Report Criticizes Police Department

The city Police Department often fails to take internal investigations seriously and allows accused officers to go unpunished, according to a report prepared by experts overseeing the agency under a $10.5-million settlement in the Riders scandal.

Police Chief Richard Word said he agreed with most of the report’s findings, adding that a full-time officer has been assigned to track each internal affairs probe as it progresses.

The independent monitor’s office issued the report under its mandate to oversee the reforms outlined in the settlement brokered in the Riders case, which involved allegations that officers had planted drugs on innocent people and beaten drug suspects in 2000.