The blockbuster scandal emanating out of Eric Holder’s prosecution of New Orleans police officers for events in the wake of Hurricane Katrina raises questions about DOJ’s attitude toward local police officers, and from where DOJ derives those attitudes. In New Orleans, United States District Court Judge Kurt Englehardt issued a blistering 129-page opinion vacating the civil rights convictions of the police officers and granting a new trial. The basis was pervasive and shocking misconduct by a number of DOJ lawyers. (Read coverage here and here and here.)
I was reminded of a passage from my book Injustice about the DOJ’s lecturing of police departments, and who helps them lecture:
A stable of academics serving as paid consultants help to fuel the DOJ’s fixation on systematic racial profiling by the police. One such consultant, Dr. Jack McDevitt of Northeastern University, heads the Institute on Race and Justice (IRJ). Past collaborators with the IRJ include Angela Davis, a former member of both the Communist Party USA and the original Black Panther Party. The IRJ receives at least $440,448 in DOJ funds to teach department lawyers about racial profiling by police departments. The IRJ’s reports on racial profiling by the police have another deep pocket benefactor—George Soros and his Open Society Institute. Soros sponsored the IRJ’s project “Confronting Racial Profiling in the 21st Century: Implications for Racial Justice,” the very same work that IRJ is doing for the DOJ. Thus, police departments are subjected not only to DOJ muscle, but DOJ muscle with the financial backing of George Soros.
For those of you who don’t know, Davis was a central figure in the murder of four people, including a judge. That Davis has anything to do with an organization that has anything to do with the DOJ’s approach toward local police departments is a disgrace. That you, the taxpayer, are paying for it makes it more disgraceful. Sadly with this Attorney General, it is not surprising.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member