U.S. Attorney's Office Helping WRONG Side - Lawyer for Black Man Killed by Kings County Police Wants Justice Department Investigation
Monday, January 17, 2005 at 01:08AM
TheSpook
The Justice Department has been asked to review an investigation by the
local U.S. attorney's office into the fatal shooting of a black man by
a white King County sheriff's deputy. In a letter sent Tuesday to
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, Bradley R. Marshall, a lawyer for
the family of Robert Lee Thomas Sr., wrote that the probe was biased in
favor of deputy Melvin Miller, who shot Thomas to death in a
confrontation nearly three years ago. According to Marshall's letter,
someone in the U.S. attorney's office wrote Miller's lawyer on Dec. 14
to "instruct and assist Deputy Miller's attorneys on how to overcome
physical evidence problems they have within their case." The letter
also made "false representations and conclusions" about the case,
Marshall asserted, adding that he received it by accident from Miller's
lawyers in a related civil case. Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the
U.S. attorney's office, said the agency's letter was sent to obtain
permission from Miller and his lawyer to include personal information
in a letter to the local chapter of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. She said the agency's probe was
"careful," "thorough" and "unbiased," adding that she had not seen a
copy of Marshall's complaint. Thomas, 59 was sitting in a pickup
truck with his son and his son's girlfriend in a rural area near
Miller's home when neighbors asked the deputy to investigate on April
7, 2002. He was wearing civilian clothing and did not identify himself
as a sheriff's officer before opening fire when -- by his account --
Thomas drew a gun. Thomas's son, who was wounded in the hand, and the
son's girlfriend denied that Thomas drew a gun. The shooting was one of several episodes in which white
officers shot black men to death in the Seattle area and drew extended
protests and demonstrations, including a march in which Interstate 5
was blocked for a time in the downtown area. [more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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