WBRZ - Baton Rouge

U.S. Justice Department officials are in New Orleans, where the new mayor has asked for help with a troubled police department.

An assistant attorney general from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was sheduled to appear at a news conference Monday with U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

Soon after taking office two weeks ago, Landrieu asked the Justice Department to send a Civil Rights team to New Orleans to work with the police department, which already is the subject of several federal investigations including the post-Hurricane Katrina shooting deaths of unarmed civilians and a subsequent coverup.