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DA to look at DeKalb cop shootings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The chief of the DeKalb County Police Department has asked the district attorney to review and investigate a string of deadly shootings by the county’s police officers.
“I want to remove any shadow of a doubt,” said Nick Marinelli, the police department’s interim chief. This year, DeKalb County police officers have shot and killed 12 suspects — more than any other police department in metro Atlanta. A police officer has also been killed.
The results of police investigations of the 2006 shootings are not yet available, but earlier this month, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined internal reports of 31 shootings from 2001 to 2005 and found that officers had patterns of violating department policy — sometimes putting themselves in a position where they had no choice but to shoot.
Most of the officers involved were not disciplined, the newspaper found, and the department did not address the pattern of violations in its training programs.
The report prompted John Evans, former president of the DeKalb County chapter of the NAACP, to call for an outside investigation and a civilian review board to examine future cases. It also led to two small protests at police headquarters.
Family members of some of those who were shot and killed this year have demanded the department do a better job of training its officers.
The police department’s review board had been looking at the shootings; Marinelli would not say what the board found on any of those cases. He wants the district attorney to look at the shootings before he makes the findings public, he said.
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