The U.S. Department of Justice wants to end an agreement that would enforce sweeping reforms on the Minneapolis Police Department from the federal level. The move comes just days before the five-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, which was a catalyst for bringing Minneapolis under federal scrutiny to begin with.
The DOJ filed a motion Wednesday asking a federal judge to dismiss a consent decree mandating that the police department adopt reforms. A judge’s signature is required to begin the process of enforcing a consent decree, which involves regular check-ins at hearings in federal court. The reform process would also be tracked outside of court by an independent monitor.
“After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest,” said the federal government’s motion. “The United States therefore does not wish to pursue this action any longer and hereby withdraws its support, agreement and concurrence with the Joint Motion for Approval of Settlement.”
The DOJ also motioned Wednesday to dismiss a similar consent decree in Louisville, Kentucky, and pledged to end other ongoing pattern or practice investigations into six other law enforcement agencies across the country that began under President Joe Biden’s administration.
“Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a news release posted on the DOJ website.
The DOJ entered the consent decree with the city of Minneapolis in January, just one week before President Donald Trump began his second term. But the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson, has not yet signed the consent decree into law. Since Trump came into office, the DOJ asked Magnuson three times to pause his review of the consent decree; he granted the requests each time.
The city filed a motion Wednesday opposing the DOJ’s request to withdraw the consent decree.
“Up is down,” the city’s motion began. “The representations to this Court made by the prior Department of Justice and those made by the current Department of Justice are irreconcilable. The City remains committed to the representations it made to this Court and to the reforms in the proposed Consent Decree; as a result, the City opposes a dismissal.”
Communities United Against Police Brutality, an advocacy group that filed motions on the case as an amicii, or friend of the court, also filed a motion Wednesday opposing the DOJ’s request out of the consent decree.
Previously, the city opposed the most recent motion to pause proceedings in the consent decree. City leaders have said since Trump’s inauguration that they’re committed to implementing the federal consent decree reforms regardless of what the federal government decides to do.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference Wednesday morning that the city will follow through with reforms outlined in the federal consent decree despite the DOJ’s motion.
“Here’s the bottom line: We’re doing it anyway,” Frey said. “We will comply with every sentence of every paragraph of the 169-page consent decree that we signed.”
How that will look moving forward is unclear. Minneapolis police are also subject to a separate state consent decree mandating court-enforced reforms focused on racial discrimination in policing.
The city selected Effective Law Enforcement for All (ELEA) to monitor the status of both the federal and state consent decrees. Frey spokesperson Aaron Rose said that the city has formally asked ELEA to monitor the reforms in the federal consent decree moving forward even if the DOJ withdraws.
Request comes days before fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder
Frey said he wasn’t surprised that the Trump administration made its move to end the federal consent decree just days before May 25, the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. Frey noted that the DOJ could have moved to end the consent decree earlier.
“What this shows is that all Donald Trump cares about is political theater,” Frey said.
The motion’s timing is linked to previous delays in the case that led the court to set Wednesday as a restarting date for new movement in the case.
The DOJ is asking a judge to dismiss the consent decree case with prejudice, meaning the federal government and city would not be allowed in the future to incorporate findings from the DOJ’s investigation into Minneapolis police into a new consent decree. Notably, the city’s motion opposing withdraw of the DOJ consent decree added that “if the Court decides to dismiss, the City’s position is that it should be with prejudice.”
John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Emerita Delores Jones-Brown said it’s unlikely that the judge would refuse the DOJ’s request to end the consent decree and force it to follow through with the reforms.
“The DOJ has said, ‘We don’t want to do it,’” said Jones-Brown, who has worked on independent monitoring teams for federal consent decrees against police departments in Ferguson, Missouri; and Newark, New Jersey. “So what you would end up with [if the judge forced them] is a sham, and to me it’s worse to have a sham consent decree than no consent decree.”
The consent decree would enforce new standards on Minneapolis police, including stronger reviews of police use-of-force incidents, more supervision for officers and providing more mental health resources for people in crises.
