The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is commencing an inquiry into the policies and practices of Justice Department law enforcement task forces at the behest of Sen.
Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., according to a GAO spokesperson speaking to NBC News.
Ossoff, who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on human rights and law, penned a letter on March 14 requesting the review.
The investigation will focus on how the Justice Department oversees its task forces, which often include local police officers.
This move comes in the wake of an NBC News series that highlighted the lack of accountability for federal law enforcement agencies and the local officers granted federal powers who serve on these task forces.
The GAO will concentrate on the Justice Department’s primary law enforcement agencies — the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S.
Marshals Service — to provide clarity on federal policies and practices surrounding these task forces.
The inquiry will also examine how the Justice Department supervises its task forces, particularly local officers deputized with federal powers who work on these teams.
Chuck Young, a spokesperson for the GAO, confirmed that the agency has accepted Ossoff’s request and will commence its “in-depth examination” into federal task forces in the coming months.
In December, NBC News published a series of reports examining how federal law enforcement officers cause harm with little to no accountability.
The series also highlighted the disparities between the standards local officers face when they work for their departments compared to those they are held to while serving on federal task forces.
One of the stories focused on the challenges faced by local prosecutors trying to convict an officer from Georgia in the 2019 killing of Jimmy Atchison, who was fatally shot by an Atlanta police officer serving on an FBI task force.
Ossoff recently met with Jimmy Hill, Atchison’s father, and Gerald Griggs, president of Georgia’s NAACP, regarding the case.
Hill expressed that this investigation is a step in the right direction and emphasized the importance of bringing these issues to the forefront.
Atchison, 21, was shot and killed by Atlanta Police Officer Sung Kim in January 2019 while unarmed and hiding in a neighbor’s closet.
The FBI task force had adopted Atchison's case. At the time, local officers on task forces were not allowed to wear body cameras.
A year after the shooting, the Justice Department permitted local officers on federal task forces to start wearing body cameras.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Kim with murder in 2022.
However, because Kim was serving on a federal task force at the time, he successfully petitioned a federal judge to move his case to federal court, where the chances of conviction are much lower.
NBC News found that Atchison was one of at least 223 people shot by federal agents, task force officers, or local police assisting in cases tied to Justice Department law enforcement agencies from 2018 to 2022.
During that period, local prosecutors, grand juries, or law enforcement agencies deemed the shootings justified 98% of the time.
Only two shootings, including the Atchison case, resulted in criminal charges against on-duty officers, according to the NBC News analysis.
Despite efforts by some local prosecutors over the last three decades to convict federal agents or federal task force members of murder or manslaughter after fatal shootings, none have succeeded to date.
Cases typically get moved to federal court, where they are more likely to be dismissed. Federal laws and a series of Supreme Court decisions allow local officers on federal task forces to argue that they are immune from local prosecution.
Ossoff's letter to the GAO requested an examination of which Justice Department task forces include local officers, the accountability mechanisms that apply to those officers, and how the agency deals with differences between the rules those officers follow when serving as local or federal officers.
The NAACP in Georgia has been advocating for new federal legislation or Justice Department policy that would prevent local police officers on federal task forces who are charged with local crimes from moving their cases to federal court.
They believe that this barrier allows officers to escape accountability and have been pushing for change following cases like Atchison’s, which were stonewalled for years.