The Return of the Black Panther

The Washington Times has a great editorial today on the Justice Department’s strange decision not to move forward with the prosecution of members of the New Black Panther Party who intimidated voters outside a polling station.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission expressed “great confusion” over DOJ’s decision, according to the editorial. It continued: 

After all, “defendants were caught on video blocking access to the polls, and physically threatening and verbally harassing voters during the November 4, 2008 general election.” The video showed “one of them actually brandished a nightstick in plain view of voters and poll observers … defendants ‘made statements containing racial threats and racial insults.’ ”

The commission’s letter quoted “Veteran of the civil rights movement, Bartle Bull” calling the defendants’ actions “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s.” […]