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U.S. Extends Probe to
Suits Against Police
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
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• Civil rights: Members of Congress and a spokesman
for the ACLU express fears of a whitewash ..
By WILLIAMJ. EATON
TIMES STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON-The U.S. Justice
Department will bro.aden its
investigation of Los Angeles police
brutality to review scores of private
suits accusing the city's police
of mistreating suspects in their
custody, a top agency official said
Wednesday.
John R. Dunne, assistant attorney
general in charge of the Justice
Department's civil rights division,
disclosed the wider inquiry at
a congressional hearing stemming
from the widely publicized videotaped
beating of motorist Rodney
G. King.
Despite assurances that the
Justice Department inquiry
will consider evidence from about
100 lawsuits filed against Los Angeles
police, members of Congress
and a spokesman for·the American
Civil Liberties Union expressed
fears of a whitewash by the federal
government.
Dunne insisted at the hearing
·that the Justice Department will
follow through on its promise to
review about 15,000 complaints of
police brutality filed across the
nation during the last six years to
· see if there is a pattern of violent
misconduct.
"We are undertaking a unique
investigation," Dunne told the
House Judiciary subcommittee on
civil and constitutional rights,
which is looking into the national
implications of the King case.
Four Los Angeles police officers
have been indicted on state charges
for taking part in the King
· beating.
House Government Operations
Committee Chairman John Con­
·yers Jr. (D-Mich.), who put pres-
: sure on the Justice Department to
launch the inquiry, said it is time
for President Bush to denounce the
Los Angeles officers who took part
in the assault..
"Sad to say, the chi~f executlve
.of this land, who v.:asted ~o ti!!l~ in
branding the evils of a despot in a
faraway land, has yet to utter a
single word condemning the evils
of a police force that to many
Amencans IS engaged m .brutal
tactics disturbingly similar to those
of an occupation force," said Conyers.
Conyers said the General Accounting
Office, a congressional
watchdog agency, will conduct its
own investigation of brutality
complaints, partly because he
views the Justice Department as
a "reluctant partner" in the
campaign against police misconduct
in "Los Angeles and elsewhere.
. Paul L. Hoffman, legal director
of the ACLU Foundation of
· Southern California, testified at the
hearing that police brutality has
become "part of the fabric of our
daily lives, especially the lives of
the African-Americans and Latinos
in Los Angeles."
Many people, Hoffman said, fear
that the federal investigation will
be "a whitewash, given the historical
invisibility and "ineffectiveness
·of the Justice Department's efforts
in this area."
None of his colleagues in the
civil rights field can recall a single
instance of federal prosecution of a
law enforcement officer in Los
Angeles for violating anyone'~ civil
rights, Hoffman said.
"In LOs Angeles, even the payment
of more than $10 million
in police abuse judgments in
1990 alone . . . has had no perceptible
impact on these problems,"
Hoffman said.
Edition:
LOS ANGELES TIMES
THURS. MAR 21, 1991
FRONT SECTION, PAGE 24
. U.S. EXPTENDS PROBE TO
Title. SUITS AGAINST POLICE
Character:
or
Classification:
Submitting Office:
IDS ANGELES
lndexil ~RIAlllED
CIVIL RIGHTS
8 0-3 3 B
MAR 2 6 1991
FJLED·----1
I . F.BI - LOS ANGELES I
n ;...., , .uunne --r·~w v I
sever,.e, limits on the fed~M 1 ..JA!JJ'
, -ernment's ability to deal with vio- .
· lations of civil rights by law enforcement
officers, including
vaguely worded statutes dating
to Civil War days and the reluct
tance of juries to convict in such
, cases.
"We are not the 'front line'
troops in combatting in§tr-U4- f f'f~~ bS::f!lw
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