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Trayvon Martin: DOJ Set to Announce No Charges Against George Zimmerman

Sula Peace

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While the public waits for a Justice Department announcement over two separate investigations spurred by the summer shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, the department is going to first announce its findings in the killing of Trayvon Martin.


ABC News has learned Martin’s family will soon be notified that the Justice Department will not be filing charges against
George Zimmerman, who shot the 17-year-old after a confrontation in 2012. Thursday marks three years to the day since Martin was killed.

Federal prosecutors concluded there is not sufficient evidence to prove Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla., intentionally violated Martin’s civil rights, sources told ABC News.

The case sparked intense discussions over race in America because Martin was walking to his home with only Skittles and an iced tea in his hands.
Florida prosecutors tried to convict Zimmerman of state-level murder and manslaughter charges, but in July 2013 a jury acquitted him, saying prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to prove their case.

One juror -– the only minority on the all-female jury –- later told ABC News that “as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can't say he's guilty."
"You can't put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty," she said. "But we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence."
In Sanford, race-related tensions had been simmering for nearly a century, but Martin’s death “was the proverbial ‘straw that broke the camel’s back,’” bringing “those issues to the surface,” the new Sanford police chief, Cecil Smith, recently told federal officials.
After Martin was killed, Holder sat down his own teenage son to explain that -– as unfair as it may be -– young black men must often interact with police in a different way than others, he told an NAACP convention in July 2013. It was “a conversation I hoped I'd never have to have,” Holder added.
As media attention mounted over Martin’s death, protests grew across the country calling for justice. The city of Sanford now says a police department had not been scrutinized like that by the press, religious organizations, social activists and the broader public since Los Angeles police beat Rodney King in 1991.
Zimmerman was not a police officer and the neighborhood watch program he was a part of was independent from local police.

Many accused Zimmerman of discriminating against Martin –- essentially taking action against the teenager and ultimately killing him because Martin was black. Zimmerman is Hispanic.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and FBI opened an investigation into the case, noting “experienced federal prosecutors” would determine “whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation” of federal law. In a statement, the department noted there are “limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction.”

Privately and publicly, Justice Department officials have been telegraphing all along that they were unlikely to file charges against Zimmerman. And in November 2013, Holder said the case against Zimmerman “in substantial part was resolved” with his acquittal months earlier.

Nevertheless, federal officials have insisted their civil-rights probe would be thorough and complete. Several months ago –- nearly two years into the Justice Department’s investigation –- Holder said federal investigators were still seeking to interview certain witnesses “as a result of some recent developments.”
More recently, Holder has said he hoped to announce the findings of the Zimmerman and Ferguson-related probes before he leaves office, which could happen in a matter of weeks, depending on when the U.S. Senate confirms his successor.
Holder has said then when a decision is announced in the Zimmerman case, it will be accompanied by “as much information” as possible detailing the Justice Department’s findings.
In the Ferguson case, the department is currently conducting two probes into the matter.
A criminal investigation will try to determine whether then-officer Darren Wilson used unreasonable force and intentionally violated Michael Brown’s civil rights when he shot the unarmed teenager in August. The second probe - though not criminal in nature –- will look more broadly into whether the Ferguson police department has routinely engaged in a "pattern or practice" of unlawful and discriminatory policing.

A state grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, declined to indict Wilson in Novembe4 2014. Many expect the Justice Department will not be able to bring federal charges against Wilson, but will take action against the police department.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-martin-doj-set-announce-charges-george-zimmerman/story?id=29186648

 

doodle332

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No surprise here.

Cops can kill us at will with no accountability at all.

Looks like we are returning to the 50's era murders of black people.

looks like we need our own armed guards for our protection everywhere we go.
 

NubianQueen

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It doesn't surprise me at all.

This case, the next case, and so on and so forth.

Talk is cheap.
 

Sanitamuse

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Not surprising, but I am still disappointed that this murder will not be dealt with in the way it should be. This menace to society needs to pay for what he did.


Justice Dept: No Federal Charges in Trayvon Martin Death
Eric Tucker


WASHINGTON (AP) - George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation with the teenager, will not face federal charges, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The decision, announced in the waning days of Attorney General Eric Holder's tenure, resolves a case that focused on self-defense gun laws and became a flashpoint in the national conversation about race two years before the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting.

Zimmerman has said he acted in self-defense when he shot the 17-year-old Martin during a confrontation inside a gated community in Sanford, Florida, just outside Orlando. Martin, who was black, was unarmed when he was killed.

Once Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder by a state jury in July 2013, Martin's family turned to the federal investigation in hopes that he would be held accountable for the shooting.

That probe focused on whether the killing amounted to a federal civil rights violation, which would have required proof that it was motivated by racial animosity. Although Martin's parents have said Zimmerman initiated the fight, the Justice Department said there was not enough evidence to establish that Zimmerman willfully deprived Martin of his civil rights - a difficult legal standard to meet - or killed the teenager on account of his race.

"This decision is limited strictly to the department's inability to meet the high legal standard required to prosecute the case under the federal civil rights statutes; it does not reflect an assessment of any other aspect of the shooting," the Justice Department said in a news release announcing the decision Tuesday.

Zimmerman's attorney, Don West, was on a flight and couldn't immediately comment on the decision.

The February 2012 confrontation began after Zimmerman saw Martin while driving in his neighborhood. Zimmerman called police and got out of his car and approached Martin, who was returning from a store while visiting his father and his father's fiancee at the same townhome complex where Zimmerman lived.

Zimmerman did not testify at his trial, but he told investigators that he feared for his life as Martin straddled him and punched him during the fight.

The decision to not prosecute Zimmerman comes even though Holder has made civil rights a cornerstone of his tenure. The Justice Department is also moving to resolve a separate high-profile civil rights case - the August shooting by a Ferguson police officer of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old. The killing sparked weeks of protests.

Days after Zimmerman was acquitted, Holder said he considered Martin's death an "unnecessary shooting." In a news release Tuesday, Holder echoed remarks he made in the shooting's aftermath.

"Though a comprehensive investigation found that the high standard for a federal hate crime prosecution cannot be met under the circumstances here, this young man's premature death necessitates that we continue the dialogue and be unafraid of confronting the issues and tensions his passing brought to the surface," Holder said. "We, as a nation, must take concrete steps to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future."

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/02/...-grid7|htmlws-sb-bb|dl1|sec1_lnk3&pLid=618366
 

AgnesGooch

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The DOJ just provides a dog and pony show for most of these high profile cases. It is rare they prosecute.
 

Mz. Judgement

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Yup har about this on the news, the next time this happens (knock on wood ) we better not fall into that the Justic Department will investigate and bring charges crap.
 

doodle332

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Sad to say it but it appears to be open season on minorities and we almost have no recourse especially not the feds.

I'm really considering purchasing a body/dash camera for my vehicle in the event I'm ever stopped by the cops. It's that serious for blacks.
 

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