Dontre Hamilton supporters to join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Milwaukee

Calling All Concerned Citizens of Milwaukee:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We just want to thank all of you that rocked with us in 2014, and help bring attention and awareness to Dontre Hamilton’s case and the Milwaukee fight for justice. It was truly amazing to see all of your faces and stand alongside you to fight for freedom in our city. NOW WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO OUR FIGHT FOR JUSTICE! LET’S GO!

We will be gathering at Red Arrow Park (1000 N. Water St.) on Friday, January 2nd at 2:30pm for a National March and Press Conference with the Rainbow Push Coalition to announce in MKE the Federal Investigation into the murder of Dontre Hamilton.

LOGISTICS:

Please join us at 2.30pm at Red Arrow Park (our ground zero, where Dontre Hamilton was shot 14 times by former Milwaukee Police Officer Christopher Manney). From there we will march down to the Federal Building to join with Reverend Jessie Jackson & the Rainbow Push Coalition where together we will host a joint press conference and subsequent march back to Red Arrow Park together.

Once back at Red Arrow we will do a small rally and address the crowd to give logistics for what’s coming next. We will leave Read Arrow Park shortly thereafter together as an escorted processional to Holy Temple First Born Church (4960 N. 18th Street). The processional will line up along Water Street, with the first car beginning at Buffalo Wild Wings (1123 N. Water St.).

We are asking that everyone join our processional to the church for a mass community gathering (beginning at 6pm), where we will be joined by Reverend Jackson and many of the families who have lost loved ones to police violence and brutality. We will host a community meeting where we will discuss next steps and how to elevate our fight, to ensure that we get justice for Dontre Hamilton as well as all of the families of this city who have been wronged by our Police Department.

Please join us for the national march and press conference at Red Arrow at 2.30pm, then the processional and community meeting at Holy Temple First Born at 5.30pm. We hope to see you there.

Note: If you cannot join us for the march and processional please join us directly at the church at 5:30pm. The meeting will begin at 6pm.

After being invited by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., to come to Chicago to meet with him and others affiliated with the Rainbow Push Coalition, members of the Dontre Hamilton family, attorneys, and supporters drove to Chicago this past Saturday and participated in the Coalition’s weekly service and a follow-up press conference. Rev. Jackson also promised to come to Milwaukee to lend his support to the Hamilton family and to stand with the citizens of Milwaukee who are requesting the federal investigation of the Hamilton case in addition to a more substantial federal pattern and practice investigation of the City of Milwaukee Police Department. Rev. Jackson has now confirmed that he will be in Milwaukee on  Friday, January 2, 2015, as part of an event titled Peace and Justice Milwaukee 2015.

As everyone is well aware by now, on Monday, December 22, 2014, after almost eight months of waiting, the Milwaukee County District Attorney issued his decision that no state criminal charges will be filed against former Milwaukee police officer Christopher Manney, who shot and killed Dontre Hamilton on April 30, 2014. After that decision, the Hamilton family attorneys made contact with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and formally requested that United States Attorney James Santelle make contact with the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section, to request the commencement of a federal investigation as to whether federal law criminal civil rights charges are warranted in this case. Mr. Santelle issued a statement that same day indicating that a federal review of this case will be undertaken “to determine if, under federal civil rights law, there is a basis, both legal and factual, upon which a federal civil rights prosecution may be premised."

Numerous organizations have since issued statements in support of the Hamilton Family, and in support of a federal investigation of the Hamilton case. Some of those organizations have also expressed their support of a larger investigation of the City of Milwaukee Police Department. In approximately October, 2012, United States Attorney James Santelle announced, following the investigation of the July, 2011, Derek Williams, Jr., death case in the back of a Milwaukee Police Department squad car, that the United States Department of Justice was already involved in doing preliminary “research” as to whether to conduct a “pattern and practice investigation” of the City of Milwaukee Police Department, as authorized by Section 14141 of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. At that time, the Justice Department set up a toll-free tip phone number and e-mail address to collect information from citizens concerning Milwaukee Police Department practices. It is unknown whether such preliminary research is still being pursued and whether the government is considering such a pattern and practice investigation. It has now been two, and possibly three, years since this preliminary research was to commence. No further information has been provided about the preliminary research or the status of any such investigation.

Before the Missouri Michael Brown case, Milwaukee had the Dontre Hamilton case; before the New York Eric Garner case, Milwaukee had the July, 2011 Derek Williams, Jr. case; after the Los Angeles Rodney King case, Milwaukee had the October, 2004 Frank Jude, Jr. case.

Milwaukee also had the September, 2002 case of Larry Jenkins, shot and killed by a former police officer also involved and convicted in the Frank Jude case; the May, 2006 case of Danyall Simpson who was struck in the face with a police officer’s flashlight during an arrest; the May, 2012 case of the minor, Darius Simmons, and his mother Patricia Larry, and the way she was treated by the Milwaukee Police Department; the June, 2013 case of Alejandro Lafrenier when a Milwaukee Police Officer was captured on videotape slamming a prisoner into a wall at a District Station; and Milwaukee currently has well in excess of fifty cases being pursued in Federal Court involving young African American men who were subjected to illegal and unconstitutional body cavity and strip searches. While looking for suspected drugs, officers improperly touched victims’ genitals and entered their anal cavities, and even some victims were required to defecate into a box at a District Station. These are just some of the more recent and more publicly known cases; however, there are many others, and it is obvious that Milwaukee has had more than its share of cases with claims of excessive force, deaths and civil rights violations at the hands of Milwaukee Police Department officers for many years. The Dontre Hamilton case is only the most recent case exhibiting civil rights violations involving the Milwaukee Police Department.

Rev. Jackson, community leaders, members of the Hamilton family, Hamilton family attorneys, others who have been victim of civil rights violations, and other supporters will be present at a press  conference on Friday, January 2, 2015, at 3:30 pm, on the steps of the United States Courthouse, 517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. The press conference will precede a march to and then a rally at Red Arrow Park. At 6:00 pm, Rev. Jackson will lead a presentation at Holy Temple First Born Missionary Baptist Church, 4960 North 18th Street, Milwaukee, WI.