Justice Department Finds Massachusetts Drug Squad Regularly Uses Excessive Force and Covers It Up

“A police narcotics unit in Springfield, Massachusetts, regularly uses excessive force on suspects, including punching them in the face, and frequently fails to document the incidents or falsifies reports, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a report

“The report also found it was “not uncommon for Narcotics Bureau officers to write false or incomplete narratives that justify their uses of force.” 

Justice Department investigators cited one instance where an injury report of an arrestee only noted “small cuts to the face.” However, pictures of the man “clearly show severe contusions and dark bruising on the right side of his face, a large black eye, a gash on the bridge of his nose, and additional abrasions on the left side of his face and the left side of his nose.”

Because of rampant underreporting of use-of-force incidents, the use of vague language to obscure the extent of injuries, and the outright falsification of police reports, the Justice Department concluded that excessive force incidents were likely more widespread than the many violations captured in its report.

And there was little to no discipline for officers involved in those civil rights violations. Because of poor reporting requirements, lax supervisor oversight, and lazy internal affairs reviews, the report found that there was not a single sustained excessive force finding against a member of the narcotics team over the past six years.”…
“The Justice Department’s investigation of the Springfield Police Department is notable because it is, so far, the only probe of an entire police department launched by the Justice Department under Trump.

The Obama administration launched a record number of so-called “pattern or practice” investigations into systemic civil rights violations by police departments, including in BaltimoreChicago, and Ferguson, Missouri

However, the Trump Justice Department, especially under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, backed away from the aggressive use of these investigations. Sessions said he never read the Justice Department’s scathing report on civil rights violations by the Chicago Police Department, but he nevertheless said such investigations unfairly maligned whole police departments and improperly used the power of the federal government to coerce municipal governments into court-enforced settlements, called “consent decrees.”

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling said in a Justice Department press release that the Springfield Police Department and the city “have fully cooperated with this investigation and have made clear their commitment to genuine reform.””

https://reason.com/2020/07/09/justice-department-finds-massachusetts-drug-squad-regularly-uses-excessive-force-and-covers-it-up/

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