You are on page 1of 6

The U.S. Department of Justice is working to remake policing across America.

Even the New York Times has taken note of the expansion in federal power since
Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Passed in
the wake of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, the law was to address excessive force
and racial profiling but, according to the Times,
federal invention has become far more common and much broader in scope
under the Obama administration, a development proudly highlighted on the
Justice Departments Web siteDuring Mr. Obama's first term, the department
initiated 15 investigations into troubled law enforcement agencies, almost twice
the number carried out in the last four years of the Bush administration. While
early investigations focused narrowly on the use of excessive force and racial
profiling, recent inquiries have taken on a host of other issues, including the
treatment of the mentally ill, the handling of sexual assault cases and unconscious
bias of officers.
. . .

[The] standards for compliance set by the Justice Department are sometimes
unreasonably high, 95 percent in some instances.. the process was often
adversarial rather than collaborative, and there was a lack of measures to tell
whether to tell whether the federal intervention was effective. (Erica Goode,
Some Chiefs Chafing As Justice Dept. Keep on Policing, New York Times, July
28, 2013)




The Justice Department has even extended the law into sexual assault cases. According to
the Times:

[In 2012], the [Justice] department extended its purview further, announcing its
intention to investigate a district attorney's office over the handling of sexual
assault cases. The Missoula County attorney, Fred Van Valkenburg, has so far
declined to cooperate, arguing that under federal law, the Justice Department has
no standing to investigate his office.

. . .

In Montana, federal investigators found that the Missoula Police Department
''discriminates against women in its response to sexual assault,'' according to the
letter of findings issued by the Justice Department. But Mark Muir, Missoula's
police chief, contended that the government had offered no objective evidence
that his department had met the criteria for discrimination set by the courts, or
even that Missoula's record in handling sexual assault cases was worse than that
of other comparable cities. ''I've got to tell you, Missoula, Montana, is not one of
the worst of the worst in any respect,'' Chief Muir said. But, he said, once a police
department has been singled out by the Justice Department, ''they pay a huge price
in terms of their reputation and their effectiveness in the community.'' (Erica
Goode, Some Chiefs Chafing As Justice Dept. Keep on Policing, New York
Times, July 28, 2013)



Consent decrees create expensive patronage jobs that lead to corruption and continue
indefinitely. According to the Times:

Bratton and other police chiefs also expressed concern about the monitors who
oversee the enforcement of settlements, noting that monitoring has in itself
become a kind of cottage industry. Monitors, either individuals or firms, who
submit proposals and are chosen by a federal judge, are paid as long as a
consent decree continues, amounting to sums that can run into the millions of
dollars. As a result, critics say, they have little incentive to bring the process to a
speedy close.

Sheryl Robinson Wood, a lawyer appointed in 2003 to oversee Detroit's
compliance with its consent decree, resigned in 2009 after it was disclosed that
she was having an affair with the mayor at the time, Kwame M. Kilpatrick. The
city sued to recover the $10 million it had paid Ms. Robinson Wood and her
employers, Kroll International and two law firms. At the time of her resignation,
the Police Department was only in 36 percent compliance with the decree.
[Emphasis added] (Erica Goode, Some Chiefs Chafing As Justice Dept. Keep on
Policing, New York Times, July 28, 2013)



In New Orleans, the Justice Department has imposed restrictions on off-duty work as part
of a consent decree, a maneuver that may violate the Constitutions right to contract. The
Times-Picayune blames the very restrictive consent decree for the departure of over four
hundred police officer in the past four years. (Naomi Martin, Cops keep peace in parade
frenzy, Times-Picayune, March 2, 2014)

The Justice Department essentially ignored contracts that existed with officers and local
businesses for off-duty work and are currently challenged in federal court. (Times-
Picayune, February 6, 2014)

The Justice Department also partnered with the left-wing advocacy group, the Southern
Poverty Law Center, to sue New Orleans over conditions at the Orleans Parish Prison.
The federal consent decree was too much even for liberal mayor, Mitch Landrieu, who
said it would cost the city between $10 million and $20 million a year. (Times-Picayune,
July 31, 2013).

Liberal mayor calls Justice Department rogue agency

On January 11, 2013, Mayor Landrieu reversed himself on needing Justice Department
help. Despite having brought the Justice Department into New Orleans, Landrieu realized
that the agency was out of control. Landrieu said that the costs of the agreement, when
added to the potential costs of a separate decree to overhaul the city's jail, would cause
''catastrophic damage'' to the city's budget. He added that the police decree went too far,
and called the Justice Department ''a kind of rogue agency.'' (Campbell Roberts, A New
Orleans-Washington Handshake Turns to Fists, New York Times, February 14, 2013.)




In Puerto Rico, the Justice Department created a sweeping, intrusive series of mandates
for Puerto Ricos police department to follow. Incredibly, the Justice Department has
forced police officers to record the subjects ethnicity and design a specific policy for
how the police should interact with gay and transgender people. The police will also be
forced to investigate sexual assault and domestic violencea move that is way outside
the scope of the 1994 law.

According to the Times:

The agreement also called for new controls on stops, searches, and arrests,
including a requirement that the department record the reason for the stop and the
subject's ethnicity.
Because of a stream of complaints involving prisoner abuse, supervisors at
precincts and stations will have to ''visually inspect each detainee or arrestee for
injury'' and interview them about any complaints of pain. A specific policy will be
instituted for how the police should interact with gay and transgender people.

