Cleveland Police Abuse Pattern Cited by Justice Department

CLEVELAND - One week after the release of a surveillance video showing a Cleveland police officer fatally shooting a 12-year-old African-American boy who was holding a pellet gun, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flew here on Thursday to announce that a lengthy Justice Department civil rights investigation had found 'unreasonable and unnecessary use of force' by the city's Police Department.

The Cleveland abuses highlighted by Mr. Holder included many that have caused friction with the police in minority communities around the country. Those include excessive use of deadly force like shootings and using weapons to hit suspects on the head; the 'unnecessary, excessive or retaliatory use of less lethal force' such as Taser weapons, chemical spray and fists; excessive force against mentally ill people; and use of tactics that have escalated encounters into confrontations where use of force became inevitable.

'Cleveland officers are not provided with adequate training, policy guidance, support and supervision,' the Justice Department concluded in its report.

As a result of the investigation, the city has agreed to work toward a settlement with the Justice Department known as a consent decree that will tighten and govern policies on use of force and subject police to oversight by an independent monitor. If finalized, such an agreement in Cleveland would follow consent decrees in other cities, including Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans and Albuquerque, that were put into effect after investigations into questionable police violence and other abusive practices.

'Accountability and legitimacy are essential for communities to trust their police departments, and for there to be genuine collaboration between police and the citizens they serve,' Mr. Holder said in a statement. 'Although the issues in Cleveland are complex, and the problems longstanding, we have seen in city after city where we have been engaged that meaningful change is possible.'

While some police departments have resisted the Justice Department inquiries, Cleveland officials have generally supported the review amid concerns about high-profile police killings that have outraged the city's majority black population and drawn criticism from police experts.

The Justice Department had been investigating the Cleveland police for nearly two years; the mayor, Frank G. Jackson, a Democrat, had asked the government to review the city's policing policies following a controversial 2012 killing of two unarmed black people.

It was not immediately clear Thursday whether the Justice Department accelerated the release of the findings after the Nov. 22 police shooting death of the 12-year-old, Tamir Rice. Justice Department officials had also been saying for weeks that the Cleveland inquiry was coming to a close.

Thursday's announcement also comes less than two weeks after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the killing of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., in August. Announcement of that decision set off a new wave of violent protests in and around Ferguson and prompted President Obama to convene a meeting on Monday with civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials about improving local policing in minority communities.

Citing a 'simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color,' Mr. Obama announced after that meeting that he was forming a task for to study ways to improve local policing. He also said that he would provide money for police to wear body cameras that record their actions and that he would tighten standards on providing military-style equipment to local police departments.