U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials announced on Friday the results of a more than two-year investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department likely to yield another court-enforceable agreement after officials found patterns of unlawful discriminatory policing, among other violations.
The pattern-or-practice investigation, launched a day after a jury convicted former MPD officer Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s murder in April 2021, found that officers stopped, searched and used force disproportionately against Black and Native American residents. Officers were six times more likely to stop a Black or Native American person than a white person, according to federal officials’ review of about 187,000 traffic and pedestrian stops.
“Our review focused on MPD as a whole, not on the actions of any individual officer. We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage, and respect,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”
Officers also regularly used excessive force, and violated the rights of journalists and protesters who took to the streets in the days after George Floyd’s murder, the DOJ found.
Unjustified force
Federal investigators from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division examined all types of force used by officers, and did a comprehensive review of the department’s policies, training and supervision. They found unreasonable use of tasers by MPD officers, unjust deathly force, routine excessive force when no force was needed and use of lethal force techniques like neck restraints without warning.
“We found that MPD unconstitutionally uses bodily force and pepper spray against people who have committed minor offenses or no offense at all. In addition, we saw repeated instances of excessive force against kids without appropriate attempts to de-escalate the situation,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke. ”In one instance, an MPD officer wearing street clothes drew his gun and pinned a teenager to the hood of a car for allegedly taking a $5 burrito without paying.”
Investigators concluded that officers also failed to intervene in situations where colleagues used excessive force, and regularly showed indifference to the wellbeing of those in their custody. Federal officials found several instances in which officers disregarded the claims of people in custody that they couldn’t breathe, in which officers said if they could speak, they could breathe.
Officials also reviewed 19 police shootings, many of them deadly, and one death while in custody between January 2016 and August 2022, deeming many of them unconstitutional uses of deadly force. One of them was the 2017 killing of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, who was fatally shot in an alley behind her home by then-MPD officer Mohamed Noor because he said she had spooked him as she ran up to their squad car to report a sexual assault.
In addition to force incidents, investigators also reviewed MPD’s accountability process, from complaint intake and investigation to discipline, finding several instances where officers weren’t held accountable for racist behavior unless they experienced community backlash. Garland cited one encounter with Somali teens where an officer referenced an infamous American special forces raid in Mogadishu in the early 1990s, stating “I’m proud of that… We didn’t finish the job over there… if we had… you guys wouldn’t be over here right now.”
Multiple investigations
The conclusion of the federal investigation comes after the Minnesota Department of Human rights conducted its own investigation into Minneapolis and its police department, finding racially discriminatory policing practices, including racial disparities in traffic stops and racist or disrespectful language when dealing with the public.
MDHR and the city have come to an agreement on a 140-page court-enforceable settlement agreement that features dozens of changes to MPD policies, practices and procedures. The city and the state have laid out in their agreement that they’ll modify it to avoid overlap in the case of a federal consent decree.
RELATED: Court-enforceable police reform is coming to Minneapolis. How did we get here?
One main difference between the state and federal investigations is that the former examined MPD practices over a 10 year period that ended in June 2020, while the latter looked at MPD treatment of protesters and journalists in the events after Floyd’s murder. According to federal officials, MPD retaliated against protesters and members of the press during the unrest in 2020, violating the First Amendment.
One incident involved an officer forcefully pushing a journalist’s head down into the pavement after identifying themselves as press, then another walked by and pepper sprayed the journalist. Officials said officers beat protesters during a March 2021 protest, while another held his knee down on the neck of a different protester.
During the more than two-year-long investigation, federal officials also met with Minneapolis residents and community members to solicit their interactions with MPD officers, using the thousands of accounts they obtained to help inform their findings.
Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, has been assisting federal investigators in gathering community accounts and experiences with MPD since the investigation began. Gross said that while she is disappointed the treatment by MPD officers of people experiencing homelessness wasn’t examined by investigators, she is pleased with the report.
“The fingerprints of members of our community are all over this document, and I think it’s excellent,” she said during a Friday news conference after the DOJ presentation.
DOJ officials said the city has agreed to negotiate toward a consent decree, and recommend 28 “remedial measures” (the list begins on page 85 of the report) that may serve as a framework for the ensuing agreement.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, one of several city officials at the DOJ press conference, including MPD Chief Brian O’Hara, thanked federal officials for their work in the process.
