Jajuan Henderson was just grabbing some iced tea out of a parked car when an unmarked vehicle filled with a group of plainclothes officers surrounded him in Trenton, New Jersey.
They started yelling at him from outside his car, and when Henderson tried to use his phone to call for help, one officer smashed his driver’s side window, and then one or more of the officers opened fire.
The shooting of the 29-year-old unarmed Black man is one man that ended in a lawsuit or investigation for the Trenton Police Department. Henderson was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot four times by Trenton officers. He filed a lawsuit in 2022.
The Department of Justice has now launched what its agents are calling a “civil pattern or practice” investigation into the city and its police department over a number of instances where they have abused their public service positioning and conducted routine stops and searches of citizens that violate federal law and the Constitution.
Trending Today:
According to a press release, the DOJ will look into the Trenton Police Department’s use of force as well as its stops, searches, and arrests. Federal agents will also conduct “a comprehensive review of TPD policies, training and supervision, in addition to complaint intake, internal investigation protocols, complaint reviews, complaint adjudications and disciplinary decisions.”
According to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the investigation comes after an extensive review of some information that suggests “that officers used force, stopped motorists and pedestrians and conducted searches of homes and cars in violation of the Constitution and federal law. Our experience has shown that policing practices that run afoul of the law and our Constitution can lead to distrust between police officers and the community.
The Justice Department will conduct a full and fair investigation into these allegations, and if we substantiate…
Read the full article here