter.
Yep, they shouldn’t be able to do so, but they can. The first President Bush started this crap when he didn’t like the verdict of the Rodney King trial. Federal charges on race crimes.
What happened to our freedom from double jeapardy?
Does anyone know if Obama has fired any US Attorneys as this seemed to be such a problem for the dems when Bush fired 8 of them? This apparently rose to the level of ‘scandal’ in the Bush administration and for Alberto Gonzalez in particular. I apologize in advance for the thread hi-jack.
No, the prosecution presented a case for second-degree murder - that Mehserle intentionally killed him in a burst of anger.
Shooting a guy brings with it MORE angry crowds,more chaos not less
Couldn't disagree more. Firearms send crowds running to what they believe is a safe distance. And when you think your life is in danger, the old adage "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6" kicks in.
Lets see ... they didn’t get Whitey for capital murder [and, thus, the death penalty in CA] - so now they’re gonna go after him on civil rights violations [where, if convicted, the federal death penalty may apply].
All the while, they will NOT pursue alleged irregularities in voters lists and DO NOT want to purse the Philly Black Panther case ...
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