November 24, 2014, New York – Today, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Executive Director Vincent Warren released the following statement in response to the news that the Grand Jury in the Michael Brown case failed to indict Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who killed him.
The Center for Constitutional Rights helped recruit 250 lawyers and legal workers from around the country to help on the ground, as part of our work with the Ferguson Legal Defense Committee. In addition, CCR led the landmark legal battle against racially discriminatory stop-and-frisk policies in the NYPD and is set to finally begin the joint reform process set out by the court.It’s difficult to see how anyone in the community can have faith in the system at this point: the failure to indict sends the clear message that it's open season on people of color. All resistance must be viewed through that lens, and the focus must remain on the injustice of a white police officer getting away – yet again – with killing a young unarmed Black man. We stand with the community in anger and in mourning. We stand with the people in the streets of Ferguson, just as the world stood with protesters in Tahrir Square, in Gaza, in Hong Kong. The world must learn: Black lives matter.
The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.