The report also tackles the longstanding problem of domestic violence and sexual
assault on the island. The police will have to conduct more thorough
investigations of these crimes, set up a 24-hour hot line and track the disposition
of sexual assault cases. (Charlie Savage & Lizette Alvarez, Justice Dept. and
Puerto Rico Agree to Overhaul the Islands Troubled Police Force, New York
Times, December 22, 2012.)





The Justice Department has been investigating Aurora, Colorado for three years for low
minority officers and is contemplating forcing the small city to diversify or else. The
Justice Department threatened to force Aurora, like Denver before it in 1975, to submit to
a consent decree to help hiring decisions.

Aurora has bent over backwards to comply but still cant the necessary numbers.

"None of us are satisfied in the city," Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates said.
"We're all trying very, very hard to increase the diversity."
In July 2009, federal authorities announced they were working to determine
whether Aurora engaged in discriminatory hiring because its percentages of black
and Latino police and firefighters were much lower than in like-sized cities.
Among their efforts to find applicants for the latest class, Aurora recruiters
traveled to job fairs in cities across the country, set up booths at local events such
as Cinco de Mayo and PrideFest, and offered classes on police work to help
prepare potential candidates.
The city also implemented changes to the civil-service process, including
awarding more points on the civil-service exam to those who are fluent in more
than one language.
The test itself is now entirely video-based, to ease concerns that the written
portion and oral interviews weren't objective. (Sadie Gurman, Dearth of
diversity, Denver Post, December 4, 2012)






In Newark, the Justice Department will place the Newark Police Department under a
monitor later this year. This marks the first time in state history that a municipal police
agency will operate under a federal watchdog. (James Queally, Newark police to get
federal monitor, The Star-Ledger, February 9, 2014).



In Seattle, The Seattle Police Department has been operating under a federal-court-
supervised consent decree since July 2012 after a 2011 United
States Department of Justice investigation that found a pattern of excessive force and
inadequate supervision of patrol officers. The federal investigation was begun at the
request of Seattle community groups after the fatal shooting by the police in August 2010
of a man who was a member of a First Nations tribe of Canada and other reported uses of
force. The new police chief will be picked from a committee chaired by Pramila Jayapal,
a pro-illegal immigrant, left-wing radical and supervised by the ACLU. Jayapal is also
the community organizer who fought to get the Department of Justice involved. (Kirk
Johnson, New Mayor in Seattle to Overhaul Police Department, New York Times,
January 9, 2014).



In Los Angeles, the Justice Department has threatened Los Angeles County sheriffs jail
deputies with a consent decree. Incredibly, DOJ cited the slight increase in suicidesfive
in one yearas prima facie evidence of mistreatment. (Robert Faturechi and Jack
Leonard, County jails face new U.S. probe, Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2013).



In Miami, Chief of Police Manuel Orosa asked the Department of Justice to reconsider its
decision to have a federal judge oversee the department and invited the DOJ to
collaborate with the Miami PD.

The Miami Herald explained that Orosa wanted to work with the DOJ, only to be ignored
by them.
A court-appointed monitor, including a compliance unit within the police
department to track the reforms, could cost the city from $1 million to $6 million
a year, Orosa estimated, contending that a monitor should be required only when
a department is unable or unwilling to undertake its own policy changes.
Were a poor city, and we dont have that money, he said. We have
demonstrated that we can fix ourselves.
He pointed to changes instituted since he took over the department in September
2011, including scaling back plainclothes tactical teams whose members took part
in many of the shootings.
While Orosa agreed with the Justice Departments concern that Miamis policies
and practices remain consistent in the long run, he wrote to the feds that he hoped
to collaborate with them on remedies without a court-enforced mandate, known as
a consent decree.
As an alternative, Orosa in the Herald interview cited a study published last
month by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington D.C. think tank,
that examined civil-rights investigations of local police departments.
The study suggested that, as a less adversarial and cheaper way to address
shortcomings, the Justice Departments office of community oriented policing
services (COPS) could work with local police to develop reforms, as it did with
the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department last year.
Its unclear whether Justice would agree to that sort of request from Miami,
considering its civil rights division thought it necessary to spend a year and a half
investigating. Unlike the COPS office, the civil rights division has the power to
sue police departments if its recommendations are not implemented. (Patricia
Mazzei, Miami police chief to feds: We dont need a court monitor in wake of
deadly shootings, Miami Herald, August 20, 2013)
The Justice Department ignored Orosas letter.
Thanks to the consent decree, Miami suffered a significant decline in police, according to
local media reports.
One hiccup in the hiring process was navigating whats called a consent decree.
As part of a civil rights investigation of Miami Police Department, the decree
stipulates that a federal judge monitor the actions of the department.
Initially it was thought that the decree applied to the hiring of new cops. However,
the decree was being applied beyond the parameters of its intended purpose. This
confusion stalled any hiring for more than two years.
"We had gotten so out of practice hiring, and so many criteria had been set that
had nothing to do with hiring, that we almost had to relearn the whole process"
said Miami City Commission Chair Marc Sarnoff. http://wlrn.org/post/why-city-
miami-finds-it-hard-hire-new-cops

You might also like