The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the July death of an African American teenager who was killed in a brawl at a party attended by current and former students from an Anne Arundel County high school, officials said yesterday. The county chapter of the NAACP and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) called in August for federal authorities to investigate the death of 17-year-old Jamahl Jones, citing what the NAACP called "racial overtones" to the brawl. For many, the racial passions inflamed by Jones's death were further aggravated by the unusual course of the investigation: Four white men, ages 18 to 20, were initially charged with murder but were soon released. [more
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