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It is not our intention to indict all Lafayette Parish Consolidated Government ("LPCG") police officers. However, below are certain briefs that were filed in litigation by our firm in representing our client who was brutally beaten by an LPCG officer. The briefs set out evidence we discovered of systemic problems in LPCG that show a tolerance of excessive force by LPCG officers. The primary problem is there is no external review of excessive force complaints. As such, you will see that there is no credible deterrent to those LPCG police officers who find it acceptable to beat people up for no good reason. Some cities have police advisory commissions which are independent panels of citizens who are charged with investigating such complaints. The City of Philadelphia has such a commission. While such commissions have their own problems (funding, antagonism from police unions, etc.), such a commission in Lafayette would be an improvement over the fatally flawed “fox watching the chicken coop” system that is currently in place. Please let your councilman and parish president know your concerns about this problem. We believe Lafayette is too good of a place to not fix this problem.