The result irritated the Rice family’s lawyers, especially after the revelation that the prosecutor apparently allowed the police to read the statements prepared before the grand jury without questioning them. The Rice family called for a federal civil rights investigation, and the Justice Department said it was conducting a review.
Since then, Cleveland agreed in 2016 to pay the Rice family $ 6 million to settle a lawsuit, and Officer Loehmann was fired in 2017. But the Justice Department has been largely silent about what was going on with his investigation.
Current employees and former employees familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, described a dysfunctional and delayed effort. They spoke in response to investigations by The New York Times after they learned that David Z. Seide, a lawyer representing a person familiar with the case, filed a complaint with the Justice Department inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, accusing the incorrect handling department of the matter.
Mr. Seide, a senior lawyer with the Government Accountability Project, who assists whistleblowers, approached The Times after the inspector general’s office informed him last week that he would not investigate the complaint. Lawmakers have not authorized Mr. Horowitz to examine allegations of ethical violations and professional misconduct on the part of lawyers in the department. (Congress is considering legislation to expand its jurisdiction; Mr. Barr was opposed to that.)
The case stagnated throughout 2016, the last year of the Obama administration, according to the interviews, including with Seide’s client. One factor, several people said, was that federal police in Ohio were reluctant to pursue police officer Loehmann.
The Justice Department had obtained a so-called consent decree to reform the Cleveland Police Department on issues such as training and wanted to focus on those systemic issues. In addition, officials acknowledged that it would be difficult to prove their intention to meet legal standards to convict the police officer for a federal civil rights crime, they said.
Other people familiar with the case said another problem caused delays: the civil rights division needed to gather and review local investigative files. Local officials, they said, dragged their feet when delivering all the evidence.