Federal authorities probe Miami police over deadly shootings
Federal authorities are investigating whether Miami police officers have shown a systemic "excessive use of deadly force" while on the job, CNN reported.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, announced the civil investigation in Miami on Thursday, along with U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Wilfredo Ferrer.
There have been nine police-involved shootings in Miami since July 2010, leaving eight young men dead and another critically wounded, Perez noted. He compared this rate of one fatal shooting per 220 Miami police to the New York police department's one fatal shooting per 4,313 officers, while also noting that the District of Columbia had no fatal police shootings in 2010 compared with five in Miami.