Officials: Feds planning to launch probe of Ferguson police department

Officials: Feds planning to launch probe of Ferguson police department

By Shimon Prokupecz, Pamela Brown and Greg Botelho, CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/03/justice/ferguson-justice-department-investigation/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

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(CNN) -- The U.S. Justice Department is planning to take a top-to-bottom look at the Ferguson, Missouri, police department -- which has come under fire for its past practices in the uproar over the shooting of Michael Brown -- officials told CNN.

A Missouri official and a federal official told CNN on Wednesday that the civil rights division of the Justice Department is preparing to launch a new investigation into police in the St. Louis suburb.

The review will examine previous incidents and complaints involving police, as well as its training, to examine how the department operates, according to the Missouri official. It will look at whether the practices of Ferguson police -- and only Ferguson police -- violate federal law or the U.S. Constitution, said an official briefed on the investigation.

Such probes typically focus on paving the way for systemic reform going forward, rather than punishing misconduct from the past, said CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Nonetheless, they can produce significant changes within a department.




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