By Jeorge Zaraua
The San Antonio Express-News
SAN ANTONIO — A coalition of 27 local minority organizations filed a complaint Thursday morning with the U.S. Department of Justice requesting that it investigate the San Antonio Police Department for failing to discipline and prosecute its officers for civil rights violations.
“We ask for your intervention because the SAPD, the Chief of Police and officials with the City of San Antonio are unwilling or incapable of providing redress to individual victims of police misconduct and abuse,” the complaint states.
Representatives of the coalition gathered outside the local U.S. Attorney’s Office to announce the filing of the complaint.
The 5-page letter to the Justice Department ends: “It is with the greatest sense of urgency that we, the undersigned Coalition members, beseech the DOJ and FBI to provide redress for the people of San Antonio.”
Mario Salas, a coalition member and former city councilman, said the Police Department’s failure to hold officers accountable “has resulted in massive violations of our citizens’ civil rights.”
Salas said the city’s hiring of a Washington, D.C.-based police research group to review the department’s policies is “wholly deficient, inadequate and unresponsive for immediate relief.”
“In the time since (the Police Executive Research Forum) was announced, we have had allegations of a woman being sexually assaulted by a police officer and other complaints that seem to be on the increase,” Salas said.
The Police Department had no immediate comment.
Copyright 2007 San Antonio Express-News