Why the FBI’s ICE Shooting Probe Is Hopelessly Compromised |
A decade and change ago, the Justice Department delivered news that most Democrats and liberals desperately wanted not to hear: Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department was legally justified when he shot and killed Michael Brown, a Black teenager.
The DOJ’s final report, based on an exhaustive FBI investigation, concluded that Wilson had acted reasonably and that his “actions do not constitute prosecutable violations” of federal law. The Justice Department found that Brown had reached into a police SUV and punched and grabbed Wilson. When Wilson drew his gun, Brown “grabbed the weapon and struggled with Wilson to gain control of it.” The viral narrative that Brown had been shot in the back or while his hands were raised in surrender was “inaccurate” and “inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence.” The evidence of Wilson’s non-guilt was clear enough, according to the Justice Department, that it would not even present the matter to a grand jury for consideration.
The report’s findings came as a stark rebuke to prominent liberals. Journalists, celebrities, activists, and Democratic politicians had posed dramatically with both hands in the air in support of the false narrative around Brown. Jonathan Capehart, a left-leaning columnist for the Washington Post, acknowledged candidly that the DOJ report established that “‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ was based on a lie.”
Here’s the enduring lesson: Those findings, delivered in March 2015, came from the administration of President Barack Obama and a Justice Department headed by Attorney General Eric Holder. They had to know that the investigation’s conclusions would embarrass and discredit countless Democrats and liberals........