Where
Police Misconduct is Still A Problem
Rodney King, who was found dead this weekend in a swimming pool at his
house, once said that he believed his beating by Los Angeles police officers back
in 1991 had “made the world a better place,” by bringing attention to the
problem of police abuse.
Following the King incident and other scandals, LAPD entered a consent
decree with the Justice Department that imposed major reforms, including more
aggressive internal audits and officer training. But in the 20 years since
King’s beating, allegations of police misconduct have remained a serious
problem in several cities nationwide.
What impact, if any, did the King case have on the problem? “Not
enough,” said Ezekiel Edwards, director of the criminal law reform project at
the American Civil Liberties Union.
Edwards said that better training has made the police more professional
and that there are more opportunities for accountability with the proliferation
of cellphone cameras. But, he said, “This is still a significant problem around
the country.
“People that have to deal with excessive force are often the most
disenfranchised, living in communities that don’t have a lot of political
power,” he said. “A lot of things happen in those communities that people
aren’t seeing.”
The most recent data from the National Police Misconduct Reporting
Project, which offers one of the only comprehensive accountings of misconduct
allegations against the 18,000-some law enforcement agencies nationwide, showed
a slight uptick in the number incidents of reported misconduct and a 6 percent
increase in the number of reported incidents involving excessive force from
2009 to 2010 (the most recent years for which data is available).
Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department has taken on more
active role in pursuing abuse allegations, which has brought some changes on
state or city levels.
Last year, we noted that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division
had 17 ongoing investigations into law enforcement agencies to pursue
allegations of excessive force or discrimination — more than at any time in the
division’s history. Those investigations are still open.
The DOJ also has entered into a consent decree to require major reforms,
or a memorandum of understanding to address specific concerns, with seven
departments: Los Angeles, Detroit, the Virgin Islands, Beacon, NY; Warren,
Ohio; Easton, Penn.; and the Orange Country Sheriff’s office in California.
In Seattle, a federal investigation found last December that the Seattle
Police Department engaged in “a pattern or practice of unnecessary and
excessive use of force,” and that about 20 percent of the cases suspects’ civil
rights were violated.
In Chicago, police paid $45.5 million in damages in cases of police
misconduct between January 2009 and November 2011, according to a recent
investigation by the Chicago Reporter, with 75 percent of those cases involving
excessive force. Meanwhile, an independent commission set up to investigate
allegations of two decades of torture by police has lost its funding after
following up on only five cases. The court filings detail repeated, brutal
abuse of suspects by police.
The Newark, N.J. police department is currently under investigation by
the DOJ for an alleged pattern of excessive force and discrimination after the
ACLU documented 407 allegations of police shootings, sexual assault, false
arrests and other abuses.
And then there’s the investigation into police misconduct in New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina, which we’ve been following since 2009 in our Law and
Disorder project. The DOJ has accused the department of a “systemic violations
of civil rights,” and is working to establish a consent decree with the
department. One of the incidents that drew the attention of the Justice
Department: the conviction of five officers in the shooting deaths and cover-up
of two civilians on the Danziger Bridge.
In September, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who heads the
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said the bridge shooting was the “most
high-profile incident” since the beating of Rodney King.