In another record, a complainant reported that an officer struck him repeatedly with a waffle grill. The investigator accepted the officer’s version of the facts despite conflicting information in his Force Report and subsequent reports. Although the officer’s report documented only that he had used “hands/fists,” he later reported that he inadvertently struck the complainant on the head with a waffle grill in self-defense. Instead of probing this inconsistency, the IA [Internal Affairs] investigator exonerated the officer and noted that the use of force was “reported and filed with complete transparency.”

—Investigation of the Newark Police Department, Report of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey (July 22, 2014), p. 39.