AFRICANGLOBE – The US Justice Department announced Wednesday that it will not bring federal charges against Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Missouri police officer who fired at least six bullets into Michael Brown last August, killing the unarmed teenager.
The announcement is the culmination of months in which the Obama administration sought to posture as the defender of minority youth, all the while solidarizing itself with the police. The decision to exonerate Wilson was announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, who served as the White House’s point man at the height of the daily protests in the St. Louis suburb following Brown’s murder.
After Brown’s killing, Holder went to Ferguson to put on a show of support for the right to protest. At the same time, he signaled the federal government’s support for the Missouri state police captain who presided over the mass arrest of demonstrators and virtual lockdown of the town by National Guard troops and police armed with military-grade weapons.
The announcement that the government will not prosecute Wilson, despite multiple eye-witness accounts describing his shooting of Michael Brown as arbitrary and unprovoked, is the result of political, not legal considerations. It is an unambiguous statement of support for the institution of the police and the forces of state violence in general, under conditions of mounting social anger and class tensions.
In its announcement and the 86-page report it issued explaining its rationale, the administration lined up fully behind last year’s rigged grand jury proceedings that resulted in a decision not to bring criminal charges against Wilson. The Justice Department report did not differ in any substantial way from the arguments presented by the notoriously pro-police St. Louis County prosecutor to justify the refusal to charge Wilson. This is despite the fact that Prosecutor Robert McCulloch subsequently admitted that he knowingly presented to grand jurors perjured testimony supporting the police officer.
The first piece of “evidence” presented in the Justice Department report is Wilson’s self-serving account of the events of August 9. At the same time, the report discounts the testimony of the nearly two dozen witnesses who claim that Michael Brown had his hands up when he was killed.
The decision by the Ferguson grand jury, followed by a similar decision by a New York grand jury not to indict the police officer who strangled Eric Garner to death, amounted to a carte blanche for police departments across to country to beat and kill as they see fit. Now, the Obama administration has given the federal government’s de facto seal of approval for police violence and murder.
In effect, the administration has demonstrated its backing for the transformation of the police into a militarized occupation force in working-`class communities across the country.
The epidemic of police killings has continued unabated, with the latest atrocity occurring only days ago, when Los Angeles police beat, tased and shot to death a homeless man on the city’s skid row.
The decision not to prosecute Wilson was announced alongside a separate Justice Department report accusing the Ferguson Police Department of wrongful arrests, harassment and the use of court fees to raise revenue. That report, which defines violations of democratic rights by the police entirely in racial terms, was released to provide a smokescreen for the decision not to prosecute the killer of Michael Brown.
The exoneration of Wilson by the Obama administration further exposes the reactionary role of the liberal and pseudo-left apologists for the Democratic Party, including fake “civil rights” leaders such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who went to Ferguson to channel popular anger behind Obama and the Democrats, presenting Holder’s promise of a federal investigation as good coin.
By: Andre Damon
