WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Justice Department, in a step that reflects government concern over questions of excessive force by Park Police, has said it will review the shooting death of a man who brandished a knife in front of the White House.


The criminal section of the department's civil rights division does not usually get involved in potential brutality cases at such an early stage, but chief department spokesman Carl Stern said representatives of the division and of U.S. Attorney Eric Holder Jr.'s office agreed to review an investigation of the matter conducted by the Metropolitan Police Department.


Marcelino Corniel, 33, the knife-wielding man shot Tuesday in the abdomen and right leg, died Wednesday night after undergoing two lengthy surgical procedures at George Washington University Hospital.


Questions were raised after a videotape of the incident, broadcast repeatedly on television, showed Corniel standing still in front of a ring of Park Police and Secret Service officers on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. He fell to the sidewalk as he was shot.


However, an affidavit by FBI agent Scott Salter, filed in connection with federal charges against Corniel on Wednesday, described him carrying a large knife in his left hand and pursuing a Park Police officer shortly before he was shot.


Salter said his affidavit was based on his own investigation, comments of other FBI agents and Park Police, Secret Service and Washington Metropolitan Police officers.


The homeless people who live in a park across the street from the White House, among whom Corniel lived, offered a different version of events. On Thursday they filed a lawsuit alleging a pattern of harassment by Park Police. They alleged that Corniel had been kicked and prodded by Park Police officer Stephen O'Neill, the policeman who shot him, a few hours before the incident.


The complaint said that O'Neill and another officer, named only as Keness, regularly accuse the homeless who sleep in the park of violating a no-camping regulation.


"It has been the custom of officers O'Neill and Keness to accompany their threats with kicks, prodding with nightsticks and banging signs with nightsticks, even when there is no question that those attending are not camping," the complaint said.


The three men who filed the suit also called for a complete investigation of the shootings at a news conference.


Milton Grimes, a Newport Beach, California, attorney who said he would investigate Corniel's death at the request of the dead man's family, said: "It appears to me that he was not physically able to pose a threat to a kindergartner, much less a police officer ... It looks as through there was excessive force."


Grimes was an attorney for Los Angeles Police beating victim Rodney King.


In the latest security episodes around the presidential mansion, two men, one who said he had a bomb in his car and another carrying a gun, were arrested in separate incidents near the White House on Friday. (LAT, AP)