The Trump administration is moving to dismiss federal oversight agreements in Louisville and Minneapolis reached following the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor and police killing of George Floyd, and dropping investigations into several major US police departments.
The move, announced by the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, reflects the administration’s opposition to agreements that require reforms of police departments where the DOJ found a pattern of misconduct.
The agreements, called consent decrees, are approved by a federal judge and are used as a monitoring system for police department reform when an investigation finds that it is needed.
“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement.
In court filings Wednesday morning, the Justice Department asked judges in Minnesota and Kentucky to dismiss the consent decrees reached with the police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville.
“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,” the DOJ said of the Minneapolis agreement.
The Civil Rights Division is also closing investigations into local police departments in Phoenix; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Louisiana State Police.
Dhillon told reporters Wednesday that the Justice Department would be reviewing all open consent decrees – but said that there still may be some circumstances where a consent decree is appropriate.
“I think that might be an appropriate vehicle for a federal consent decree. Theoretically, we are not ruling it out. What we are saying is the ones that are in front of us don’t meet the standards, the high standards of the Department of Justice today,” she said.
Trump and his Republican allies have long criticized the use of court-ordered consent decrees to enforce police reform efforts.
During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department attempted to upend an Obama-era consent decree for Baltimore’s police department that hadn’t yet been approved by a judge by the time the new administration took over.
Some in the policing community say that consent decrees, while well intentioned, aren’t the most useful tool for achieving reform.
Jim Pasco, the longtime Executive Director of the Fraternal Order of Police, said that consent decrees are ineffective and “do not make any material positive difference in the relationship between police departments and the cities they serve.”
“In fact, to the contrary, it exacerbates the problem because it validates thinking in urban areas that the police are their enemy,” he said.
Pasco said that a collaborative agreement allowing police department management, labor union representatives, and community stake holders to meet and oversee reforms would be more effective.
Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, said in a statement, however, it’s “no surprise that Trump’s Department of Coverups and Vengeance isn’t seeking justice.”
“It’s been five years, and police reform legislation still hasn’t passed in Congress, and police departments still haven’t been held accountable. … We elect people to take action, and all they seem to do is take action against us. How much longer do you need to actually do something?”
Cities say they are still dedicated to reform
Despite the Justice Department abandoning the reform agreements, cities and their police departments quickly said they were committed to continue implementing the reforms that the DOJ had mandated.
The Justice Department told a judge Wednesday that one of the consent decrees, which subjected the Louisville police department to “micromanagement by an independent monitor, the Department of Justice, or a federal court,” is “nolonger necessary.” That decree was reached in mid-December after a years-long investigation into the city’s police department following the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020.
Among the proposed reforms outlined in the agreement was a requirement that Louisville police officers “useappropriate de-escalation techniques and attempt to resolve incidents without force when possible, and use force in a manner that is reasonable, necessary, and proportional to the threat presented.”
It also mandated the department investigate “allegations of officer misconduct fully, fairly, and efficiently, and holds all officers who commit misconduct accountable through fair and consistent discipline.”
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg and LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey said at press conference following the Justice Department’s announcement that the city still remains committed to reform.
“While this is not the outcome we hope for, when we stood right here in December and announced the decree, it is an outcome, we have planned for,” Greenberg said. He outlined a new reform effort that will have its own independent monitoring process.
Humphrey echoed the notion, saying that “it’s not about these words on this paper, it’s about the work that the men and women of LMPD, the men and women of metro government, and the community will do together in order to make us a safer, better place.”
Minneapolis also doubled down on their commitment to improvements.
The federal agreement there came years after the police killing of George Floyd. A DOJ probe of the department found that its officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force.”
Among other things, the agreement focused on Minneapolis “preventing excessive force; stopping racially discriminatory policing; improving officers’ interactions with youth” and “protecting the public’s First Amendment rights,” according to the Justice Department.
Even if a judge allows the federal agreement to be dismissed, Minneapolis’ police department is also under a second court-approved agreement with the city and state’s Department of Human Rights, though that agreement isn’t as sweeping as the proposed federal one.
Dhillon said Wednesday that local agreement alone was “more than sufficient.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey touted the state agreement on X shortly after DOJ’s announcement, writing that the city, in its first year of monitoring, has “made more progress toward building a foundation for reform than almost any other city in the country.”
“That’s not by chance—it’s because we’re showing up, we’re doing the work, and we’re staying committed,” Frey wrote.