“Thank you for a report that is thoughtful, deliberate, objective and thorough,” Frey said. “We are going to use these findings to better policing in the city of Minneapolis.”
When I was growing up, I knew a lot of Minneapolis police officers. My best friend’s brother was in the MPD, the dad of another friend was a long-time officer, and there were two cops living just up the street from us. They were part of the neighborhood, and part of the community, just like anyone else.
What has changed? I think a big part of it is that police officers don’t live in the city anymore, and they aren’t a part of the community that they are policing. An officer who lives in Woodbury or Chaska gets to know the community in Minneapolis that they are policing only as an adversary. The kid they slam into the car doesn’t go to the same high school as their kids, the racist remarks aren’t directed towards someone they might see on a regular basis, and the person whose car they pull over for no particular reason lives far away from them. They are not so much law enforcement as they are an occupying army.
I am not convinced that makes a difference. I do think having some connection and experience in the city and with people of various backgrounds helps. I remember too, officers that would make jokes that they may not perceive as racist or demeaning, but would leave one wondering and they lived in the city. Many of the incidents are complicated with layers of people, perspectives involved. I think, historically, there has been a strong tendency not to question those with more authority, so if the Sgt says it happened that way, it must have happened that way-and it may be that their perspective differed vs intentional lying. Body cams are a huge step along with supervisors that question and engage/examine what was done, why, other alternatives, etc along with high quality training. Somebody described Chauvin as a guy who would do what ever told and this was presented as a positive trait. Sometimes you want people who question and be open to listening what others think and perceive. Intent vs impact.
Exactly!
Too many follow the Bob Kroll example of:
“I am a warrior leaving my safe suburban home each day to enter the combat zone, ready for a fight”
And only 2o years later I nice pension to supplement my remaining years….
I agree with what Lisa and truly believe what she has written. I want to add that this attitude, probably, happens and is followed, to some degree, in every profession and not just in law enforcement. Probably, more so, in a profession where orders are given and expected to be followed. There needs to be dialogue in every line of work and I am hopeful that this allows police to be more open and do more questioning within their organization.
One likes to honor our police, who do have a difficult job, but sadly, we hear too many stories of this nature. This is serious and needs to be cleaned up.
DOJ finds that the MPD is fundamentally racist, violent, corrupt, and completely unable to be trusted or provide meaningful oversite of its violent officers. In other words, water is wet.
Isn’t your view just like racism, or any kind of ‘ism’, when you write “DOJ find that MPD to be fundamentally racist, violent, corrupt and unable to ……” as you are referring to an entire department and everyone in that department? Do you believe that every officer and employee in that department is … what you write? Or, would it be more accurate to write “There have been too many instances of officers who have exhibited racism, used force improperly, etc.?” How about blaming those who are responsible rather than the entire department … just as we are not supposed to judge an entire group of people because of the behavior of some of them? I have more faith in them than do you. But, I acknowledge that they need some reform and to do a better job in some areas.
If there are no consequences for racist, violent or corrupt behavior among officers then the department becomes racist, violent and corrupt. Every organization will have incidents of less than stellar behavior. The bigger problem is how Minneapolis PD deals with (or doesn’t deal with) those incidents.
I am assuming, just using some common sense, that escalating force, by officers, is used if the person being questioned or detained does something that calls for the escalated force … it, at times, becomes necessary. I have a difficult time believing that an officer (perhaps there are a few) would use escalated force for no reason. And so, officer’s judgement factors into this ‘equation.’ It seems, that this article finds fault with officer’s use of escalated force and disrespectful language but, there is no mention of what the person being detained or questioned has done. Or, are we to believe that person has done NOTHING wrong to escalate the situation upon themselves?
These are the findings of the United States Department of Justice, not the article’s author. Maybe you should read their report and see if your assumptions are accurate.
You aren’t willing to believe something that has been shown to have happened thousands of times across the country in every conceivable jurisdiction since the inception of the concept of policing? Actions that are now regularly captured on video? Offenses by police officers that are almost always witnessed by other officers who rarely do anything but help cover up the behavior.
The only reason anyone could doubt not just the possibility but the strong likelihood of this being a regular occurrence is that they choose to remain ignorant. That or they are consciously working to create a dishonest smokescreen to protect violent and incompetent policing.
