Attorney General Eric Holder said the Department of Justice will launch an civil rights investigation into the Eric Garner chokehold death after a Staten Island grand jury cleared NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo. Holder said the probe into Eric Garner’s death will be “independent, thorough, fair and expeditious.”

President Barack Obama hinted earlier Wednesday at the investigation, adding that Attorney General Eric Holder would soon have more to say.

“We’re not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and law enforcement,” Obama said less than three hours after the grand jury’s decision was announced, speaking more broadly about his administration’s efforts to improve relations between law enforcement agencies and the communities they police.

“When anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law, that’s a problem. And it’s my job … to help solve it,” he said, weighing in at the start of a speech before the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the Capital Hilton. Source: Politico

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.