Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
$1.50
PRICEMAYVARYOUTSIDEPRIMARYMARKET
COUPONS WORTH
56 50 WAIT TAKES TOLL SEASON AT RISK
Cooler with
rain today A12
Greensburg family hopes for miracle
for father with liver disease C1
Agent: Bryant to
appeal suspension B1
$155 IN MOST AREAS
GET BREAKING NEWS AT TRIBLIVE.COM Vol. 128 No. 40 11 sections 140 pages
Nate Hamilton,
whose brother,
Dontre,
was shot 14
times by a
Milwaukee
police officer
in 2014, visits
a memorial for
Dontre in the
park where he
was killed.
TRIBUNE REVIEW
GUY WATHEN | TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Federal prosecutors declined to pursue civil rights allegations against law enforcement
officers 96 percent of the time since 1995, a Tribune-Review investigation found.
The Trib spent six months analyzing nearly 3 million federal records on how the Justice De- Federal
partment and its 94 U.S. Attorney offices handled criminal complaints against law enforcement
justice officers from 1995 through 2015. The records include matters referred to Justice by the FBI and andstate
FOR some
other agencies and those it opened on its own.
For all other crimes, prosecutors rejected only about 23 percent of complaints.
governments
havenot
MORE AT TribLIVE.com
The most frequent reasons cited for declining
civil rights complaints involving officers: weak
response to the Tribs findings.
The 12,703 potential civil rights violations succeededin
An interactive map showing
prosecution and declination rates
or insufficient evidence, lack of criminal intent
required under a 1945 Supreme Court ruling stan-
turned down nationwide out of 13,233 total
complaints from 1995-2015 include high-profile deterringpolice
Trib photojournalist Guy
Wathens video story of fatal
dard, and orders from the Justice Department.
This is an area, quite honestly, where the
incidents in Ferguson, Mo., Chicago and New York
City but also thousands of incidents the public misconduct.
police-involved shooting in
Milwaukee
feds need to be bolder and put greater resources
in, said Craig Futterman, a law professor who
knows little about. The case data do not identify
defendants or victims. Iwouldsaythe
founded the Civil Rights and Police Accountability
Dashcam video of fatal
police-involved shooting
Project at the University of Chicago. ... Indeed,
It is a difficult situation for the legal system in
general, Mel Johnson, assistant U.S. attorney for legalsystem
the failure to aggressively bring those cases has
in Seattle allowed too many abusive officers to believe that
civil rights cases in the Eastern District of Wis-
consin, told a Trib reporter in Milwaukee. Fed- hasawaytogo.
they can operate without fear of punishment.
COMING MONDAY The Justice Department takes any allegation
eral and state governments have not succeeded in
deterring police misconduct. I would say the legal MelJohnson,U.S.attorney
Law enforcement civil rights of law enforcement misconduct seriously and will
cases in Western Pennsylvania review those allegations when they are brought to
system has a way to go. forcivilrightscasesinthe
and the impact of video our attention, spokeswoman Dena Iverson said in CIVIL RIGHTS A6 EasternDistrictofWisconsin