The findings aren’t those of the author of the article; the findings are those of the Department of Justice, which found that officers routinely used excessive force when no force was needed. I think your “common sense” assumptions need to be revised. This isn’t a matter of opinion; it’s the result of a multi-year investigation.
They had the example in the report of a plainclothes officer pulling a gun on a kid who stole a $5 burrito. Multiple people watching called 911 because they thought some maniac was threatening a teenager.
I stand corrected by the 4 individuals who challenged my view. Thank you. I understand that these finding are from the DOJ. But, let me continue, please. What I meant to convey is that it is extremely difficult, I would think, for anyone to be treated as officers are treated by too many of those whom they stop and confront in trying to keep us safe. I am not naive and know that there are times when officers are ‘out to get’ someone. But, there are thousands of instances of a detainee fighting with, threatening, refusing to follow directions/orders, running from, swearing at officers and thus officers have difficulty being respectful, courteous … and even professional. They do need some serious reform … my concern is that their criticism is overblown. I read an article in our local newspaper recently that had our county sheriff saying that 80% of those people presently in our county jail had been there before or repeatedly. Don’t you get sick and tired of the same people ‘screwing up’ and choosing to cause problems again and again and again … even dangerously for the rest of us (you know that I am thinking of this Thompson who killed the 5 young women recently because of his recklessness)? That doesn’t mean that police should not be professional … but, let’s also discuss and work on, rather than defend, some nebuluous, imagined rights of the other half of this equation … the group of people who police need to stop and investigate and who are just ….. you know what I mean. We debate about certain people and groups being victims of racism, past slavery, red lining, history, etc. … aren’t we, as law abiding citizens, victims of lawlessness … to the point of too many being killed by ….. ?
Maybe you should try finishing those sentences and filling in those intentional gaps and “you know what I mean” phrases. It sure looks to me like you are refraining from saying what you mean because it will demonstrate your flagrant racism. You are defending the police because you think it’s fine for them to oppress a certain “group of people”.
“[B]ut, let’s also discuss and work on, rather than defend, some nebuluous, imagined rights of the other half of this equation …”
I don’t know where to begin.
The “nebulous, imagined rights” you find in need of “work” are the rights guaranteed to all Americans, not just the ones you like. They are not imagined, they are guaranteed by our Constitution. They must be defended because there are no assurances that the authorities are only coming after the people whom internet commentators have, in their omniscience, declared unworthy (as Felix Frankfurter once said, “It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not-very nice people.”). Rights are not a zero-sum game, but something we all have an interest in protecting.
There is no “other half of the equation.”
I knew the MPD was a political entity when the female police chief on vacation was fired and that appeared because mayor/she didn’t like the female police chief. The assistant police chief, who was black and in charge during this conflict, was not fired, but instead promoted to police chief. Usually people in charge are fired. This was, of course, well before the Floyd incident.
I do not condone Chavin’s behavior, but think we should not stereotype all cops as being like Chavin. He was truly sick. Our media has condoned stereotypes of police officers & violence against them and that is one factor that makes recruiting them now so difficult. Both parties now have supported anti- police efforts: especially the extreme left with defund the police and the extreme right with ignore FBI and have military in charge. All these factors are making our wonderful country unsafe now. Tough time to be a cop. Our state legislature has truly abandoned them.
We don’t want to end up like Portland or Seattle- one of those cities abandoned the police in a downtown area that led to an area of corruption, assaults, rapes, violence, no medical (ambulances would not enter without police protection), death & injuries. Remember in St Paul that fires escalated when we were invaded by non-St paul people in May 2020. Why? Not enough police to protect the fire department from the massive assaults happening by these non-locals (see federal prosecutions).
“I do not condone Chavin’s behavior, but think we should not stereotype all cops as being like Chavin. He was truly sick.”
Yes, but he didn’t happen in a vacuum. He had a history of excessive force but was still on duty.
But, please don’t blame all cops … and maybe you are not doing that. Perhaps I am quibbling about the semantics as I am hearing, too often, that all cops are grouped together and are bad. The ‘system’ was/is bad and needs reform … all cops are not wrong or bad.
The cops are “the system.” Historically, it has been notoriously difficult to make disciplinary or criminal charges stick because of the “Thin Blue Line” mentality of “us versus them.” Not all cops are bad in the sense of committing physical violence, but a good cop becomes a bad cop when they look the other way when one of their own is acting improperly.
