Jajuan Henderson was just grabbing some iced tea out of a parked car when an unmarked vehicle filled with a group of plainclothes officers surrounded him in Trenton, New Jersey.
They started yelling at him from outside his car, and when Henderson tried to use his phone to call for help, one officer smashed his driver’s side window, and then one or more of the officers opened fire.
The shooting of the 29-year-old unarmed Black man is one man that ended in a lawsuit or investigation for the Trenton Police Department. Henderson was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot four times by Trenton officers. He filed a lawsuit in 2022.
The Department of Justice has now launched what its agents are calling a “civil pattern or practice” investigation into the city and its police department over a number of instances where they have abused their public service positioning and conducted routine stops and searches of citizens that violate federal law and the Constitution.
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According to a press release, the DOJ will look into the Trenton Police Department’s use of force as well as its stops, searches, and arrests. Federal agents will also conduct “a comprehensive review of TPD policies, training and supervision, in addition to complaint intake, internal investigation protocols, complaint reviews, complaint adjudications and disciplinary decisions.”
According to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the investigation comes after an extensive review of some information that suggests “that officers used force, stopped motorists and pedestrians and conducted searches of homes and cars in violation of the Constitution and federal law. Our experience has shown that policing practices that run afoul of the law and our Constitution can lead to distrust between police officers and the community.
The Justice Department will conduct a full and fair investigation into these allegations, and if we substantiate those violations, the department will take appropriate action to remedy them.”
Reed Gusciora, who’s in his second term as Trenton’s mayor, said the city and the police department are willing to cooperate with the investigation, according to the New York Times.
“The majority of our cops get up every day and do the right thing,” Gusciora said. “I’m a great believer in ‘Let the chips fall where they may,’” he added. “I just hope that this does not affect police morale. It’s one thing to try to train officers better and another thing to disparage an entire department.”
Gusciora also released this statement in response to the investigation’s launch:
“We thank and support the overwhelming majority of officers at the city, county and state level who do the right things every day to keep Trentonians safe. These officers have been instrumental in taking guns off the streets and preventing senseless acts of violence. In the past few months, over 214 firearms, 2,868 grams of crack-cocaine, and 26,066 decks of heroin, and $133,722 were seized from drug and firearm traffickers. But we also recognize that the community’s trust in our police force is critical. If any members of law enforcement violate the public trust or act in contravention of our state and federal laws, they should and must be held accountable.”
While specific instances of improper or excessive force and illegal searches weren’t disclosed to explain what prompted the DOJ probe, some incidents over recent years may explain why the department is getting involved now, including Henderson’s case.
What’s even more shocking is that a grand jury later determined the shooting was justified. Henderson was initially charged after the shooting with aggravated assault and resisting arrest, but the local prosecutor’s office dropped the charges later.
Another officer was indicted in 2020 on an official misconduct charge after excessively pepper-spraying a man who died three weeks later. That same year, a man died in police custody after officers held their knees on his back while he was handcuffed facedown. Not one of the officers involved was charged even after the man’s death was ruled a homicide. The city of Trenton had to pay $1.9 million to the estate of Stephen Dolceamore after a wrongful death lawsuit was filed.
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In 2017, two officers were charged after beating a man they arrested who complied with their orders. While preparing reports on the victim’s arrest, they wrote false reports portraying the victim as an aggressor and a threat to justify the beating. One of those officers was later acquitted by a jury.
“The deeper problem here is the police do not feel accountable to anyone,” Lawrence Hamm, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress, told the Gothamist of the DOJ investigation.
