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U.S.|Minneapolis Promises Police Overhaul in Deal With Justice Department
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/us/minneapolis-police-consent-decree-justice.html
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With only two weeks left in the Biden administration, officials hurried to finalize a plan in the city where George Floyd was murdered.
Jan. 6, 2025Updated 4:51 p.m. ET
The Minneapolis City Council unanimously voted on Monday to overhaul its police department to address a pattern of systemic abuses, as part of an agreement with the Department of Justice.
Lawyers from the Department of Justice and the city, where George Floyd was killed in 2020 by a police officer, have raced in recent weeks to finalize terms of the deal, known as a consent decree, before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office. The previous Trump administration opposed the use of consent decrees, and the fate of nearly a dozen other federal investigations into American police departments is uncertain.
Under the deal approved on Monday, the Minneapolis department promised to closely track and investigate allegations of police misconduct, rein in the use of force, and improve officer training.
“This agreement reflects what our community has asked for and what we know is necessary: real accountability and meaningful change,” Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said in a statement.
Federal oversight, the strongest tool available to overhaul police departments with histories of abuse, begins with an exhaustive civil rights investigation and a report of findings. Cities then usually agree to negotiate a consent decree, a court-enforced oversight agreement, in order to avoid a federal lawsuit.
The Minneapolis decree was set in motion in the summer of 2023 after the Department of Justice issued a report accusing the city’s police department of routinely discriminating against Black and Native American residents, of needlessly using deadly force and of violating the First Amendment rights of protesters and journalists.
