The newly formed Mothers Against Police Brutality held a news conference at City Hall where they called for a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Dallas Police Department’s deadly force practices.
“It is not a black problem,” said Collette Flanagan, whose son Clinton Allen was fatally shot this year by a Dallas police officer. “It is not a Hispanic problem. It’s not a poor people’s problem. It is our problem.”
According to statistics issued by the department late Thursday, 70 percent of the 57 people killed by Dallas police officers from 2003 to date were ethnic minorities. Six people have died in shootings involving officers this year, the department said.
The statistics also show that injuries to officers by suspects have spiked in the last four years. So far this year, officers have suffered 58 such injuries, more than twice the 27 injuries in 2009.
Late Thursday, Police Chief David Brown issued a statement saying that he shared many of the group’s concerns.
“I look forward to working with this group, and moving forward towards positive changes for our department,” Brown said.
The group’s news conference came three days after Monday’s questionable shooting of a carjacking suspect by a Dallas officer. A witness has said the suspect had his hands up when the officer shot him in Pleasant Grove.
In the aftermath of that incident, Brown changed the way the department deals with officers who have been involved in shootings.
Previously, those officers would typically give investigators detailed statements about the incidents within hours of the incident. The new policy requires officers to take 72 hours before giving detectives an official statement as part of the criminal investigation into the incident. Officers can still provide an immediate bare-bones walk-through with their attorney present so investigators can start their work.
The civil rights group demanded Thursday that Brown rescind the change.
“You should not need 72 hours to tell somebody what happened,” said Daryl Washington, an attorney representing Flanagan.
In his statement Thursday, Brown said the change was based on scientific studies about the effect of acute stress on officers’ memories.
“In police-involved shootings, officers have the right to refuse to talk to investigators as a part of the criminal investigation,” he wrote.
The group also decried a grand jury system that they said routinely declines to indict officers in police shootings and said they want investigators from the Dallas County district attorney’s office to come to the scene and be involved from the start.
But some of the changes the group asked for are already in place. Those include having the FBI review all police-involved shootings, implementing a use-of-force reporting system and developing a formal foot pursuit policy.
