Reports Louisiana Voice today:
The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department has delivered a stunning blow to the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Ville Platte Police Department in a scathing report that may leave the door open to a flood of lawsuits against and criminal prosecution of the two departments for civil rights infringements through unconstitutional incarceration, intimidation and extortion.
The report’s findings also cast a cloud of legal doubt that could potentially taint an undetermined number of past criminal convictions that resulted from such practices.
In a blockbuster report dated Dec. 19, says in something of an understatement that a “thorough investigation” the Justice Department has concluded “that there is reasonable cause to believe that both the Ville Platte, Louisiana Police Department (VPPD) and the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office (EPSO) have engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct” that dates back “as far as anyone (at either department) can remember.”
Read the full Louisiana Voice story here.