Two organizations that are candidates to monitor the Minneapolis Police Department under the consent decrees—Effective Law Enforcement for All (ELEFA) and Relman Colfax—participated in a presentation to residents hosted by Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB) on January 8. The organization selected will be responsible for monitoring the Minneapolis Police Department’s progress in meeting the terms of both the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) and Department of Justice (DOJ) consent decrees.
A third candidate, Jensen Hughes Inc., was not invited because of political differences with CUAPB over the company’s handling of the assessment of the city and MPD’s response to the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd.
The two consent decrees were put in place in response to conduct and patterns of practice by MPD officers that the DOJ and MDHR found violated the constitutional rights of Black and Native American residents of Minneapolis, as well as residents with behavioral health disabilities. Because MDHR is a state agency and the DOJ is a federal department, the monitor team that is selected will have to report separately on the progress of the consent decrees to a state and a federal judge.
David Douglass, the president and cofounder of ELEFA, has been serving as deputy monitor for a consent decree in New Orleans since 2013. Douglass says ELEFA focuses on three goals for the community when monitoring consent decrees—education, empowerment, and engagement.
“What we’re trying to do is give the public a better ask,” said Douglass. “We all know bad policing when we see it. We can all clamor for an end to bad policing. But the key is to be able to ask for better policing and essentially that’s what consent decrees do.”
Reed Colfax, a partner at Relman Colfax, primarily represents victims of discrimination. Colfax says the main goal of his organization, if selected as monitor, would be to facilitate collaboration with the community. Colfax says they would look to interview as many Minneapolis residents about their experiences with MPD as possible.
Iris Roley, a founding leader of Cincinnati Black United Front and a member of the Relman Colfax monitoring team, believes that Relman Colfax is the best choice to serve as monitor for Minneapolis’ consent decrees because it brings together various partners. Relman Colfax’s monitoring team is made up of academics, lawyers, activists, community members, and former law enforcement members. Roley also cited Relman Colfax’s strong technical assistance and data collection team.
“Data is more critical for the community than it is for police, because you all need to be able to decipher what they’re collecting,” Roley said. You also need to weigh in on what they’re collecting and how they collect it and where that’s published.”
Douglass believes ELEFA is the best fit for the monitoring role because their team has worked on consent decrees from both the monitoring and policing sides. Michael Harrison, the former police chief of New Orleans, has led two police departments through consent decrees and believes those past experiences would help ELEFA effectively interact with MPD officers.
“Following the consent decree, we’ve actually done that twice,” Harrison said. “And while doing it, we were able to reduce crime to historic lows in both cities.”
Community member Stacey Gurian-Sherman, who serves on the Minneapolis Community Commission of Police Oversight, said she was “deeply skeptical” of the effectiveness of consent decrees after seeing how departments could manipulate monitors into signing off on unfulfilled consent decree conditions during her time working at the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. Several community members expressed concern that both monitoring teams may be inadequately prepared to change the department culture of MPD, or that the candidates did not understand the scale of the task.
“There isn’t anything that anyone has said in here that dissuades me of my skepticism,” Gurian-Sherman said. “I don’t believe [the Community Commission on Police Oversight]. I don’t believe a consent decree will get us what we want. The thing that will get us what we want is realizing this is a long-term project. Going in here and saying we’re going to do this in two, or three, or four, or even 10 years after the systemic violence and trauma and racism, I think is naive.”
Despite the warnings, Arlinda Brooks, a former internal affairs chief in the New Orleans Police Department who is part of ELEFA’s team, was optimistic. Brooks says that ELEFA realizes this will not be easy or short-term work. She hopes that codifying the consent decree’s policies into law will permanently change MPD’s culture even after the consent decree is fulfilled.
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