A federal review of the New Orleans police department will help stem the tide of corruption cases flowing from the department.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu (pictured above left) requested the "top-to-bottom" review, because the department has been rocked by allegation after allegation of abuse.

According to the AP:

The investigation will include lawyers and non-lawyers with broad experience in police issues. At a news conference with Landrieu, Perez said the probe will be independent of ongoing federal criminal investigations of the department. Those include the probe of the fatal 2005 shootings of unarmed citizens at the Danziger bridge in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

(Tom) Perez, who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said other such independent examinations by the department have resulted in successful change at other cities' police departments, including Los Angeles....."The investigation will examine allegations of excessive force, unconstitutional searches and seizures, racial profiling, failures to provide adequate police services to particular neighborhoods, and related misconduct," Perez said in a letter to Landrieu that was released Monday.

Probably the most notorious of these incidents is the Danziger Bridge shooting.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a group of officers responded to a report that other officers were under fire. Officers continued to fire at wounded civilians laying on the ground, even when it became clear they were not under fire. Another officer opened fire with a shotgun on an unarmed civilian who was running from police.

Two men, one mentally disabled, were killed in the incident. Police then engaged in a cover-up campaign that included allegedly lying that the civilians posed a threat or looked and acted as if they had weapons. One of the officers involved in the shooting recently pleaded guilty and two investigators pleaded guilty to participating in the cover-up.

A U.S. District Court Judge said she was shocked by the "raw brutality of the shooting and the craven lawlessness of the cover-up."

"Raw brutality" and "craven lawlessness" are not words that should be used in association with any police department. Police have the power and authority to take individual's lives. It is a power that must be used sparingly and only in the most dire of situations.

All too often, some officers are charged with misusing that authority. All too often, African Americans are on the receiving end of this fatal abuse.

Furthermore, because of the unspoken police code of conduct, other officers are forced to lie for their colleagues or suffer the consequences of being called a "snitch."

It is those officers that give other officers who take their jobs seriously a bad name. The recent shooting death by Detroit police of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones during a raid is another abhorrent example.

Perez said that a consent decree between New Orleans and the Justice Department might not be necessary given the willingness of the city to cooperate. As Mayor Landrieu rightly pointed out, though, he would welcome such an agreement spelling out specific reforms, because it would "institutionalize" the changes.

If the reforms are to be lasting, department policies should reflect that abuses of power and lying will not be tolerated.