By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Freddie Gray was seen walking and talking when he was placed into a Baltimore police van. But when he emerged, Gray “could not talk, he could not breathe,” Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said in a story in the Washington Post. Gray died after suffering a severe spinal cord injury. Six…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A white sheriff’s reserve deputy who killed a black man in Tulsa, Okla., did not commit civil rights violations, the FBI has found following an investigation. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Tulsa County sheriff’s office held a news conference to announce the FBI findings. “They found no wrongdoing,” Sheriff…
By Scott Lemieux The Week He probably would have gotten away with it. That’s the sobering reality of the video of South Carolina police officer Michael Slager shooting Walter L. Scott as he ran away, not posing the slightest threat to the officer. The utter indifference to human life evident in the video, shot by…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A long-awaited report on Ferguson found numerous constitutional violations that called for new oversight, retraining of employees and abandoning the current approach to policing. The New York Times reports that the Justice Department criticized Ferguson police for routinely making unlawful searches, hurling racial insults and treating anyone as a criminal for…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The Justice Department is preparing to release a highly critical report of police in Ferguson, accusing them of making discriminatory traffic stops and creating an environment that bred animosity among African Americans, The New York Times reports. The report, which could be released as early as this week, says Ferguson police…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The federal investigation into the shooting death three years ago of Trayvon Martin has ended without hate-crime charges against the gunman, George Zimmerman, The New York Times reports. The Justice Department closed the civil rights investigation. The family is devastated, said Benjamin L. Crump, the lawyer for Martin’s family. “This…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI has wrapped up its long-anticipated investigation into the police shooting of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, a U.S. official told the Associated Press. It’s not yet clear whether the Justice Department will pursue a federal civil rights case against former Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. But legal experts and…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI team handling the civil rights investigation into the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man killed by a white NYPD officer, has plenty of experience with long-term probes and public corruption cases. CNN reports that the New York-based agents are taking a “free look” into the July death…
