Trump administration to end federal oversight of police

Washington — The Trump administration is ending efforts to secure agreements for federal oversight of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, despite a previous government finding that they routinely violated the civil rights of black people.

In a major rollback of federal civil rights investigations, the justice department said on Wednesday it was also ending investigations and rescinding findings of misconduct into six other police departments, deeming the probes — many were launched after a 2020 wave of worldwide protests over racial justice — as overreaching.

“Federal micromanagement of local police should be a rare exception, not the norm,” said Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney-general for the department’s civil rights division. Control of police belongs with their communities rather than unelected bureaucrats, she added.

Dhillon said her office will seek to dismiss the pending litigation against the two cities and retract the department’s earlier findings of constitutional violations.

Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a black man who was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck even as he repeatedly pleaded that he couldn't breathe.

Floyd’s killing, as well as that of Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death by Louisville police executing a no-knock warrant, sparked worldwide protests about racially motivated policing practices during the final year of President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

The mayors of Minneapolis and Louisville said they would continue to implement reforms mandated in the federal agreements despite the justice department action. Minneapolis opposed the Trump administration’s move in court, saying it would impede the city’s progress on policing.

“Neither Trump nor anyone in Washington can stop us from doing this work that we are indeed committed to,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey told reporters.

Dhillon also said the department will be closing investigations and retracting earlier findings of wrongdoing against the police departments in Phoenix, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the Louisiana State Police.

Minneapolis and Louisville were the two highest-profile cities investigated for systemic police abuse during President Joe Biden's administration and were the only two cities that agreed to the terms of a court-approved settlement, known as a consent decree, with the justice department.

Dhillon said the department was reviewing all federal consent decrees, many of which date back to President Barack Obama’s administration, to determine whether they should continue.

The moves announced on Wednesday would largely undo years of work on police oversight during Biden’s administration and represent a scaling back of the department’s historic role to investigate and monitor troubled departments.

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represented the Floyd and Taylor families, said “the DOJ [justice department] is not just rolling back reform; it is attempting to erase truth and contradicting the very principles for which justice stands.”

“These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures, they were lifelines for communities crying out for change, rooted in years of organising, suffering, and advocacy.”

‘A different process’

Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg said the city would hire an independent monitor to assess the police department’s progress, setting aside $750,000 in the city’s budget.

“The goals for reform and the objectives for improvement are exactly the same as they were,” Greenberg said during a press conference. “It will just be a different process.”

Minneapolis also separately entered a similar type of settlement with the state of Minnesota to reform its police practices. That agreement, which includes many but not all of the reforms mandated in the federal agreement, will remain in effect.

Frey said the same monitor overseeing Minneapolis’ compliance with the state agreement would also ensure the city followed through on reforms the justice department had sought.

Both reform agreements mandated sweeping changes to police training, use-of-force policies and internal discipline.

Congress authorised the justice department to conduct civil investigations into constitutional abuses by police, such as excessive use of force or racially motivated policing, in 1994, as a response to the beating of Rodney King, a black man, by white Los Angeles police officers.

During Biden’s presidency, the civil rights division launched 12 such “pattern or practice” investigations into police departments.

But during those four years it failed to enter into any court-binding consent decrees, an issue that legal experts warned could put the department’s police accountability work at risk of being undone.

The Trump administration has steered the civil rights division away from pursuing cases to protect the country’s vulnerable and historically disenfranchised populations and towards conservative causes such as gun rights and anti-Semitism at US colleges.

Since Trump returned to power in January, the division has lost more than 200 attorneys, Dhillon told reporters on Wednesday.

Reuters