I am not sure if I should post my needed help in this part or not. It WILL be helpful in my fiancee's civil lawsuit so I guess it is legal help.

Ok...how can I go about finding cases on a "specific" cities police department that has had complaints or been under investigation for Police Brutality or excessive force in the past?
An example would be looking up cases that have happened in the past or even recently on the Chicago Police Department in regards to police brutality or excessive force.

I believe there should be public files on file that I can get into on the internet, but I am CLUELESS as to how to go about a search or a specific web site that may have those types of cases.

Thanks in advance for any kind of help or info. that any of you guys can give me!!

Diona....
One website that I have found is good is www.findlaw.com... you can search caselaw with different key words... there are quite a few cases against Cook County.... I think you can search certain regions/areas too.... I will try to spend some time in the next few evenings looking around for you to see what I can find, ok? :)

The local news papers to see what's been printed in those reguards and that would give you some names/dates too work with.

Thanks for the help JDs & BRay...

I looked on that website you posted findlaw.com, but I didn't have the extra time at that moment to see if there would be any cases on police brutality.
I e-mailed a news reporter of the town I need to find cases on because she recently wrote up another story for that town so I am hoping that I will get a response back from her. I am going to try looking in the local newspapers.

Try this link and anything to do with "internal affairs" in the police department. They are supposed to investigate all claims of police brutality.

http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police/uspo52.htm

thanks for the links,both of you

Danielle....

Thank you for the link, it really did help me out a whole bunch! The town I am looking for cases wasn't in there, but I was able to contact someone there & ask if they have any information or if they know of another web site that may have info. pertaining to the town I need.

Thanks again..that link was a big help!!

i found a few links not sure how helpful they will be but here they are:
www.copcrimes.com there is links to all 50 states on here

www.jfahohoho.com

non-profit organization which assists victims of police misconduct with the investigation and filing of complaints against law enforcement personnel.
http://www.policeabuse.com

founded in 1985 to fight against the brutality of Marion Federal Penitentiary.
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~kastor/

The links listed above are good links, I use find law all the time. I just downloaded a new search engine that searches 11 different search engines (yahoo, msn, lycos, etc.) & collates them at the same time. It's great, I love it. I enterd police brutality chicago police department & these are the top five sites it gave me. If you want more I can get more, it came up with about 50.

sf.indymedia.org/features/police/

chicagoreporter.com/1999/03-99/0399shoot.htm

hrw.org/reports98/police/uspo52.htm

indybay.org/features/police/

lrna.org/league/TP/!TP.97.01/police.eng.9701.html

Good luck-----Ken

Shortie you are a wonder girl!! I am going to check out these links as soon as I have 1/2 a second!!
Thanks a whole bunch everybody for your help...legal type stuff really isn't my line of expertise. Since EJ wants me to find all this stuff I have to figure out HOW to find it.