DOJ, Cleveland Police Reach Deal

The city of Cleveland and Department of Justice will announce as soon as this week how they are moving forward on agreed changes to the city's police force, law enforcement officials tell CNN.

The consent decree is the next step after the city agreed to changes last year following a scathing report from DOJ investigators regarding patterns of civil rights violations and excessive force by the Cleveland police. It will mean years of court-supervised monitoring of the Cleveland Police Department.

A brutal Justice Department report in December found Cleveland police officers used excessive deadly force, including shootings and head strikes with impact weapons; unnecessary, excessive, and retaliatory force, including Tasers, chemical sprays, and their fists; and excessive force against people with mental illness or in crisis, including one situation in which officers were called exclusively to check up on someone's well-being.

In one case, a police officer shot at an unarmed man wearing only boxer shorts as he was fleeing from armed assailants: