By Andrew Goudsward
The U.S. Justice Department found that police in the New Jersey city of Trenton routinely use unreasonable force and stop and arrest drivers and pedestrians without legal justification, according to a report made public on Thursday.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, following a 13-month investigation, found that Trenton police officers often use physical force, including pepper spray, against people who are not threatening them and unnecessarily escalate situations with aggressive tactics.
“With inadequate supervision and little training on the legal rules and well-accepted police procedures that should constrain their conduct, Trenton police officers engage in a pattern or practice of violating those rules,” the department concluded in its report.
The probe found that police in Trenton, New Jersey’s capital city of about 90,000 residents, engaged in a pattern of violations under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.
The Justice Department said Trenton and its police department cooperated with the probe and adopted certain reforms, including disbanding two street enforcement units involved in the violations.
The investigation is one of 12 launched by the Justice Department during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration into claims of systemic civil rights abuses by state and local police departments.
Much of that work could be scrapped when Republican President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January. His first administration sharply curtailed probes into police departments and his allies have criticized the investigations as unfairly hostile to police.
The Justice Department is yet to secure court-approved settlements, known as consent decrees, to enforce reforms following any of the five completed investigations.
Trenton committed to further changes, according to the report, but there was no indication the city agreed to a negotiated settlement.
The Justice Department recommended Trenton take a series of steps to address its findings, including overhauling use-of-force policies and improving officer training.
Seven other probes into police departments remain pending.
