Councilwoman Fuller Calls for DOJ Investigation of SPD

Shreveport City Councilwoman LeVette Fuller talks about her calls for police reform and even the possibility of an investigation of the SPD by the Department of Justice.

At Monday's City Council work session, members voted unanimously to create a police task force. "Let me go ahead and say this," says Fuller, "I'm not really in favor of it. I'm hoping it's effective. I voted for it, but I actually made a couple of comments...saying that this is not the extent of what we actually need to be doing."

And when asked about bringing in an outside agency to take a look at the Shreveport Police, the first term councilwoman continues, "That's absolutely what needs to happen. I think a local task force is going to do what local task forces do. We have a lot of task forces and committees that get together...and they very rarely come back with effective solutions."

And in calling for that outside agency, Fuller goes right to the top. "The DOJ (Department of Justice)," she says. "A patterns and processes investigation of the entire department." And the District B representative adds that it should be "an independent legal firm...from outside this area, because no one locally will be able to put aside their biases."

And Fuller then clarifies her call. "I am saying that enough is going on that we need an outside investigation and I think that the most appropriate would be the Department of Justice. You have two people die in (police) custody in a sixty day period and no one from your City Council knows anything about it."