The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously on Jan. 6 to enter into a sweeping agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to overhaul longstanding racist policing practices that culminated in the murder of George Floyd.
The deal’s final terms, known as a consent decree, resulted from a DOJ investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department concluded in June 2023. Following November’s presidential election, the goal was to get the document filed in federal court and signed off by a judge no later than Jan. 20 when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
During Trump’s first term, his administration sought to end DOJ investigations into police violence cases across the nation, including in Chicago where an officer shot Laquan McDonald 16 times while the teen walked away from police. The Chicago Police Department concluded the incident was a justifiable homicide; activist demands for dash-cam footage, released a year later, led to a first-degree murder conviction.
Once approved by the court, the agreement is binding and enforceable by law without the possibility of interference by the DOJ or any other entity.
Council members spent most of Monday behind closed doors reviewing the 171-page document before voting 12-0 to approve the agreement. Councilmember Michael Rainville was absent. In the deal struck, the MPD agreed to better track and investigate police misconduct, rein in the use of force, and improve officer training.
“I gave very clear direction to our entire administration to not just get an agreement done with urgency, but to get an agreement done right, to get something that set a standard that everybody understands, a standard that is not going to shift with political wins or changes of administration at the city or federal level,” Mayor Jacob Frey said in announcing the agreement. “This agreement is rock solid, and our commitment to it, regardless of the circumstances, is also rock solid.”
The agreement is the second consent decree mandating change within the MPD since Floyd’s murder. Following a separate investigation, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MNDHR) and the City agreed in 2023 to a list of transformational changes. Despite well-documented abuses dating back generations, it was the first state civil rights investigation into the MPD in history. Minneapolis also is now the country’s first city to operate under federal and state consent decrees.
The MNDHR released its report in April 2022 after considering 10 years of practices, policies, and procedures within the MPD. The DOJ Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Minnesota followed on June 16, 2023, issuing a scathing report tracking a years-long pattern of racial animus within the department.
The federal consent decree outlines multiple changes that must be made within MPD. Officers are required to intervene if they see another officer violating the rights of a person regardless of the violator’s rank. It bans chokeholds, neck restraints, and limits the use of chemical sprays as part of a larger use-of-force policy that requires officers to “promote the sanctity of life as the highest priority in their activities.”
It also limits pretextual stops — where police use a minor equipment or traffic violation to pull over someone they want to investigate.
“We are not going to just comply with its terms, but we will exceed expectations, and we will make change real for people on the street, saving lives and keeping people safe,” said Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who previously led the Newark Police Department through a consent decree.
The Minneapolis-based nonprofit Effective Law Enforcement for All will oversee changes within the department as an independent evaluator of both consent decrees. The City allocated a total of $27 million in its 2024 and 2025 budgets to implement reforms required by the two consent decrees, the same amount previously paid by the City to settle a wrongful death suit brought by Floyd’s family.
“The news of an agreement with the DOJ is very encouraging,” said Justin Terrell, executive director of the nonprofit Minnesota Justice Research Center. “Community members have both the DOJ and MNDHR going beyond calling attention to a longtime confirmed problem but offering a tool for the city and its residents to address proven constitutional violations and race-based policing practices in MPD.”
The Justice Department has opened a dozen similar investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies since 2021, reaching agreements with Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago, and Ferguson, Missouri. But DOJ investigations into racist practices over the next four years are all but guaranteed to end.
Trump has consistently expressed hostility toward attempts to rein in abuses, calling such efforts a “war on police.” He went further at a campaign rally last year, imagining “one really violent day” in which police could operate without restraint.
Councilmember Robin Wonsley has no faith that the Trump administration will support implementation of the agreement. “Having a federal consent decree signed and in place is valuable to police reform efforts, but we need to be sober about the fact that it will take local political will to hold the city and the Frey administration accountable to implementing and enforcing the terms of the consent decree,” she said in a statement.
Trump’s planned nomination of Harmeet K. Dhillon as assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division raises further alarms. Dhillon built her career championing conservative causes, among them attacking corporate diversity programs and defending “the civil liberties of Americans left behind by civil rights legacy organizations.” She is expected to oversee a tectonic shift in enforcement priorities from previous administrations.
“Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them,” Maya Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement.
While recognizing the historic moment of finally holding the MPD accountable for its longstanding history of abuses, City Council President Elliott Payne isn’t ready to claim victory. “This is just words on paper,” he said. Change “has to happen on the ground and has to happen in the real world. And the results of that work we are still waiting for.
“I don’t think we’ll be proud until the day all residents in our city feel an equitable justice system.”
Clint Combs contributed to this report. Cynthia Moothart welcomes reader responses at cmoothart@spokesman-recorder.com.