DOJ to drop police reform decrees in Minneapolis, Louisville

May 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Justice is working toward dropping reform agreements with police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., after the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in those cities drew national attention.

The mayors of both cities as well as the NAACP blasted the decision not to pursue police reforms.

In court filings Wednesday morning, federal prosecutors asked judges in Minnesota and Kentucky to dismiss the consent decrees reached with the police departments.

"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 Biden administration, shortly after Donald Trump was re-elected, filed lawsuits against the two police forces, accusing them of widespread patterns of unconstitutional policing practices.

But the DOJ now says the previous administration was wrongly equating statistical disparities with intentional discrimination and heavily relied on flawed methodologies and incomplete data.

The two police departments also were subject to sweeping consent decrees "that went far beyond the Biden administration's accusations of unconstitutional conduct; the decrees would have governed many aspects of those police departments, including their management, supervision, training, performance evaluations, discipline, staffing, recruitment, and hiring," according to the release.

"In short, these sweeping consent decrees would have imposed years of micromanagement of local police departments by federal courts and expensive independent monitors, and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of compliance costs, without a legally or factually adequate basis for doing so."

The Civil Rights Division will seek to dismiss the Louisville and Minneapolis lawsuits with prejudice, end ongoing investigations and retract the Biden administration's findings of constitutional violations.

"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 of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said. "Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division's failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees."

The Civil Rights Division also will close investigations and retract the Biden administration's findings of constitutional violations by agencies in Phoenix; Trenton, N.J.; Memphis, Tenn.; Mount Vernon, N.Y.; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police.

"The Department of Justice will continue to offer its full support to police departments across the country, including through grants and technical assistance," DOJ said in the release. "When bad actors in uniform fail to do so, the Department stands ready to take all necessary action to address any resulting constitutional or civil-rights violations, including via criminal prosecution."

Attorney Ben Crump, who represents the families of Taylor and Floyd, said in a statement posted on X that the decision is a "slap in the face."

"These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures, they were lifelines for communities crying out for change, rooted in years of organizing, suffering, and advocacy," Crump said.

These moves will "deepen the divide between law enforcement and the people," he added.

The NAACP criticized the DOJ's decision not to push for police reform agreements and investigations into alleged police misconduct.

"It's no surprise that Trump's Department of Coverups and Vengeance isn't seeking justice," NAACP President Derrick Johnson posted on X. "It's been five years, and police reform legislation still hasn't passed in Congress, and police departments still haven't been held accountable."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said during a news conference that his city is "serious" about its commitment to police reform.

"The Trump administration is a mess," Frey said, noting delays requested by the White House in federal court. "It is predictable that they would move for a dismissal the very same week that George Floyd was murdered five years ago. What this shows is that all Donald Trump really cares about is political theater."

The federal judge in this case will now decide whether to dismiss the agreement.

Dhillon told reporters she finds it "very interesting" and that she doesn't "know why a city would want federal government leaning over it."

A DOJ probe of the Minneapolis Police Department found that its officers used excessive force, including "unjustified deadly force."

This came after the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, on May 25, 2020.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in connection with the death of Floyd and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. Chauvin also was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for violating Floyd's civil rights.

Three other officers involved -- Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane -- were convicted on federal civil rights charges for failing to intervene in Chauvin's actions and for failing to provide medical assistance to Floyd.

Twelve days before Floyd died, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot in her home in Louisville during a police raid as part of a narcotics investigation. One officer, Brett Hankison, was found guilty in a federal trial of violating Taylor's civil rights. Felony charges against two detectives related to the warrant, citing Walker's actions as the legal cause of Taylor's death.

That decree was reached in mid-December.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said during a news conference that "we believe the court will grant this motion. While this is not the outcome we hoped for when we stood right here in December and announced the decree, it is an outcome that we have planned for. We as a city are committed to reform."

During Trump's first term, the DOJ attempted to end 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.

Jim Pasco, the longtime Executive Director of the Fraternal Order of Police, told CNN that a consent decree "exacerbates the problem because it validates thinking in urban areas that the police are their enemy."