Recent killings by police increase calls for independent probes

I think people are starting to notice (a) that police often kill unarmed citizens, and (b) when police investigate such shootings, the finding is always that the shooting was justified. (This is right in line with other examples of organizations investigating themselves: somehow the organization is seldom found to be in the wrong.)

Tony Pugh writes for McClatchy:

When New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently sought authority to investigate and prosecute cases that involve police killings of unarmed civilians, it was a watershed moment for Vincent Warren.

The executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit legal group that grew out of the civil rights movement, Warren has long called for independent investigations when there are questions about the use of lethal force by police.

Local prosecutors are ill-suited for the investigations, Warren said, because their cozy working relationships with local police pose a dangerous conflict of…