Judicial Watch is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.
Community Relations Service, CRS
On June 10, 2013 Judicial Watch announced that the Department of Justice, DOJ, had turned over documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request showing that the Community Relations Service, CRS, a small division of the DOJ, was sent to Sanford, Florida after the Trayvon Martin shooting to help manage rallies and protests.
In April 2013, Breitbart News' Lee Stranahan first reported the role of the CRS in Sanford, Florida. The new documents show that from March 25 through April 12, 2012, the CRS spent thousands of dollars helping organize and “work” marches and demonstrations regarding Trayvon Martin. Tasks included:
In April, the Community Relations Service, CRS as it was reported "set up a meeting between the local NAACP and elected officials that led to the temporary resignation of police chief Bill Lee according to Turner Clayton, Seminole County chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton commented, “These documents detail the extraordinary intervention by the Justice Department in the pressure campaign leading to the prosecution of George Zimmerman."