Black Newspaper Assoc. Seeks Investigation On Police Fatal Killings

WASHINGTON, D.C.
The nation’s largest trade association of African American owned  newspapers and media companies, the National Newspaper Publishers Association  (NNPA), issued an urgent call and demand on Monday July 11 that President Barack H. Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch appoint a Special Federal Prosecutor in the wake of the police killings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile  in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. 

The NNPA also expressed sincere condolences to the  families of the police officers who were unjustly killed in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President & CEO of the NNPA, stated, ‘’The killings of  African Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota during the past week represent an escalating national pattern of fatal police killings that appear to be racially motivated.

“These incidents are not isolated local tragedies, but are the terrible growing manifestations of a deadly national system of racism in the criminal justice system that needs to be  effectively challenged and changed.  There are today too many African-American families and communities that continue to endure police brutality and fatal violence across the  United States. This is a national crisis that demands immediate federal intervention to both investigate and to prosecute police officers who commit these wanton racially motivated killings.

“We, therefore, demand that a Special Federal Prosecutor be immediately appointed by the United States Department of Justice. To date, unfortunately, local investigations and prosecutions have been ineffective and have not insured equal justice. The Special Federal Prosecutor has to be independent and impartial. We have heard from many of our NNPA member publishers throughout the nation who all expressed profound disgust and moral outrage about these brutalities. We will not be silent in the face of these continued injustices. We demand action by the federal government now.”

The reform of the criminal justice system in America requires more intellectual honesty in the national dialogue about race, inequality and injustice, Chavis noted. He added that the NNPA will engage and participate in this dialogue as the movement for reform and social change unfolds.