U.S. Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, will hold a news conference Friday on "a civil rights matter," expected to be the results of a sweeping investigation into whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a "pattern or practice" of illegal conduct.
U.S. Justice Department is expected to present results of investigation into Minneapolis police Friday
The city has long been bracing for the results of the investigation, prompted by the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
June 15, 2023 at 9:39PM
City officials in Minneapolis have been bracing for the Justice Department's findings since 2020. It comes in addition to a similar charge leveled by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights last year, which also found a pattern of discriminatory behavior by Minneapolis officers over the decade leading up to the murder of George Floyd. The Minneapolis City Council approved a wide-ranging series of reforms this spring to settle the state's case, including limiting the use of chemical irritants and barring officers from searches based on the smell of marijuana.
Upon receiving the findings, the city would begin the process of negotiating a court-enforceable consent decree with the Justice Department. Under the state's agreement, the federal decree will take precedent if any of the state's terms conflict with it. Minneapolis has already set aside $5 million to respond to the specific actions identified in the consent decree whenever an agreement is reached, according to a city spokesperson.
According to the Justice Department, the 10 a.m. announcement will include Attorney General Merrick Garland, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Bildtsen for the District of Minnesota, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara.
Since the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1994, pattern or practice investigations have become a common tool used by the federal government to intervene in institutional failures within local police agencies. The Trump administration abandoned these far-reaching investigations during his term in office. In 2021, in the months after President Joe Biden's inauguration, Garland announced probes in Minneapolis and in Louisville, Ky. Other investigations are ongoing in New York; Oklahoma City; Mount Vernon, N.Y.; Phoenix; Worcester, Mass.; and Louisiana.
The results of the Louisville investigations, released earlier this year, found that its police department that killed Breonna Taylor in a botched raid routinely used excessive force and unlawful searches and detention, along with employing blatant racial slurs to describe Black people.
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