and the u.s. justice department issues a scathing report of the louisville police, finding a pattern of excessive force and racist conduct within the department. we ll bring you the disturbing results of the federal investigation launched after the killing of breonna taylor. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. tonight, russian mercenaries claim they have gained new ground in bakhmut, now a flashpoint in vladamir putin s war against ukraine. president volodymyr zelenskyy tells me his forces are vowing, vowing to stand strong, even as they acknowledge theeadvancing city. but first, to the war zone. melissa bell has the latest on the battle for bakhmut. reporter: bakhmut, now a place of horror and death. before the war, bakhmut was about life. its sculpted hedges and rose gardens regularly instagramed. a picture of peace. and one of the oldest cities in the donbas. its genteel facades buil
recruit, that you want to retrain, that you want everyone to be on board and knowing that you take this seriously and will do something, it s another to actually do that thing. when you look at all of these pages, the 90 pages, which is a sweeping indictment of the treatment of african americans, the stops of african americans and the terrorizing of that community and what happened. now we move into the chapter of what we will do to ensure that these patterns and continue into the future and citizen captain johnson, the attorney general merrick garland said these practices eroded trust with the community. how did the police department even begin to start addressing these abuses? like joey just said, at the press conference, they said all the right things. we see concept decrees throughout the nation that have gone into effect. they worked in some places, others they haven t.
you might not have noticed them. a series of steps towards police reform this past week. announcements from the justice department, one at a time, they can sort of fly under the radar but the head of the naacp legal defense fund, she noticed this. and this week she explained that something we probably didn t even pay attention to was really a big deal. she tweeted, and i quote, proof that elections matter and that having civil rights attorneys in d o doj leadership matters. attorney general merrick garland announced a review of the department s use of monitors who oversee concept decrees which can allow police departments from admitting wrongdoing.
shows there was as many police shootings this year, the first six months, as the last two years. so even as we move forward we re moving backwards, and now you have an attorney general saying that the moves that attorney general loretta lynch and eric holder started moving in this area in terms of concept decrees and cameras on police, he s saying we re not going to move forward on that. in fact, we re going to reverse that. the attorney general who did not read the justice department s ferguson report. he just wasn t that interested. an attorney jgeneral who wants o bring back the failed war on drugs and, reverend, as you say, who wants to stop looking at police departments. president trump says he wants to bring backstop and frisk which already is the law in many jurisdictions. folks know that a judge in new york said the way the nypd was doing it was unconstitutional. reverend, chicago, baltimore, los angeles, the police are all
there are concept decrees in baltimore, in chicago. there is a police community initiative that is taking place under the obama administration. we like to see him continue that. we d like to see him aggressively ensure that those cities that have made commitments to police reform carry out those reforms and it s not an effort to either undue those efforts, those consent decrees or to some extent weaken e power of the justice department in enforcing these laws. marc morial, great to have you here and we ll see you at the mlk march. now donald trump s frequent use of twitter. well documented, but the ripple effects of the president-elect s social media seem to be growing wider. savannah sellers is here with more. thanks. and that is exactly right. the effects of the trump tweet can be huge. just this week, a mobile app called trigger has added a