Has U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Delivered Justice in Ferguson?
Two police officers shot in Ferguson, Missouri, Wednesday as they guarded the Police Department building during an hours-long community protest have been released from hospital and recovering from their wounds. Recovery of the embattled town from old and new tensions that bedevil it is not as hopeful.
The shootings occurred the same day Police Chief Thomas Jackson resigned, the latest in a slew of public employees and officials to quit after a U.S. Department of Justice report found and entrenched pattern of racism in the policies and practices of the city’s governing and public-service agencies.
The DOJ report came with an anti-climactic announcement that no federal charges will be brought against ex-police officer Darren Wilson for shooting to death Michael Brown in on Aug. 9, 2014—the incident that sparked sustained unrest in Ferguson and sympathetic protests across the country demanding justice in the case.
In an exclusive series last November, “Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr. predicted the Department of Justice decision, as well as the Nov. 24 decision by a county grand jury not to indict Wilson. Maddox also predicted that a linked case in Staten Island, N.Y.—the chokehold death of Eric Garner on July 17, 2014—similarly would yield no state indictment of Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo; a grand jury announced Dec. 3 that it found no reason to indict him. Holder promised an “expeditious” federal inquiry into the Garner case the following day. Results pending.
The hunt is on for the shooter(s) of the police officers, the heinous act widely condemned. On Leid Stories, “Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr. pursues answers to the question: Has U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivered justice in Ferguson?