Justice Department Moves To Reform Notorious New Orleans Police Department

Source: Talking Points Memo

Justice Department Moves To Reform Notorious New Orleans Police Department
Justin Elliott | April 13, 2010, 9:39AM

The federal criminal investigation of the police shootings of civilians on Danziger Bridge in post-Katrina New Orleans is just part of what the Justice Department acknowledges is an intensive review of the city's notorious police department. One option under review, TPMmuckraker has learned, is filing a civil rights lawsuit against the city in a move similar to the one the Justice Department took against the Los Angeles Police Department a decade ago.

"Criminal prosecutions alone, I have learned, are not enough to change the culture of a police department," Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez told TPMmuckraker in an interview Monday.

Perez repeatedly emphasized that the Civil Rights Division plans on being in New Orleans for the long haul. "We have a robust and regular presence, a presence that's getting larger by the week," Perez said, adding that several civil rights staffers are "de facto living in New Orleans right now."

Since late February, three former New Orleans police officers have pleaded guilty to charges connected with the cover-up of the Danziger Bridge shootings, in which police allegedly shot six unarmed civilians, killing two, in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina swept through the city.

Read more: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/thomas_perez_on_the_danziger_bridge_shootings.php