In moments of social unrest featuring violence and crime, one would expect the only proper role of the taxpayer-funded federal government is to quash the disturbance.
However, a unit of progressive attorneys within the Department of Justice has been at the center of every significant riot during the Obama administration, and this unit — the Community Relations Service, or CRS — was not at those scenes to protect the safety of all citizens.
In fact, the CRS was caught encouraging the chaos.
Not only did CRS side only with the protesters and not with law enforcement, they actively facilitated the protests, even as they were turning violent.
Additionally, this same unit has a serious fraud and corruption problem.
CRS came under fire this year for internally generated charges of incompetence, out-of-control management, and abuse of taxpayer funds.
The Washington Examiner reports:
A Justice Department spokesman told the Washington Examiner that staffers from its Community Relations Service will be deploying to Charlotte …
The department’s Community Relations Service provides conflict resolution specialists across the nation “to promote peaceful resolution of conflicts and tensions,” according to the DOJ’s website.
“The Community Relations Service is the department’s ‘peacemaker’ for community conflicts arising from differences of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and disability,” the website says.
Despite the reasoning behind CRS’s existence, their actions under the Obama administration and the Eric Holder/Loretta Lynch DOJ couldn’t have strayed further from the mission.
Rather than “promote peaceful resolution,” the CRS instead — and always — promotes resolution only in favor of the side fomenting violence.
The Justice Department Community Relations Service (CRS) was founded in 1964, originally intended to be an intermediary between contested sides in racially charged disputes. In recent years, however, CRS has been criticized for taking sides in places such as Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, and Sanford, Florida. For example:
— A report claimed that CRS helped facilitate bus transportation for protesters to attend a rally to protest the Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford.
— In Ferguson, CRS was criticized for appearing to take sides rather than serving as an impartial intermediary. Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Ferguson after the riots and made statements that reinforced this perceived bias.
The Orlando Sentinel revealed further details of CRS’s actions in Florida:
When civil-rights organizers wanted to demonstrate, these federal workers taught them how to peacefully manage crowds.
They even arranged a police escort for college students to ensure safe passage for their 40-mile march from Daytona Beach to Sanford to demand justice …
“They were there for us,” said the Rev. Valarie Houston, pastor of Allen Chapel AME Church, a focal point for the community after the unarmed teen’s death. She met the peacekeepers there for the first time during a March 20 town-hall meeting. “We felt protected,” she said.
Houston said the conciliators told her they act as the “eyes and ears of the community” and provided guidance about keeping their message about nonviolence clear.
…
Thomas Battles, the Southern regional director for Community Relations Service, arranged a Thursday meeting between Special Prosecutor Angela Corey and a group of Sanford ministers, where Corey answered questions and shared her testimony of faith.
The visit came one day after Corey announced her office charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder.
Why was Thomas Battles not organizing a meeting with those opposed to the filing of charges? Or with the majority of Sanford residents, who had preferred an end to the protests? Or with law enforcement?
Perhaps because Battles was … at the dentist:
Employees have complained about the personal travel of Thomas Battles. The director of southeastern states for the DOJ, Battles makes in excess of $133,000 in salary and benefits in the Atlanta office of CRS. But DOJ employees have complained that Battles is using federal dollars for personal travel from his office in Atlanta to Miami, his hometown. The DOJ employees have complained that Battles makes taxpayer-funded travel to Miami approximately 24 times a year to visit his family — and also to attend to personal affairs such as visiting his favorite dentist for teeth cleanings. Regional CRS employees in the Miami office purportedly are not even aware of Battles being in Florida when these taxpayer-funded visits occur.
Or, perhaps Battles was signing a lease for unnecessary prime office space:
PJ Media has obtained video taken inside Justice Department offices which show empty, unused office space within leased commercial space. The offices are intended for at least twenty federal employees according to DOJ sources — but only TWO are using them.
The Justice Department Community Relations Service offices in Dallas are on the 20th floor of the Harwood Center, a luxury downtown high rise. Justice Department sources provided PJ Media with a video taken inside the Dallas DOJ offices which documents the brazen waste of taxpayer dollars.
The video shows empty offices, boxes stacked on unused desks, jumbo window offices with couches, large conference rooms with television sets running, enormous offices which appear to be unused, stacks of printer boxes, bookshelves filled with VHS tapes, and a kitchen area with seating for four.
The video shows 58 chairs for use by just two employees working in the office.
In reality, these “civil-rights organizers” and college students aided by CRS included many intent on violence.
The taxpayer-abusing, outrageously mismanaged CRS created a further, dangerous burden on law enforcement and the local community that could have been minimized had CRS carried out its actual mission rather than encourage one side.
They were the “eyes and ears of the community” — but only of the very small segment of the community that wished to cause a disturbance. The vast majority of Sanford residents — who preferred to stay inside and to return to their peaceful lives immediately — were not aided by CRS.
But they did foot their bill.
And now, they’re paying for CRS to possibly encourage even more chaos in Charlotte.
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