Justice Dept. Reviewing Police Beating

Dec. 1 -- The Justice Department is reviewing the videotaped beating of a 350-pound man by Cincinnati police to determine if charges need to be brought against the officers involved, sources told ABCNEWS.

The man, 41-year-old Nathaniel Jones, died shortly after being taken to a hospital.

Law enforcement sources told ABCNEWS that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is reviewing the Sunday night beating. The altercation between Jones, who was black, and the officers, who are white, was captured on videotape taken by a police cruiser's camera. The tape, which police released to the media, shows Jones taking a swing at an officer, then officers beating Jones with their nightsticks.

Citing the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white officer in Cincinnati in April 2001, black activists said Jones' death was another example of police doing little or nothing to stop deaths of black men in encounters with police in recent years. The 2001 incident set off three nights of rioting.

Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken today rejected black activists' demand for police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. to step down.

"What I saw was a 400-pound man violently attacking a policeofficer in a manner that put the lives of police officers atrisk," Luken said after viewing the videotape. "While the investigations willcontinue, there is nothing on those tapes to suggest that thepolice did anything wrong."

Meanwhile, Cincinnati police commanders defended the actions of two of their officers. Assistant police chief Richard Janke today said it appeared that the police officers responded as they were trained to do when Jones fought with them.

The two officers — andfour others who arrived to help out — are on administrative leavewhile the encounter is investigated.

Violent Struggle Caught on Video

The officers responded to a call around 6 a.m. for assistance after Cincinnati firefighters called dispatch that help was needed to control a disorderly suspect in the parking lot of a White Castle restaurant near Vine Street and Mitchell Avenue.