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CINCINNATI, Ohio (CNN) -- Cincinnati's new violent crimes police task force made its first arrests Thursday since being created to crack down on a wave of violent crime that surged after the shooting of unarmed black man by a white officer in April.

The 70-member squad has been given the mission of going after certain suspects that authorities say are responsible for most of the city's crime.

There have been some 90 shootings since April, when the city erupted into three days of rioting after the police shooting. That is five times the number of shootings during the same period last year.

Accusations of racially motivated excessive force had led some officers to feel unfairly targeted themselves. The result is what some are calling "de-policing," with arrests in the riverfront city down by half.

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"They feel like the entire blame for everything that occurred here in the city is being shouldered on them," said Police Chief Thomas Streicher. "I think it is a natural reaction for them to shut down."

The 1,000-plus Cincinnati division stands charged of racially biased policing. The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI are investigating the police department's practices, which critics and lawsuits say created the atmosphere for the April's events.

Police have defended the officer, saying he thought the suspect was reaching for a gun.

The head of the city's police union said his other officers are being condemned for doing their job.

"We certainly didn't sign up to allow our lives to be turned into a living nightmare over a false accusation of racial profiling, so the cops have backed off," said Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police. "We are still answering 911 calls, we are still answering the calls for service if we see a crime in progress."

But residents of Over-the-Rhine, a mostly poor, black neighborhood hit hardest by crime, said they were suffering from the police slowdown.

"We haven't seen a police officer -- none on a horse, none on a bike, none on a car -- which leaves that vacuum for anything to happen," said Darrick Dansby who runs a nonprofit financial services agency in the neighborhood.

Cincinnati's new task force made 81 arrests Thursday, including five people from the 42 suspects on its most-wanted list, a police spokeswoman told Reuters. Another suspect turned up dead at the morgue, victim of a drug overdose.

The special police squad is a step toward making Cincinnati's streets safer and restoring faith in police there.

New York faces similar problems

As part of New York City's efforts to improve race relations, its police academy has a graduating class -- for the first time ever -- with more minorities than whites. Slightly more than half of the new officers are African-American, Hispanic or Asian.

A judge also ordered police this week to reinstate an officer who criticized the department after the February 4, 1999, shooting of Amadou Diallo. Diallo died after being shot at 41 times by police officers who said they mistakenly thought he had a gun.

Yvette Walton had been the only black woman assigned to street patrols when she joined the newly created Street Crime Unit in 1993. She transferred out in 1995 after concluding that the unit targeted minorities in illegal searches and seizures.

After Diallo's death, a federal investigation determined the unit engaged in racial profiling. Although the department denied that charge, the controversial unit is now structured with less autonomy for the officers.

Earlier this month, Abner Louima received a $8.75 million settlement from the police department. The black man had been sodomized with a broomstick by a white police officer in a police precinct bathroom four years ago.

LAPD on trial

The key informant in the Los Angeles Police Department corruption scandal was released from prison this week after serving a portion of his sentence.

Former officer Rafael Perez, 33, who was caught stealing 8 pounds of cocaine from a police evidence locker, has provided more than 4,000 pages of testimony describing how he and other officers in the Rampart Division's anti-gang unit routinely planted drugs and guns on suspects, fabricated arrest reports, beat suspects in custody and in some cases shot unarmed, innocent people.

The scandal has led to more than 100 criminal convictions being overturned and the city of Los Angeles signing a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department requiring federal oversight of the police department's management and training policies.

Perez's plea agreement with state prosecutors has so far led to criminal charges against eight officers, including an attempted murder charge against his former partner, Nino Durden.

Perez admitted he and Durden shot Javier Francisco Ovando and planted a gun on him in 1996.

Ovando, paralyzed from the shooting, was convicted of assaulting the officers. He was released after serving nearly three years in prison and eventually settled a lawsuit for $15 million.