Justice Department on Dontre Hamilton
If Shooting a Black Man 14 Times for Sleeping in a Park Doesn't Violate Civil Rights, What Does!?
November 12, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On April 30, 2014, Milwaukee, Wisconsin cop Christopher Manney shot 31-year-old Dontre Hamilton 14 times at a Milwaukee park. Dontre Hamilton suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The murder happened after two other cops had already checked on Hamilton and concluded he was not doing anything wrong. On November 10, the U.S. Department of IN-Justice ruled that this murder—police killing him for just being a Black man—didn’t violate Dontre Hamilton’s civil rights!
After the murder by police, the Milwaukee County prosecutor stalled for eight months and then refused to charge the killer cop with anything—claiming the murder of this mentally ill man who needed help, and wasn’t doing anything wrong, was “justified” and in “self-defense.” The pig that murdered Dontre Hamilton was originally fired, but as of now, he has been allowed to retire on disability because he claimed he has “debilitating mental health issues” resulting from the stress of murdering a mentally ill man!
As happens when there is a police murder that is so over-the-top, so outrageous, that just having local authorities sweep it under the rug doesn’t get over, the Feds announced they would “investigate.” But after an investigation that lasted more than ten months, the Department of IN-Justice announced there would be no federal civil rights charges, or any other charges, against the cop responsible for Dontre Hamilton’s death.
Dontre Hamilton’s family has been fighting for justice ever since his murder, and not just for Dontre. His mother Maria joined protests in Ferguson after the murder of Mike Brown, and the family participated in Rise Up October in New York City. In a righteously furious response to the DOJ ruling, Dontre’s brother, Nate Hamilton, declared, “I will show a constant display of disgust with every form of law enforcement that doesn’t get it right.” And, “I say destroy the whole constitution, because it never worked to begin with for Black people.”
Now tell us this, Department of “Justice”: If murdering a Black man - who wasn’t bothering anyone, in a park - isn’t a violation of the civil right not to be killed simply for being a Black man in ameriKKKa, then what is?! And what good are any of your system’s claims to be anything other than a system of New Jim Crow, genocide, and violent state-sponsored terror against Black, Brown, and Native American people—along with all the other crimes you commit here and around the world?
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