President Barack Obama on Ferguson and Race Relations
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said officer Darren Wilson should be commended for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, last August in Ferguson, Missouri.
A man committed a robbery, attempted to assault a police officer, and the police officer, to save his life, shot him, Giuliani told Fox News on Thursday. The police officer did his duty. The police officer should be commended for what he did. He did exactly what you should do.
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Wilson was cleared of any charges by a local grand jury last fall. The Justice Department last week released a report on his shooting of Brown and said that it did not have sufficient evidence to try Wilson for civil rights violations. Wilson resigned from the force in November.
Giuliani spoke at length during the interview about his belief that Ferguson had been overtaken by an atmosphere of unbalance since Browns shooting. He said that this atmosphere has been perpetuated by comments from members of the Obama administration, as well as the Justice Departments scathing report on the Ferguson Police Department, released last week.
This atmosphere, Giuliani continued, led to the shooting early Thursday of two Ferguson police officers, both of whom are now recovering.
The New York Republican claimed that the report is an allegation and that there is no proof yet that its findings are true.
The Justice Department, in a statement upon the reports release, said it reviewed 35,000 pages of police records and conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with officers and people in the community for the investigation.
The report found that though African-Americans make up 67 percent of Fergusons population, they are the subject of 85 percent of vehicle stops and 93 percent of arrests. In addition, the investigation stated that police are far more likely to use force on African-Americans than on whites.
In the wake of Thursdays shootings, Giuliani defended the Ferguson police, claiming that they were out in harms way Wednesday night to protect local businesses because the people were rioting.
Had there been no rioting last night, said Giuliani, this wouldnt have happened.
Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/rudy-giuliani-ferguson-shooting-response-darren-wilson-116016.html
