MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Justice Department has found that Minneapolis police engaged in a pattern of violation of constitutional rights and discrimination against blacks and Native Americans following an investigation into the murder of George Floyd.
The sweeping two-year civil rights investigation concluded that systemic problems at the Minneapolis Police Department “made what happened to George Floyd possible,” according to the report.
The investigation found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people who engage in constitutionally protected speech.
The investigation also found that both Minneapolis police and the city of Minneapolis discriminated against people with “behavioral health disabilities” when officers asked for help.
The “pattern or practice” investigation was released in April 2021, one day after the former officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter. in it May 25, 2020, murder of Floyd, who was black.
Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before going limp as Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine and a half minutes. The murder was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests as part of a broader national reckoning on racial injustice.
“For years, the MPD used dangerous weapons and techniques against people who committed, at most, a minor crime and sometimes no crime at all,” the report states. “MPD used force to punish people who angered officers or criticized police. MPD patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial makeup and discriminated based on race by searching, handcuffing, or using force against people during stops.”
The report found that the city dispatched officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, “even when a police response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results. These actions put MPD officers and the Minneapolis community at risk.”
The findings were based on reviews of documents and incident files; watching body camera videos; data provided by the city and the police; and walks and conversations with officers, residents and others, the report says.
Federal investigators acknowledged that the city and Minneapolis police have already begun reforms.
The report notes that police policy now prohibits neck restraints like the one Chauvin used to kill Floyd. Officers are no longer allowed to use some crowd control weapons without the boss’s permission. And warrants for arrest without notice were banned after the 2022 death of Amir Locke.
The city has also launched a “promising” behavioral health response program in which trained mental health professionals answer some calls instead of police.
The Department of Justice is not alone in its finding of problems.
TO similar research by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights led to a “court-enforceable settlement agreement” to address the long list of issues identified in the report, with input from residents, officials, city staff, and others. Frey and state human rights commissioner Rebecca Lucero signed the agreement in March.
The state investigation, which concluded in April 2022, found “significant racial disparities with respect to officer use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” And he criticized “an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic and disrespectful language with impunity.”
Lucero said the legally binding agreement requires the city and the police department to make “transformational changes” to fix the organizational culture of the force, noting that it could serve as a model for how cities, police departments and members of the community elsewhere work to stop the race. based police surveillance.
The federal investigation could have resulted in a separate but similar court-enforceable settlement, known as a consent decree, that would overlay the array with the state.
Various police departments in other cities operate under consent decrees for alleged civil rights violations. A consent decree requires agencies to meet specific goals before federal oversight is removed, a process that often takes many years and costs millions of dollars.
Floyd, 46, was arrested on suspicion of trading a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He fought with the police when they tried to put him in a police car and, although he was already handcuffed, they forced him to the ground. As Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, J. Alexander Kueng held Floyd’s back, Thomas Lane held Floyd’s feet, and Tou Thao kept bystanders away.
Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years for murder. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in that case. He is serving the sentences concurrently at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona.
Kueng, Lane and Thao were sentenced in federal charges in February 2022. All three were convicted of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care, and Thao and Kueng were also convicted of failing to intervene to arrest Chauvin during the murder. lane and kueng they have since pleaded guilty to a state charge of accessory to second-degree manslaughter. In exchange, the charges of complicity in the murder were dropped.
Lane, who is white, is serving his two-and-a-half-year federal sentence at a facility in Colorado. At the same time, he is serving a three-year state sentence. Kueng, who is black, is serving a three-year federal sentence in Ohio, while also serving a three-and-a-half-year state sentence.
Thao, who is a Hmong American, received a federal sentence of 3 1/2 years. In May, the judge in the state case found him guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter. Thao had said that “it would be lying” if he had pleaded guilty and agreed to let the judge decide the case. The judge set the sentence for August 7.
Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
Find AP’s full coverage of the murder of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
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