I used to think like you, then I started paying attention. Why did all the ‘good’ cops vote for a goon like Bob Kroll to lead the union? I would like to think most cops are good cops. And I bet most cops had good intentions when they joined the force. But the record shows that MPD has been behaving badly for decades. That implies that however many well intentioned cops there are on the force, they have not changed it for the better.
This is such a shallow analysis it doesn’t hold up to even rudimentary scrutiny. It was not just Chauvin who killed George Floyd. The other three officers were complicit, and all have been convicted. So, 100% of the officers involved in George Floyd’s murder are criminals. It was no fluke. It was indicative of the state of policing in Minneapolis, which is not an outlier nationally. Minneapolis saw cops leave when they realized there was an increased possibility of being held accountable for abusing the citizens they were supposed to be serving. Recruiting is hard because anyone who wants to do the right thing as a cop doesn’t want to get anywhere near the MPD.
The only way to improve things is to be honest about the problem. A problem that isn’t simply a few bad apples, but the fact those bad apples have indeed spoiled the whole barrel. If you can’t do that, you simply admit you are willing to be a part of the problem rather than a solution.
Well, 3 years + later still looking for all those ultra left activists to be signing on to MPD to show the world how its done. Still hundreds short,
“The only way to improve things is to be honest about the problem. A problem isn’t that there are simply a few bad apples …..” Let’s just be honest here. The problem starts with people choosing to be criminals and the improvement starts with people following our laws … minor or major, misdemeanor or felony. And, factually, a certain group of people are being more ‘criminallike’ but, we never state that because we get distracted by theoretical reasons why that occurs. But, we are working on that root cause, too … at great expense. I never, or rarely, hear from those leaders that “We need TO DO OUR part and have set a goal to stop committing or lessen crimes !” Let’s just state that there is a primary problem .. . and the secondary problem is how our police force has reacted to that “barrel of bad apples” problem. The police must make some reforms. And, the other part of the problem??????
The other part of the problem can’t be solved with just policing and incarceration.
There is a lot of misinformation in your comment, but I want to single out one in particular: “Our state legislature has truly abandoned them.” The DFL trifecta passed a bill with half a billion dollars for public safety funding this year. This is after Republicans stalled our the DFLs public safety bill the previous year. Democrats are the only ones trying to improve public safety at this point, both in MN and in the US – Republicans don’t want solutions because that limits their ability to campaign on fear and hate.
Yeah, but lets make sure we don ‘t go after/try to prevent folks blow stop lights and wipe out 5 women! Conundrum?
That is such a tragedy. It created this thought for me … are people who are so lacking in being conscientious to not take care of their vehicles and its safety equipment (blinkers, lights, etc.) or who are so oblivious to notices to renew license tabs and who cannot follow minor laws more apt to break more serious laws .. resulting in an accident that kills 5 innocent women? I would think there is some correlation there. Isn’t taking care of the safety equipment on a vehicle and renewing tabs simply a test of whether you are cooperative with society’s rules/laws and whether you are conscientious of others? If you fail that test …. I trust you a lot less or don’t trust you at all.
Yeah, its that controversial “Broken Window Theory” A leads to B to C etc. but suspect many of us raised our kids, view our neighbo9rhoods, city etc. live our lives, with that theory in the back ground.
Broken windows! The crime-fighting panacea that was implemented by Rudy Giuliani before his mascara started to run!
Why not adopt it here? Apart from the fact that it did not lead to a measurable drop in crime, the evidence on which it was based was flimsy at best, and that it led to its own set of racial disparities, that is.
So, we are ‘handcuffed’ by not preventing crime, not looking for crime, not stopping crime, not preventing 5 young women from being killed … until after it occurs. And, because … oops … there are too many from one group, who factually do commit the most of our crime, and we dang well not factor that into preventing, looking for, stopping crime. And so, just gotta let it go on.
“So, we are ‘handcuffed’ by not preventing crime, not looking for crime, not stopping crime, not preventing 5 young women from being killed … until after it occurs.”
That’s correct: the police aren’t supposed to arrest anyone until after the crime is committed.
Now you’re getting it. Police officers enforce the law after it has been broken. They don’t prevent crime.
