Department of Justice

by Jeremy Leaming

The tragic slaying of a Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old in Florida, is drawing scrutiny, albeit far too late, of public policy that celebrates a Wild West mentality.

The law, enacted in 2005, dubbed “stand your ground,” provides great legal protection to those who kill others outside their homes, claiming they used deadly violence in self-defense. Under pressure from outraged citizens and public interest groups, such as the NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice said earlier this week it would investigate the killing of the young African American.

Part of the mounting pressure included 911 recordings that revealed that George Zimmerman, a “watchman” for a Sanford, a community near Orlando, was ordered to stay put as police had been dispatched to the area. The 911 recordings also reveal that Zimmerman, a large, 28 year-old, refused to heed the 911 operator’s plea, responding, “They always get away,” before leaving his car to pursue the youngster.

In a piece for The Nation, Bryce Covert says the so-called stand your ground laws, which have been adopted by 20 other states, are not only rooted in romanticism of a “cowboy-esque” mentality, but also in a “deep distrust in the police force.”

“Beyond emboldening individual actors,” Covert continues, “this distrust has real consequences on police forces’ ability to ensure protection and justice. It weakens and distorts the force itself.”

As noted recently by The New York Times, the Florida law was pushed by the National Rifle Association. Likely not terribly surprising was the involvement of the conservative lobbying group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Writing for Media Matters for America, Matt Gertz notes that Florida’s law is “virtually identical to Section 1 of ALEC’s Castle Doctrine Act model legislation as posted on the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). According to CMD, the model bill was adopted by ALEC’s Civil Justice Task in August 2005 – just a few short months after it passed the Florida legislature – and approved by its board of directors the following month.” 

by Jeremy Leaming

East Haven, Conn., Mayor Joseph Maturo, perhaps not surprisingly, is displaying staunch support for the city’s police department after the U.S. Department of Justice lodged criminal charges against several of its officers for misconduct aimed at the city’s Latino community.

As The New York Times reported this morning, federal authorities, after lengthy investigations, have accused a group of East Haven police officers of targeting the Latino community. “They stopped and detained people, particularly immigrants, without reason, federal prosecutors said, sometimes slapping, hitting or kicking them when they were handcuffed, and once smashing a man’s head into a wall,” the newspaper reports. “They followed and arrested residents, including a local priest who tried to document their behavior.” The FBI arrested four East Haven officers yesterday, The Times reports, “on charges of conspiracy, false arrests, excessive force and obstruction of justice over what the indictment described as years of mistreatment of individuals, especially Hispanics, and efforts to cover it up.”

Maturo (pictured) told The Times that it was “a sickening feeling to have your officers arrested, but nevertheless they’re innocent until proven guilty.” He added that he has “confidence” in the entire Department.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division following an investigation of the East Haven Police Department (EHPD) issued a report concluding that it engaged in discrimination against the Latino community, and failed to take action to stop the misconduct.

The EHPD “engages in a pattern of systematically discriminating against Latinos by targeting Latinos for discriminatory traffic enforcement, treating Latino drivers more harshly than non-Latino drivers after a traffic stop and intentionally failing to design and implement internal systems of control that would identify, track and prevent such misconduct,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez said in press statement. “We found that the pattern of practice and unlawful conduct was deeply rooted in the Department’s culture.”