Leid Stories - Copout!: Why the Brown and Garner Cases Have Gone Nowhere - 10/09/14
Today marks two months since Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson and almost three months since Eric Garner, 43, died after a violent attempted arrest by a group of police officers during which one of them, Daniel Pantaleo, used an illegal chokehold. To date, no arrest has been made in either case and state and federal probes have yielded no indictments.
Lawyers for both men’s families appear to be interested only in the civil side of the case—the huge settlements they expect to get from their wrongful-death claims against both cities. Meanwhile, that aspect of the case, which is about justice, is being left to the whims and machinations of the very systems they should be fighting.
The sexual-assault cloud hanging over one of the Rev. Al Sharpton-appointed lawyers, Sanford Rubenstein, did not prevent him from staking an early claim to a portion of the Garner family’s expected wrongful-death payout; he filed a notice of claim for $75 million in court yesterday in behalf of the family.
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