Who wants to be the one to inform CNN that one case they continue to cite, of a “spooked” cop shooting a woman, happened in St. Paul, not Minneapolis, with a black officer killing a white woman, not a white policeman killing a black person? CNN seems so intent on becoming Fox News Lite that, true to their new model, facts keep getting in the way of a good story.
Actually Justine Damond lived and died in the Fulton neighborhood, near 50th and Xerxes in southwest Minneapolis. CNN has the location right.
Dude, Diamond was killed by a MPLS cop in MPLS.
The big issue here is not the conduct of individual officers, but the leadership of the department and the city who permitted these cops to stay on the force and failed to exercise discipline to prevent these abuses. It’s interesting that over the last 20 years, the city was run by progressive democrats who talked a lot about reforming the department and appointed minority chiefs, but actually did nothing to solve the problem.
I have to say the REAL story here IS the ongoing decades long failure in MPLS leadership. These issues have been reported and observed for decades and for decades mayors and police chiefs have promised but failed to address them. I think Frey’s stunt of claiming to have “banned” no-knock warrants only to see Amir Locke killed a year later by a cop executing a no-knock illustrates the problem perfectly.
My reading and research on this subject has discovered that the primary feature of US police departments that ends up sabotaging reform efforts is police unions and their contracts. Everything from discipline to training and policy tends to be dictated or framed by these contracts. Experience has shown that until and unless city councils and mayors stop ratifying contracts that limit their power and influence over the departments meaningful reform can be nearly impossible. You can “decree” whatever you want but as long as the contract prevents you from removing bad cops, or reinstates them once removed, you’re not really doing anything. And as long as bad cops are a ubiquitous feature of your department, you have a dangerous culture problem.
I agree the union is what needs to be fixed. Given that root problem, the failure in leadership has been in not acknowledging limitations to actually changing the department. As I understand it, holding police more accountable may also require changes to state law around qualified immunity.
Ah, a glimmer of enlightenment that unions, more specifically, puplic employee unions can be and often are hindrance to meaningful progress. While police unions are often dramatic, others are quite flawed in their own way.
This consent decree is likely one step in reform of the police union contract and possibly the arbitration procedure that controls disciplinary proceedings. It’s my understanding that it’s the arbitration procedure in disciplinary proceedings which undermines anything else that leadership by police commanders or the Mayor or City Council can accomplish in terms of sanctioning racist or other forms of discriminatory misconduct.
Perhaps the real story is that after a two year investigation not a single person is being charged with a crime by the DOJ nor are any victims that had their constitutional rights violated being assisted by the DOJ to make sure that their cases are brought to trial.
More than any other contributing factor the MPD union leadership and Bob Kroll are the single most significant contributor to the current state of affairs. Rybak, Hodges and Frey all could not get any agreement with the union on even acknowledging the problems described by the DOJ much less addressing them.
Why is St Paul so different? No Bob Kroll.
RT Ryback rooted for a consent decree as the only way to a solution.
I stand by my original suggestions:
1. Disband the MPD and contract all services from the Hennepin County Sheriff. The book is wiped clean and current officers have until 6/1/24 to submit their resume for hiring consideration by the Sheriff.
2. Take an MPS School building and call it the Law Enforcement Academy. Offer a high school diploma, experiences in law enforcement with officers. Complete your diploma and get at least 2 years of CC law enforcement education paid for.
3. Offer a $500,000 housing mortgage incentive, spread over 10 years: live in the city, police in the city, get a nicer than average Mpls home.
4. Re open the Glen Lake Home School and fill it to brim with juvenile offenders, most who do not have a supportive home environment: You are here by sentenced to a high school diploma.
5. Finding enough good cops is an almost insurmountable task right now: use technology wherever possible, cameras, etc.. Use alternatives like social workers and other community service people to get people on the street.
6. Find the money to pay for it all without a bunch of corner cutting.
Now that was not so hard, was it?
Not hard, but unrealistic.
Maybe #1, not the rest.
Hopefully the DOJ process enables the changes needed and fought over between the union and the city.
Bob Kroll almost singly handed cost the world billions of post George Floyd dollars because of his “warrior cop” enablement in the MPD. I would almost guarantee that if there were no George Floyd bystanders he would still be alive. It was the MPD / Chauvin attitude of: “A bunch of do gooder bystanders are not going to tell me how to do my job”.