News-Record.com

If there's anything that can add more turmoil to Greensboro city government, I suppose it's having the federal Justice Department mucking around.

I wonder, first, whether the Obama Justice Department intends to "investigate" minority hiring in every city in the country. Is there all of a sudden a nationwide quota system?

In terms of the particular complaints from black officers in the Greensboro Police Department, I don't get the Justice Department's position.

From Amanda's story:

“ 'We will continue our efforts to gather relevant information from other sources, and may be forced to construe the City’s refusal to permit relevant interviews of witnesses as an indication that the information those witnesses would have provided would be favorable to the charging parties (the police officers),' reads a letter from John Gadzichowski and Toni Michelle Jackson of the Justice Department employment litigation section."

I don't know if the position taken by city attorneys is correct or not, but it sounds fishy for the Justice Department officials to threaten to "construe" matters in a certain way based on factors that have nothing to do with the facts of the case. That would entitle them to draw any conclusion they like, even if they lack evidence to support it.

By the way, if they're interviewing RMA investigators, shouldn't they also talk to the State Bureau of Investigation agents who spent nearly a year probing the GPD? Maybe they're not interested, since that investigation apparently came up with very little wrongdoing, or at least nothing that could hold up in court.

Since these discrimination lawsuits filed by black officers would end up in court, if taken to their conclusion, I'd think the Justice Department would wait to see how the facts fall there before meddling.

It's all confusing. Most puzzling of all is why the Justice Department doesn't have more important things to do.