- Police Brutality Watch

The FBI is investigating a 2001 fatal police shooting that followed an attempted cocaine bust by Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's deputies. "The FBI has been made aware of possible civil-rights violations and is looking into it," FBI spokeswoman Sheila Thorne said. Derrick Diggs Sr., 29, of Houma was killed as he allegedly tried to escape arrest on Dec. 15, 2001, in the parking lot of a convenience store. Diggs tried to flee in a car when officers closed in after an undercover cocaine buy, placing one officer in jeopardy and prompting at least two others to open fire, police have said. Diggs died at a hospital shortly afterward. The two officers named in court documents -- Shane Fletcher and Rusty Hornsby -- were cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a grand jury in August. But Diggs' family and their supporters maintain the shooting was unjustified and illegal. Thorne would not elaborate on how the FBI was made aware of the possible violations. Jerome Boykin, president of the Terrebonne Parish National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the local NAACP chapter filed a complaint with the bureau following the grand jury's decision. "At this point we're happy to know the FBI's looking into this injustice, the murder that was done to Derrick Diggs," Boykin said. The events since the shooting -- which included a May 2002 indictment against Fletcher and Hornsby that was thrown out on a technicality -- will have no bearing on how the bureau handles the investigation, Thorne said. [more]