NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday placed the New Orleans Police Department, which has been accused of widespread abuses, under the scrutiny of a federal monitor for at least four years.
Holder issued a sweeping decree that he said resulted from "one of the most extensive investigations" of a law enforcement agency the Justice Department has ever conducted.
The 170-page agreement, which must receive federal court approval before it can be finalized, resulted from months of negotiations between the federal government and New Orleans officials.
The Justice Department's 2011 report cited dozens of problems in New Orleans police training, recruiting, supervision and interrogation practices, and identified "a troubling racial disparity" in the use of force.
Increased federal attention to the city's problems helped produce more than a dozen convictions during the past year in a series of federal civil rights cases in which local police officers were charged with killing unarmed civilians and covering up the crimes during the violent aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The New Orleans consent decree is the latest in a string of such orders the federal government has imposed on police departments in cities including Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Los Angeles, to provide blueprints for reform. Failure to comply could subject a city to contempt of court charges and possible penalties.
The order, in the form of a lawsuit by the United States against the City of New Orleans, alleges that police have routinely violated citizens' constitutional rights and engaged "in a pattern or practice of intentional discriminatory conduct."
The order requires the police department to conduct use-of-force training; improve investigations of officer-involved shootings; make Spanish and Vietnamese translators available to handle emergency calls; and improve investigation of sexual assaults and domestic violence.
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