LOS ANGELES (CA)
KABC

[with video]

Amy Powell

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — With last week’s release of thousands of church documents on clergy abuse, the LAPD is stepping in. Investigators say new legal charges are possible.

Detectives are focusing on the cases of about a dozen previously investigated priests and are auditing those past cases to see if anything was missed. They are also going over files of all the 122 priests made public last week by a court order.

“Most of these files have already had investigations done, and we weren’t able to get a prosecution or we couldn’t get to anything in terms of statue, so we’re going to go back, kind of re-audit everything that we’ve done before,” said LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith.

Authorities want to know if any crimes, such as failure to report child abuse, occurred.