This is interesting

The department also noted in its letter, made public Thursday by Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler, that the NBPP member who wielded the nightstick, King Samir Shabazz, was named in a separate judgment prohibiting him from "displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location of any election day in the city of Philadelphia."

The letter also said a judgment against a second Panther, Jerry Jackson, was not sought because police called to the polling place ordered Samir Shabazz to leave but allowed Mr. Jackson, a certified Democratic poll watcher, to stay.

According to its letter, the department also did not seek a default judgment against Malik Zulu Shabazz, the NBPP leader accused of having managed and directed the polling place incident, because the evidence did not support the accusations. It said the party posted statements on its Web site specifically disavowing the activities at the polling place and suspended the Philadelphia charter because of its activities.

Mr. Reynolds, a former deputy associate attorney general and assistant secretary of education for the Office for Civil Rights under President George W. Bush, also charged that other groups might not have been treated so leniently.

"If you swap out the New Black Panther Party in this case for neo-Nazi groups or the Ku Klux Klan, you likely would have had a different outcome," he said.