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Based on the DOJ report, it seems that the case never should have even been brought before a grand jury. The prosecutor faced intense political pressure to bri
by skwirl 12y ago
Based on the DOJ report, it seems that the case never should have even been brought before a grand jury. The prosecutor faced intense political pressure to bring this up before a grand jury - he shouldn't have done so, but he would have been tarred as a racist by the national media if he didn't. It's a bad situation all around.
- ufmace 12y agoI mostly agree with this, but to be a little devil's advocate, it does look pretty bad for the local prosecutor, seen as in bed with the current system, to handle the case. Even if the shooting itself was completely clean - as it appears to be - it would still look better if an independent prosecutor was trying the case. But then, the DOJ reports seem to show that, while the shooting itself was probably clean, that's about the only thing in Ferguson that was. With such a level of animosity between the population and the law enforcement system, is there anything that the system could have done at that point to satisfy the population? And the system has done plenty to earn that level of animosity - at this point, it's easy to see why the population is furious, even if the Brown shooting isn't the best case to focus their anger on. But people pay a lot more attention to a shooting than to countless hassles via tickets for trivial offenses and a legal system designed to make it as difficult and expensive as possible to stay on the right side of the law. And so we have the situation today.