A Justice Department official tells NBC News the one such probe opened under Trump remains ongoing for a third year without results to show.
WASHINGTON — During the Trump administration the Justice Department has all but abandoned broad civil rights investigations into police forces, a tool used 25 times under the Obama administration to bring cultural change to local departments.
A Justice Department official tells NBC News the one such probe opened under Trump remains ongoing for a third year without results to show. It was meant to examine, and possibly change, practices at the Springfield, Mass., department, where officers allegedly used excessive force and racist language and kept beer in a vending machine at headquarters. The status of the investigation was not previously known.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s special litigation section opened the “pattern or practice” investigation in April 2018, according to Springfield officials. Continue reading.