Video: Police under pressure in Trayvon Martin case

>> hour away from sanford's city manager holding a news conference. he is expected to give an update on the investigation and to the teenager's death. meanwhile, many including the naacp are calling for a federal takeover of the sanford police department . joining me live, his attorney, john burriss. john specializes in police discrimination and abuse cases and helped win federal court monitoring of the oakland california police department . and that legendary case of the riders in that police department . let me get your reaction to at least how things are playing out. you have the city manager coming on the andrea mitchell show a little more than an hour ago saying he had a lot to look at. he has the power to fire or ask the police chief to resign. we don't know what he is going to say but what is your gut telling you here?

>> my gut tells me that an investigation took place at the outset. he is responsible for that. and therefore gave sort of cover to mr. zimmerman. and as a consequence, i don't know that you can trust the police department . having been involved in these cases, it is important that someone else take a look at this. whether an outside agency or a state agency or the feds. from my way of thinking this looks like a case that should have federal prosecution associated with it and that means that there is a race component to the actual shooting that i the racial slurs that was used in the other statement that's were made and the racial profiling , walking while black, et cetera . in that case, it is a case the feds can easily take over. the police department , the feds would need to know that there is other conduct that is taking place. a pattern and practice that exists in material of discriminatory law enforcement . with that agency. if they do that, then they in fact could, having been involved in a case like that, i understand you can take it over. you must have a pattern and practice. this may or may not be an isolated incident but it can be for the feds to prosecute this individual.

>> in this situation, the " miami herald " is reporting the police chief was brought in ten months ago because of discrimination or alleged discrimination and racial problems within that department. so we saw that town hall meeting where so many people turned up, citing instances where they believe there were cases of discrimination and issues with that police department . would that be enough to forward a larger intervention here?

>> certainly, the feds could. or a private law firm can such as what we did. if there is a pattern and practice, on this particular case, what you have is not directly the police involve in the actual shooting, the killing of this person. what you have is their failure to conduct a proper investigation. the argument is that because the individual is black, and that there's a history in the department of not investigating and not taking care of it and a discriminatory form of law enforcement . you could in fact do that. it would be a challenge for the department. if there is sufficient facts on other cases where you can demonstrate that the department has not investigated cases involving black victims on the same levels, then the feds would have something to talk about.

>> all right. thank you very much. we'll be with you more. we'll see what the city manager says. and what happens next. thank you, john.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/46825209/

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