Department of Justice ‘should have taken over’ Darren Wilson investigation

The non-indictment of the officer who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson and the anger among the black community is because the grand jury process is fundamentally flawed, according to Damon Jones, a representative for Blacks in Law Enforcement of America.

RT:Is this a black/white issue?

Damon Jones: It is a black and white issue, but it’s also mainly an issue of justice and transparency, when you look at how in America the Grand Jury process goes with investigating police officers.

RT:What do you make of the investigation and how the case was handled?

DJ: That’s the problem with the Grand Jury, there’s no cross examination. He’s just giving his testimony and unfortunately Mike Brown is not here to give his side of the story of what his actions were. And listening to the DA talk about that witnesses were inconsistent with the story or they had different witnesses telling different stories; that is what you’re going to have when many people see an incident at different time frames. So, it’s unfortunate. I really think that the Department of Justice dropped the ball on this one. They should have taken over the investigation. They should have taken over the entire process, and may be people would have had more faith in the results, because the DA’s office is too close to the Police Departments. There is a bias, there is a conflict of interest. The local DA should never be investigating a police officer in police crimes.

RT:Your organization is called "Blacks in Law Enforcement of America" - why was it created? What was the purpose?

DJ: Because the history of law enforcement in the United States, it has always been a white male dominated profession. And unfortunately law enforcement police departments were created in the United States around law enforcement of the slave codes and the black codes back in the days of slavery. So the black community and law enforcement always had an adverse effect. We’re blacks in law enforcement of America because we believe that black people do want proper policing in their communities and throughout the years we have had to fight to get on the job, to get promoted and get proper policing in our communities.