The U.S. Justice Department unit tasked with prosecuting misconduct by law enforcement officers has dwindled away dramatically and has been ordered to scale back investigations of excessive force during the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, reporting suggests.
The Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division has lost two-thirds of its prosecutors, dropping from around 40 before President Donald Trump returned to office last year to no more than 13 now, three sources told Reuters.
Just two supervisors remain and have not announced plans to leave, but there had previously been around seven supervisors in the unit, and former DOJ lawyers told the news organization they doubted the section would be able to thoroughly investigate the fatal shootings or Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month by federal officers.
Section supervisors had been told early in Trump's second term that investigations of law enforcement officers would go forward only in egregious cases, such as deaths in custody or sexual assault, three former DOJ lawyers said, adding that state and local departments would typically take the lead.
“We evaluate each matter based on the merits without prejudice," said a Justice Department spokesperson, Natalie Baldassarre. "Nothing within our statutory purview is off limits."
Baldassarre did not dispute that law enforcement probes had been scaled back, but she said the section would hire additional prosecutors and said more than 25 lawyers, including advisers and supervisors, remained on staff.
The number of people charged with violating the civil rights law most commonly used in excessive force cases dropped about 36 percent last year, according to a Reuters analysis, to just 54 cases, the lowest since 2020.
“The idea of a system where every vulnerable group is not protected equally by the rule of law is not a system I can be a part of from the inside,” said Laura-Kate Bernstein, a former trial attorney who left the Justice Department in May.