The DOJ launched a two-year pattern or practice investigation into Minneapolis police in 2021, one day after jurors in state court convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murdering Floyd on May 25, 2020.
In the summer of 2023, the DOJ released its findings, which concluded that the department engaged in unconstitutional policing.The investigation resulted in four key findings:
- Minneapolis police used excessive force.
- Police discriminated against Black and Native residents in traffic stops.
- They violated the rights of people engaged in First Amendment-protected activities, including protests.
- They discriminated against people with behavioral health disabilities.
The DOJ found that Minneapolis police were 6.5 times more likely to pull over Black drivers than white drivers, and about eight times more likely to pull over Native Americans in traffic stops.
Could the city have prepared better for Trump?
Minneapolis City Council Member Elliott Payne issued a written statement Wednesday criticizing the city for not better anticipating Trump’s impact on the consent decree.
“Today’s cruel action by the Trump administration, meant to sanitize our history, is why we should have never fought the idea that our police department and systems of accountability failed to keep us safe,” said Payne’s statement. “I want to apologize to our residents because today is a failure by everyone at the city. We all could have done more to anticipate the possibility that Trump would win the election and turn his back on our city, and we should have done more on City Council to hold the city administration accountable to enter into the consent decree before Trump had power.”
Payne could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday, although he made an appearance at Frey’s news conference earlier in the day.
Trump’s administration has made it clear that it does not support the federal-mandated reform of police departments.
Trump issued an executive order in April directing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to review all federal consent decrees on law enforcement, and to “modify, rescind, or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.”
Between March and May, all DOJ attorneys representing the federal government either withdrew or were terminated from the Minneapolis case, according to court records. This was likely a part of a larger mass exodus of prosecutors from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Department, which handles consent decrees; roughly 250 civil rights prosecutors have left the department since Trump was inaugurated, amounting to 70 percent of the division, according to NPR.
Similarly, two prosecutors from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office who oversaw the Minneapolis consent decree case withdrew from it last week.
Minneapolis police are still subject to a separate court-ordered consent decree on the state level, which was enforced after a similar investigation from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. That consent decree began in 2023 and has resulted in new policies on use of force, stops and searches, and citations, among others, according to a progress report issued earlier this year.
The Department of Human Rights issued a written statement Wednesday in response to the DOJ’s motion.
“While the Department of Justice walks away from their federal consent decree nearly five years from the murder of George Floyd, our Department and the state court consent decree isn’t going anywhere,” said Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero. “Under the state agreement, the City and MPD [Minneapolis Police Department] must make transformational changes to address race-based policing. The tremendous amount of work that lies ahead for the City, including MPD, cannot be understated. And our Department will be here every step of the way.”
ELEA released its second status report yesterday on the progress of the state consent decree, finding that overall use-of-force incidents were down, but that some officers expressed skepticism about the state consent decree’s reforms.
Many local activists have said they want to see a federal consent decree enforced because it would be broader in scope than the state consent decree, which is only enforcing the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The federal consent decree, if signed, would also likely last a decade, compared to an estimated four years for the state consent decree.
There is some overlap in the issues and reforms outlined in the state and federal consent decrees. But the city could attempt to add reforms listed in the federal consent decree only into the state consent decree, Jones-Brown said. Community advocates could also make the same attempt through court filings, she added.
“They should ask to modify the existing consent decree to adopt whatever in the federal consent decree they find is promising,” said Jones-Brown.
Asked whether the city would consider doing this, Frey’s spokesperson said “all options are being considered.”
Deepinder Mayell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, said in a statement that the ACLU and community intend to hold city leaders to their word regarding promises to fulfill the federal consent decree if the DOJ withdraws.
“While the ACLU of Minnesota is disappointed in the DOJ’s decision to back out of this consent decree,” Mayell said in a statement, “we are encouraged by Mayor Jacob Frey and Chief Brian O’Hara’s public commitment to abide by the terms of the federal consent decree.”
Staff writer Katrina Pross contributed to this report.
