Thursday on MSNBC in discussing the Congressional Black Caucus calling on Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department to investigate the recent police shooting as possible civil rights violations, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said, “When you see these men, African-American men who are holding their hands high, indicating to the police they are cooperating, they don’t want to cause any trouble, and they get shot down, we want the Justice Department to consider that a civil rights violation.”
Waters said, “We are suggesting to the attorney general that she does have the resources the power and the constitutional authority to be more aggressive. To use the civil rights laws that are available to her to have civil rights prosecutions. And so we are trying to encourage her despite the fact that oftentimes the Department of Justice perhaps do not feel they can make the civil rights prosecution stick. They can make it work. And so we are saying, no, go forward. And for everybody who believes their civil rights have been violated, particularly, when you see these men, African-American men who are holding their hands high, indicating to the police they are cooperating, they don’t want to cause any trouble, and they get shot down, we want the Justice Department to consider that a civil rights violation and to move very aggressively on that.”
She added, “Well, you saw the Congressional Black Caucus get on a bus and do some walking and go to the Justice Department to meet with Loretta Lynch, our attorney general, to ask her to use the law and her office to be more aggressive in the prosecution.”
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