MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Justice Department issued a withering criticism of Minneapolis police Friday, alleging that they systematically discriminated against racial minorities, violated constitutional rights and ignored the safety of people in custody. during years before George Floyd was murdered.
The report was the result of an extensive two-year investigation, and confirmed many of the citizen complaints about police conduct that arose after Floyd’s death. 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 police and the city discriminated against Black and Native American people and people with “behavioral health disabilities.”
“We saw many MPD officers who did their difficult job with professionalism, courage and respect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Minneapolis. “But the patterns and practices that we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”
Garland said officers routinely neglected the safety of people in custody, pointing to numerous examples where someone complained they couldn’t breathe, only for officers to respond with a version of “You can breathe.” You are talking right now.
The officers involved in Floyd’s May 25, 2020, Arrest made similar comments.
Police “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a minor offense and sometimes no offense at all,” the report says. The officers “used force to punish people who angered the officers or criticized the police.”
Police also “patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing, or using force against people during stops,” according to the report.
As a result of the investigation, the city and the police department agreed to an agreement known as a consent decree, which will require the reforms to be overseen by an independent monitor and approved by a federal judge. That arrangement is similar to reform efforts in Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago, and Ferguson, Missouri.
Consent decrees require agencies to meet specific goals before federal oversight is removed, a process that often takes many years and requires millions of dollars.
Terrence Floyd, George Floyd’s younger brother, praised the Justice Department for its review.
“This is how you resolve and stop what is happening with law enforcement,” said Floyd, who is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who was hired last year to oversee reforms following Floyd’s killing, said his agency was committed to creating “the kind of police department every Minneapolis resident deserves.”
Mayor Jacob Frey acknowledged the work ahead.
“We understand that change is non-negotiable,” Frey said. “Progress can be painful and the obstacles can be great. But we have not let up in the three years since the murder of George Floyd.”
The scathing report reflected Garland’s efforts to prioritize civil rights and policing across the country. Similar investigations of police departments have been carried out in Louisville, Phoenix and Memphis, among other cities.
The Minneapolis investigation was released in April 2021, a day after former officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the murder of Floyd, who was black.
During their match, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before going limp as Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s 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.
The Justice Department reviewed police practices dating back to 2016 and found that officers sometimes shot people without determining whether an immediate threat existed.
Officers also used neck restraints like the one Chauvin used on Floyd nearly 200 times from Jan. 1, 2016, to Aug. 16, 2022, including 44 instances that did not require an arrest. Some officers continued to wear neck restraints after they were banned following Floyd’s killing, according to the report.
The research found that black drivers in Minneapolis are 6.5 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers, and Native American drivers are 7.9 times more likely to be stopped. And police often retaliated against protesters and journalists covering the protests, according to the report.
The city dispatched officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, “even when a police response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results,” according to the report.
The findings were based on document reviews, body camera video, data provided by the city and police, and walks and conversations with officers, residents and others, according to the report.
President Joe Biden called the findings “disturbing” and said in a written statement that they “underscore the urgent need for Congress to pass common-sense reforms that will increase public trust, combat racial discrimination, and thereby strengthen the public security”.
Some changes have already been made.
The report noted that police are now prohibited from wearing neck restraints like the one that killed Floyd. Officers are no longer allowed to use some crowd control weapons without the boss’s permission. “Do not touch” orders were banned after the 2022 death of Amir Locke.
The city has also launched a program in which trained mental health professionals answer some calls in place of the police.
Keisha Deonarine, the NAACP’s director of opportunity, race and justice, applauded the Justice Department for holding police accountable, but said much work remains to be done, and not just in Minneapolis.
“This is an ongoing problem across the country,” Deonarine said. “When you look at the police system, it’s a militarized system. It is absolutely not used, utilized or trained the way it should be.”
The Justice Department is not alone in uncovering problems.
TO similar research by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found “significant racial disparities with respect to officer use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” He criticized “an organizational culture in which some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic and disrespectful language with impunity.”
The federal report recommends 28 “remedial” steps to improve surveillance as a prelude to the consent decree. Garland said the steps “provide an initial framework to enhance public safety, build community trust, and comply with the constitution and federal law.”
The mayor said city leaders want a single monitor to oversee both the federal plan and the state agreement to avoid having “two different determinations of whether or not it was met. That is not a way to achieve clear and objective success.”
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.
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 those sentences in Tucson, Arizona.
___
Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri. Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, Aaron Morrison in New York and Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri contributed to this report.
___
Find AP’s full coverage of the murder of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.