Dallas Group Files a Complaint with the Department of Justice Against City, DPD for Police Brutality
On Thursday, a Dallas community organization will file a formal complaint with the Department of Justice against Dallas and its police department for fostering what the group sees as an environment in which police officers can kill blacks and Hispanics without fear of consequences. The complaint is the product of months of work from members of Dallas Communities Organizing for Change and its lawyer, Shayan Elahi.
"I started working on this around March," Elahi wrote in an email, "and it took shape over summer." Before starting work on the complaint, the group had filed open-records requests with the Dallas Police Department and received information on all police shootings since 2002. Based on that information, the group wrote a report showing that minorities are much more likely to be victims of police shootings here, which mirrors a national trend. Elahi said the group waited until now to file because members had hoped the City Council would meet and discuss their report and possible solutions. However, Elahi wrote, "except for Councilman Adam Medrano, no one else agreed to meet with us. So the best course was to go directly to DOJ."
"There is a real and imminent necessity that the Department of Justice investigate the systematic police violence and misconduct that continues to plague the African American and Hispanic communities in Dallas," reads a draft of the complaint. "Without an investigation, the safety, well-being, and welfare of these communities will continue to be put in jeopardy."
Between 2002 and mid-2013, there were 185 incidents in which a Dallas police officer fired a gun, according to the complaint. This resulted in 58 people who were killed, including 36 who were unarmed. Of the 58, 33 were black and 10 were Hispanic.
Read more: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/11/dallas_communities_organizing_for_change_dallas_police_department_department_of_justice_complaint.php