On Friday, June 16, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had concluded its investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) and disclosed that officers had engaged in patterns and practices of discriminatory policing.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the conduct, which included using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black and Native people, as well as violating the rights of those exercising protected speech and those suffering a mental health crisis, violated the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution. In addition to violating free speech and Constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, the MPD violated the Safe Streets for All Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Civil Rights Act.
“The patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible,” said Attorney General Garland. “As one city leader told us, ‘These systemic issues didn’t just occur on May 25, 2020. There were instances that were being reported by the community long before [May 25, 2020].’”
The report, which was partially informed by Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB) in its all-volunteer effort to collect over 2,000 testimonies from people affected by Minneapolis police officers’ misconduct, listed the following findings:
- MPD officers shoot first, and ask questions later, citing Mohamed Noor’s killing of Justine Damond in a southwest Minneapolis alleyway in 2017. Noor is no longer with the MPD and has served his sentence in prison;
- MPD officers tend to tase children and people with behavioral health issues;
- MPD officers use excessive force on people accused of minor offenses or no offense at all, including confronting and pinning a teenager who was accused of stealing a $5 burrito against the hood of a car at gunpoint;
- MPD officers did not ensure the safety of those in their custody. Aside from failing to get medical help for George Floyd, they also failed to get an ambulance for a woman detained by police who was having an asthma attack;
- MPD officers stop Black and Native American people six times more often than White people, and stopped collecting racial data for the people they stopped after May 25, 2020;
- MPD officers retaliated against those exercising their right to free speech, including assaulting journalists and bystanders who were criticizing their work, actions protected under the Constitution, regardless of whether or not profanity was used;
- MPD officers responded unnecessarily and overacted to people experiencing mental health crises, at times escalating those situations;
Marginalized communities were no strangers to Minneapolis Police Department’s misconduct. Activists cite the killings of Jamar Clark and Terrence Franklin, as examples of MPD officers brutalizing Minneapolis Black and Native residents with impunity beyond the DOJ’s investigation window, which examined a period dating back to 2016.
At a City Hall press conference after the DOJ’s announcement, Toussiant Morrison recounted how he was handcuffed on top of a squad car in the fifth grade as he walked down the street after school.
“Walking down the street after school, I got pulled over by cops, and bent over on the hood of [their squad car]. I had the same thought. Wow, everything has to change,” said Morrison. “How is it that we have [Mayor Jacob Frey] that needs to see a public lynching of George Floyd to think everything has to change?”
In 2017, activists founded MPD150, which prepared a report recommending the abolition of the Minneapolis Police Department, citing findings similar to what both the Department of Justice and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found–that MPD officers criminalize community members, escalate their interactions, and retaliate against those who try to hold them accountable. Additionally, a report published this month by Global Rights For Women found that MPD routinely failed to adequately handle domestic violence calls. They’ve only taken reports or made arrests in 20 percent of those calls.
“If you think Derek Chauvin was bad, look at the record for many of the officers who are part of the Minneapolis Police Department. It wasn’t just about one officer. It’s about a system and it’s about a culture that has refused to change,” said civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong.
The DOJ’s findings come on the heels of an investigation led by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) that also found the MPD engaged in patterns of practice of discriminatory policing. Both the city of Minneapolis and the MDHR have submitted a court-enforceable agreement to a judge for consideration. Hennepin County Judge Karen Janisch is currently accepting comments on the agreement until June 23, and plans to hold a hearing on July 13.
The MDHR also plans to have people meet with a list of organizations and firms that have been shortlisted to be the independent evaluator that will monitor compliance with the agreement. Communities United Against Police Brutality CUAPB) is opposed to the proposed monitors, reportedly made up of law firms that have worked with the city before.
“We have people who are not qualified to apply for this thing. We want to see a real monitor. The thing about monitoring in any of these consent decrees is that they [monitors] are the secret sauce that makes these consent decrees work,” said CUAPB founder Michelle Gross. “If you want to bring in some person from out of town that has minimal experience and let them just check the boxes, we will get the result that the city desires. But the community will not tolerate that.”
Changes to Minneapolis police are expected to take years, says Mayor Jacob Frey. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wish that we did have that sort of magic wand where we could wave it and then suddenly everything changes,” said Frey. “There’s either a legal reason that we can’t, or there’s an extended process that we have to go through in order to make the change that is being advocated for.” Chief Brian O’Hara says the officers who were involved in the incidents called out in the report have either been terminated or have otherwise separated from the department.
Meanwhile, Frey doesn’t want dueling consent decrees and wants one evaluator to oversee the implementation of federal and state consent decrees, with the goal of ensuring people feel safe going to the police, if and when they need help. “We don’t want two distinct agreements, with two distinct monitors, with two different determinations of whether compliance has been met or not. That’s not a way to get to clear, objective success,” said Frey during the DOJ’s press conference.
As the DOJ begins to engage the community on what a consent decree should entail in the coming months, residents remain concerned about potential retaliatory behavior that Minneapolis police officers may exhibit given the findings in the reports. They worry that MPD will exhibit similar behavior to what happened after George Floyd’s murder, where they stopped collecting racial data of those who they detained. Both Frey and O’Hara insist officers need more direction in what behavior is expected of them. With regard to the collection of racial data, Chief O’Hara says it is as simple as removing the option for officers to select “unknown” when they report the race of someone who they intercept, as the intent of the report is for the officers to make that decision.
Local organizations and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison welcome the findings made by the Department of Justice and look forward to fixing them. “I’ve always feared that after the convictions of Derek Chauvin and others for the murder of George Floyd, too many people would dismiss that tragedy as an aberration. Now, two separate, independent investigations by state and federal authorities have found very serious and systemic problems that we have to fix,” said Attorney General Ellison in a statement.
The Minnesota Justice Research Center, the organization that conducted engagement around informing the Department of Human Rights’ court-enforceable agreement, released a statement from its executive director Justin Terrell. “The Minnesota Justice Research Center welcomes this news and calls upon leaders within both the City and MPD to take this historic opportunity to re-imagine policing in–and with–communities across Minneapolis. This is an all-hands on deck moment where the community, state, and federal government are on board with focus to address what is ailing policing in Minneapolis.”
Meanwhile, a statement from the legal team that represented Tekle Sundberg, Amir Locke and George Floyd expressed concern that the Cty is taking action contrary to what is recommended by the Department of Justice and the Department of Human Rights, and calls for the federal government to take action.
“Our legal team remains skeptical about Minneapolis’ commitment to change and accountability. We are deeply concerned that while City leaders appear to be cooperating with the DOJ directives to create change, the City is doing the opposite, and vigorously defending the conduct of the officers who shot and killed Amir Locke,” said the team. “The efforts by the City to try and dismiss this case should be a red flag for the community that city officials publicly stood next to and supported the Locke family in the aftermath of his killing, but the City now seeks to avoid ALL accountability for Amir’s death.”
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