Court approves MPD settlement agreement

After last week’s hearing, Judge Karen Janisch signed a court-enforceable settlement agreement submitted by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) and the City of Minneapolis. The agreement, which is 144 pages long, is a legally binding document that lays out the terms of the settlement including new rules, training and reforms that the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) will be legally required to follow.

The settlement agreement is the result of more than 30 negotiation meetings between the City of Minneapolis and MDHR that took place over the course of nine months. Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Megan McKenzie, who argued the hearing on behalf of MDHR, said the settlement agreement stemmed from the 2020 murder of George Floyd by former MPD officer Derek Chauvin.

“The criminal justice system has appropriately held [the officers who murdered Floyd] individually accountable, but individual accountability is only one step on the road to justice,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie said that following the road to justice led MDHR Commissioner Rebecca Lucero to file a commissioner’s charge of discrimination against the City of Minneapolis and MPD. The charge followed a years-long investigation into human rights abuses by MPD that concluded that the police department had engaged in racially biased policing.

Minneapolis will hire an independent evaluator, who will also be approved by MDHR, to monitor whether the City is making adequate strides to comply with the consent decree. The independent evaluator team, for which the City has set aside up to $1.5 million per year, will submit annual reports to the public regarding the progress. Judge Janisch requested these reports also be submitted for the court record.

After four years, if the City has fully complied with the reforms in the settlement agreement it can request a termination evaluation to end the settlement agreement. If the city is not in full compliance within four years, it can still strike out the parts of the agreement that it is complying with. 

Minneapolis City Attorney Kristyn Anderson said she does not expect the city to achieve full compliance with the settlement agreement overnight, but that the city was “absolutely committed” to the agreement. 

“I anticipate the first year of the agreement is going to be a huge amount of work and undertaking. Maybe after that year, I could imagine that the evaluation team might get smaller. But it really is flexible and is designed to be that way,” Anderson said.

Anderson stressed that the settlement agreement that was approved Thursday is not the same as the consent decree that is being negotiated with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Judge Janisch commended both parties for their work in preparing the settlement agreement, saying the document “reflected a lot of work.”

“There is a huge framework,” Janisch said. “There is going to be a lot of work that the City is going to need to be doing in the very near future, to get this staffed up and these processes and systems developed, and training programs developed and implemented. I hope that the City is up to that task and that [they] can find good people to carry this forward and to start implementing the framework, the systems, and procedures, and the oversight.”

Toshira Garraway Allen, founder of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, attended Thursday’s hearing. Garraway Allen said the settlement agreement left her hopeful.

“It gives me a little bit of hope knowing that going forward people understand that if you mistreat someone, there are a set of rules in place to hold you accountable for that,” she said. “It still saddens my heart, though, to know that there was a lot of discrimination towards Black and Native people at the hands of the people who we’re supposed to have trusted to protect and serve us, all human beings from all walks of life.”

While hopeful, Garraway Allen did express worry that the settlement agreement would not change the culture at MPD. “We can put some rules in place, but what concerns me is I don’t know how hearts will change because of this,” she said. 

“People who have created this discrimination against our community, against Black and Native people, I don’t know how a set of rules can tell someone how to see another human being as a human being.”

With the settlement agreement approved by the courts, the City and MDHR will search for an independent evaluator to monitor the City’s progress toward meeting the agreement’s criteria. Negotiations between the City of Minneapolis and the DOJ for a consent decree are ongoing.