This is a travesty and a slap in the face to anyone who believes in fairness and justice.

It really couldn't have been much fucking clearer.

This is just happening over and over again with officers not being held accountable for their actions.

and a case brought before the grand jury in bad faith, with no real desire to indict. Prosecutors are political animals and especially in high profile cases, their political future is far more important to them than the quest for justice. Grand jurors usually follow the prosecutor's lead and indict if he seeks an indictment. Every prosecutor who holds elective office, especially in major cities, dreams of eventually being state attorney general, then governor, then senator. The relationship between the D.A. and the police is usually too close, with too much entanglement in political considerations.

SO what good is evidence if it has no effect on the outcome? Set a dangerous standard now imo. Now we are at the mercy of a cops mindset and not the laws of the land.

Agree, so fucked up I don't know what more to say about it.

He was just a kid buying Skittles, man. Just a baby.

For me, anyway. But all of these incidents are outrageous. Now with Garner's lack of justice, even a few repubs are starting to notice that something's wrong.

convenience store to meet the neighbors and help out.

Watching young boys and teens come in to get their candy and Arizona tea scared the heck out of me. I wanted to talk to each and every one of them, and tell them to be careful. I live in a "stand your ground" area that is extremely diverse, but idiotic racists thrive everywhere. I wanted to grab up those kids and drive them home.

if the prosecutors had brought up race, in fact it would probably have been a more quick not guilty for zimmerman.

just like with emmett till there ARE some people who believe that killing a black person should not be punishable , especially if they are white.

these same facts with the races switched would have resulted in guilty verdicts .

I'm gonna post this in a few places. When I wrote about Oscar Grant a few times on DU I was appalled that his killer only got 11 mos in jail. Those were the good old days.

In 1970, there were nationwide marches and protests over the murder of Charles Oatman. Charles Oatman was a black 16 year old mentally retarded boy thrown into jail by the police down in Georgia. He was found dead in his cell. The coroner's autopsy found that he'd died from an accidental fall. The family hired a forensics expert for a private autopsy. That autopsy verified that he'd died from a violent blow delivered to the back of his head with a blunt object. Before being murdered, the boy had been tortured for hours by having lighted cigarettes burned into the skin all over his body; he was covered with cigarette burns, something the family wasn't told by the police. Shortly thereafter, the public rose up in protest. The police shot at the crowd, killing six people. I participated in those nationwide protests from where I was living on the west coast.

(Dred) Scott v Sanford ... the language of that opinion cannot be shouted any loud than the courts are today.

There is absolutely no doubt left that we live in a police state.

Which cities, counties, states, or countries have the lowest rates of killings by police? I'm getting close to retirement, and I'd like to move to a place where I can be safer.