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National Bar Association: A black Lawyers Group to tackle Police Brutality
Meanes said that the group’s ultimate goal is to have a conversation with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and to ask him, and in some cases, demand that he seize police departments or take over some investigations that are going on in states or run concurrent investigations.
Meanes said that federal law prohibits the U.S. Justice Department from going into a police department unless a pattern or history of abuse has been identified. “The problem is that the information needed for that action is not readily available in a comprehensive way on a consistent basis with the goal of eradicating that abuse,” she said, adding that the open records requests is the best way to get that information.
Meanes said that the National Bar Association was concerned that the trust was already broken between the police force and the residents of Ferguson, Missouri and that the rebellion and the protests would continue.
“We don’t think St. Louis County should investigate this. We don’t think the prosecutor should investigate this. There should be an independent third-party investigating this and that is the federal government,” said Meanes.
Phillip Agnew, executive director of the Dream Defenders, a civil rights group established by young people of color in the aftermath of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African American teenager in Sanford, Florida., said that law enforcement officials taunted, antagonized and disrespected peaceful protesters who took to the streets of Ferguson and at times incited the violence that they attempted to stamp out in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown.
“An occupying force came into the community, they killed someone from the community, and instead of being transparent and doing everything they could do to make sure the community felt whole again, they brought in more police to suppress folks who were exercising their constitutional rights,” said Agnew. “If your protocol results in greater violence, greater anger, and greater disenchantment of the people, you have to chart a different course.”
On the heels of the National Bar Association announcement, Holder launched 2 initiatives designed to calm anxiety and frustration expressed by Ferguson’s African American residents towards the local police department over allegations of misconduct, harassment and discrimination. The Justice Department also introduced a “Collaborative Reform Initiative” to tackle similar concerns with the St. Louis County Police Department and to improve the relationship between police officers and the communities they serve.
