The Justice Department said Friday that Minneapolis police routinely discriminated against Black and Native American people, used deadly force without justification and trampled on those First Amendment rights. protestors and journalists – damning findings that grew out of a years-long investigation and could lead to court. -implemented overhaul.
The federal review was touched by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by an officer in Minneapolis in 2020, a crime that led to protests and riots across the country. But the Justice Department’s scathing 89-page report looked well beyond that killing, describing an unaccountable police force whose officers beat, shot and detained people unjustly. and patrolling without trusting the residents.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, speaking at a press conference in Minneapolis, said that Mr. Floyd’s “death has an irreversible impact on the community of Minneapolis, our country and the world,” and that “the patterns and practices that we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”
The killing of Mr. Floyd, who was caught on video saying “I can’t breathe” as he was pinned to the ground by Officer Derek Chauvin, has focused international attention on the Minneapolis Police Department. But to many people in the city, where protesters have complained for years about police overreach, Mr. Floyd’s death, as tragic as it was, was hardly surprising. Justice Department investigators described “many incidents where officers responded to a person’s statement that they couldn’t breathe with some version of, ‘You can breathe; you’re talking now.’”
The Justice Department report was almost as critical, painting a chilling picture of a dysfunctional law enforcement agency where illegal behavior is common, racism is rampant and misconduct is tolerated.
In many cases, investigators found, officers fired weapons without assessing the threat they faced; used neck restraints even in interactions that did not lead to arrest; and used their Tasers, sometimes without warning, on pedestrians and drivers who had committed minor offenses or no offense at all.
“It’s not a secret,” said Bridgette Stewart, a lifelong Black Minnesotan who regularly spends time at the site of Mr. Floyd’s murder. “This is something that’s been going on in Minnesota for many, many, many, many years — longer than my lifetime.”
Minneapolis officials appeared at a news conference with the attorney general on Friday, and promised to negotiate with the Justice Department to reach a settlement agreement, known as a consent order, that would be overseen by the court. federally and force specific changes in the Police Department. . Similar consent orders followed federal investigations into police misconduct in other American cities, including Baltimore, Cleveland and New Orleans.
“This work is fundamental to the health of our city,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “We have the power here to affect lasting change, to affect generational change, and we embrace that.”
Officials have said that negotiating a consent decree could take months, and Mr. Frey suggested that some potential sticking points have emerged. Earlier this year, Minneapolis entered into a separate consent decree in state court with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, which reached some of the same damning conclusions about the city’s police after its own investigation. .
Mr. Frey said the city would like to have a monitor oversee the state agreement and any federal agreement, and would need assurances that the two agreements do not conflict with each other. Justice Department officials emphasized that their report included separate violations of federal law that should be overseen by a federal judge, not a state official.
Sgt. Sherral Schmidt, the president of the union representing the Minneapolis officers, said his organization was not given a copy of the federal report before it was released to the public. He said union leaders are reviewing it and intend to comment on its findings later.
The report includes many cases that are very familiar to many people in Minneapolis – the fatal police shooting of Justine Ruszczyk, an unarmed white woman; a Christmas tree in a police station with racist decorations; racist remarks by an official to young Somalis about “Black Hawk Down” – as well as others who don’t know much. It describes an incident when an officer threw a handcuffed man to the ground head first; another when an officer pulled his gun on a teenager for allegedly stealing a $5 burrito; and another when an officer punched a protester who had already been restrained.
Minneapolis police routinely discriminated against Blacks and Native Americans, the investigators found, patrolling “different racially-based neighborhood compositions, without a legitimate, safety-related rationale. ” And the city violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by discriminating against people with behavioral health disabilities, the report said, including sending police officers to mental health calls where they weren’t needed. and where their “response is often harmful and ineffective.”
At the protests, the report said, officials violated the First Amendment rights of demonstrators and journalists. “MPD officers routinely use indiscriminate force, failing to distinguish between peaceful protesters and those committing crimes,” the report said.
All the while, the Justice Department found, complaints about officer misconduct were upheld or dismissed, while some officers accused of serious misconduct were assigned to retraining. Police Academy graduates. The report says that Mr. Chauvin, in the years before he killed Mr. Floyd, used excessive force in other incidents where “several other MPD officers stood by” and did not stop him.
“Officers who do something heinous, they almost always have a history and a pattern,” said L. Chris Stewart, who represented Mr. Floyd’s family in civil suits following his murder. “Management has failed. The officers are incorrigible and they kill someone.
Mr. Chauvin was convicted of manslaughter and a federal civil rights violation in the death of Mr. Floyd, a relative rarity for an on-duty death involving police officers. Three other officers on the scene that night – Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane – were also convicted on federal and state charges.
Minneapolis, a Democratic-led city that has long been a center of progressive activism, was fundamentally changed by the killing of Mr. Floyd and the chaos that followed. For a time, the city became the center of a national defund-the-police movement, with activists and some City Council members calling for the elimination of the police force and a new approach to public safety. .
But in the years since Mr. Floyd’s death, the politics around crime and policing have changed again. Minneapolis voters rejected a measure on the ballot in 2021 that would have replaced the Police Department with a new public safety agency. Mr. Frey, who was jeered by protesters in the days after Mr. Floyd’s killing when he spoke out against defunding the police, was elected to a second term.
Troubles with the Minneapolis police force, which faced protests for other killings in the years before Mr. Floyd, it got worse. Hundreds of officers left their jobs, with some receiving disability payments for post-traumatic stress they attributed to the riot. Amid rising concerns about crime and uncertainty about the future of the department, the city has struggled to retain officers and meet recruiting goals.
When Minneapolis chose a new police chief last year, Brian O’Hara rose to the top of the list of candidates in large part because he helped oversee the implementation of a federal consent decree in Newark. , NJ Chief O’Hara said the road ahead is going to be challenging for his new town.
“This is a necessary step,” the chief said in an interview. “This is the way for the community to begin to heal, for the department to begin to heal, and for all of us to try to move forward.”
Beyond Minneapolis, the Justice Department is investigating complaints about possible systemic problems with law enforcement in Mount Vernon, NY; New York City; Oklahoma City; Phoenix; and Worcester, Mass., as well as the Louisiana State Police.
“The majority of Americans want the same thing: trust, safety, accountability,” President Biden said in a statement that said other Justice Department investigations began during his tenure. “Any police officer will tell you that public trust is the foundation of public safety.”
Critics and advocates alike acknowledge that consent decrees can be burdensome. Embraced by the Justice Department during the Obama and Biden administrations, but not during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, consent decrees can include hundreds of requirements, cost millions of dollars and last for long enough for residents to forget what success looks like.
However, the consent decree can be a powerful tool for reforming law enforcement agencies. The Justice Department says consent decrees work, especially when judicial oversight is in effect.
Vanita Gupta, the associate attorney general, said a consent decree would include input from residents and police officials, and that an agreement “will provide a path to lasting change in Minneapolis.” .”
But he also has a warning for residents: “Police reform will not happen overnight.”
Shaila Dewan contributed to the report.
