From [HERE] A local activist group is calling on the federal Department of Justice to investigate the Dallas Police Department for what it calls unconstitutional policing. 

The CBS News Texas I-Team exclusively obtained a copy of the formal complaint sent to the DOJ by Mothers Against Police Brutality. In the letter submitted Thursday, the activist group asks for a federal investigation into what it describes as "a city that prioritizes hiding disturbing trends of police violence from public view."

The DOJ has investigated other departments in recent years, including in Minneapolis after George Floyd's murder in 2020. In some cases, these investigations have led to major reforms.  

The I-Team reached out to the Dallas Police Department for comment Thursday afternoon. A department spokesperson said the complaint filed with the DOJ has not been shared with Dallas police, but added the department takes the issues addressed in the complaint seriously and has "worked proactively for years to promote and uphold the highest standards of policing." 

The complaint cites what the group says is extensive data analysis of police records that reveal Dallas' use of deadly force disproportionately falls on Black and Latino populations. According to an analysis by the group, independently confirmed by CBS News, 49% of Dallas police shootings involved Black residents between 2003 and 2017. In cases when the victim was unarmed, 59% of people shot by police were Black. In Dallas, 24% of the population is Black.  

The 19-page complaint also accuses Dallas police of a "half-century of unaccountable police brutality." From 1990 to 2021, according to police data referenced in the letter, Dallas police conducted internal investigations on more than 3,000 cases of alleged excessive force. Internal investigators determined officer wrongdoing in less than 200, or 6%, of those cases.  

The complaint references the case history of former officer Christopher Hess as an example of how activists say Dallas police officials have allowed officers' use of force to go unchecked. 

Hess had 42 misconduct complaints and had been investigated 10 times for using excessive force during 10 years with DPD. He remained on patrol until January 2017, when he shot and killed 21-year-old Genevive Dawes while checking on a call for a suspicious vehicle. 

Police body camera video from the shooting shows officers were unable to see inside the parked SUV because it was dark and the windows were fogged. Police said a license plate check indicated that the vehicle was stolen. After failing to respond to commands from officers, the driver, later identified as Dawes, turned it on and slowly backed up. Hess fired his weapon into the SUV 12 times.

After an internal investigation, Hess was fired six months later. He was indicted by a grand jury for aggravated assault by a public servant but was found not guilty in 2020. The I-Team reached out to the attorney who represented Hess in his criminal case but did not hear back.

The founders of Mothers Against Police Brutality, Collette Flanagan and John Fullinwider, signed the letter to the DOJ, along with a civil rights attorney and a civil rights researcher. [MORE]