U.S. to Review Complaints of Brutality

Triggered by the videotaped police beating of a Los Angeles motorist, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh Thursday ordered an unprecedented nationwide review of police brutality complaints filed with federal authorities over the last six years to determine whether they show a pattern of police misconduct.

Law enforcement officers “must be among the first to assure the observance of the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens,” Thornburgh said after meeting with two senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus who urged him to investigate what they alleged is “systemic police abuse in Los Angeles.”

John R. Dunne, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said that his division will conduct the review “in-house”--studying about 15,000 complaints brought to U.S. attorneys, the FBI and the Justice Department--without trying to examine files of police departments around the country.

Dunne said in an interview that a previous court ruling has established that “we had no authority to conduct a fishing expedition or convene a grand jury” to investigate a general allegation of systemic violations of civil rights.

He said, however, that the FBI is continuing with its investigation of the March 3 beating of Rodney G. King, despite a policy that such federal inquiries normally are suspended once it is clear that local authorities are proceeding vigorously in the case.

“This is not a standard case,” Dunne said, referring to “what I saw in the full (video) tape of the beating.” Another source close to the investigation said that the full-scale FBI involvement was justified by the case’s notoriety and the tape’s value as evidence.

The caucus members are understood to have pushed primarily for a Justice Department investigation of what they see as systemic police brutality in the Los Angeles area. But Thornburgh’s announcement focused on a nationwide review because, as one source explained, he “did not want to target Los Angeles.”

Thornburgh also directed the Justice Department’s research arm to determine if any correlation exists between the incidence of police brutality and the presence or absence of police department training programs and internal procedures to deter such brutality.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, expressed satisfaction with the attorney general’s announcement. Conyers and Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), caucus chairman, met Thursday with Thornburgh, Dunne and other Justice Department officials.

“We are on our way to relieving the crisis of confidence (in the police) that now exists,” Conyers said. “I see this as a way to expunge a national problem from our law enforcement system. It isn’t often we get a case that leaves so little to question, so few defenses to be raised.”

In addition to the Justice Department review, Conyers said that he is asking Congress’ investigating arm, the General Accounting Office, to examine police brutality and the federal response. Conyers is expected to meet with GAO officials today to discuss the scope of the inquiry.

Dunne said that the department, U.S. attorneys and the FBI have been receiving about 2,500 police brutality allegations annually and that only about 2% of them turn out to have sufficient evidence to be presented to a grand jury.

And only about two-thirds of that small percentage result in grand juries returning indictments, Dunne noted. Convictions “even then” are hard to come by, he said, “because men and women sitting in that (jury) box don’t want to believe” that police officers would commit the alleged acts.