By JIM SALTER and MARK VANCLEAVE (Associated Press)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Justice Department alleged Friday that Minneapolis police have systematically discriminated in opposition to Black and Native American individuals for years and sometimes violated constitutional rights following a sweeping investigation that started after George Floyd was killed.
The two-year probe discovered that Minneapolis officers used extreme pressure, together with “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of individuals engaged in constitutionally protected speech. The investigation additionally discovered that each police and town discriminated in opposition to individuals with “behavioral health disabilities” when officers are known as for assist.
“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland informed a information convention in Minneapolis. “But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”
Garland mentioned officers routinely disregarded the security of individuals of their custody, noting quite a few conditions through which an individual in custody complained that they may not breathe, and officers replied with a model of “You can breathe. You’re talking right now.”
The report included allegations that police “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offense and sometimes no offense at all.” Officers “used force to punish people who made officers angry or criticized the police.”
Police additionally “patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing or using force against people during stops,” the report mentioned.
As a results of the investigation, town and the police division agreed to a deal often called a federal consent decree, which would require reforms to be overseen by an impartial monitor and authorised by a federal choose. That association is much like reform efforts in Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who led Newark, New Jersey, police via a consent decree, mentioned the Minneapolis division was dedicated to creating “the kind of police department that every Minneapolis resident deserves.”
Mayor Jacob Frey acknowledged the work that lay forward.
“We understand that change is non-negotiable,” Frey mentioned. “Progress can be painful, and the obstacles can be great. But we haven’t let up in the three years since the murder of George Floyd.”
The investigation was launched in April 2021, a day after former officer Derek Chauvin, who’s white, was convicted of homicide and manslaughter within the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd, who was Black.
Floyd repeatedly mentioned he couldn’t breathe earlier than going limp as Chauvin knelt on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes. The killing was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests as a part of a broader nationwide reckoning over racial injustice.
Garland additionally mentioned the report discovered that Chauvin used extreme pressure on different individuals on a number of events, and fellow officers stood by and didn’t cease him.
The report discovered that town despatched officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, “even when a law enforcement response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results. These actions put MPD officers and the Minneapolis community at risk.”
The findings had been based mostly on critiques of paperwork and incident information; statement of body-worn digital camera movies; knowledge offered by town and police; and ride-alongs and conversations with officers, residents and others, the report says.
Federal investigators acknowledged that town and Minneapolis police have already begun reforms.
The report famous that police at the moment are prohibited from utilizing neck restraints just like the one Chauvin utilized in killing Floyd. Officers are now not allowed to make use of some crowd management weapons with out permission from the chief. And “no-knock” warrants had been banned after the 2022 demise of Amir Locke.
The metropolis additionally has launched a “promising” behavioral well being response program through which educated psychological well being professionals reply to some calls reasonably than police.
The Justice Department is just not alone in its findings of issues.
An identical investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights led to a “court-enforceable settlement agreement” to handle the lengthy checklist of issues recognized within the report, with enter from residents, officers, metropolis workers and others. Frey and state Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero signed the settlement in March.
The state investigation, which concluded in April 2022, discovered “significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” And it criticized “an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic, and disrespectful language with impunity.”
Lucero mentioned the legally binding settlement requires town and the police division to make “transformational changes” to repair the organizational tradition of the pressure, noting it might function a mannequin for the way cities, police departments and neighborhood members elsewhere work to cease race-based policing.
The report recommends 28 “remedial” steps to enhance policing as a prelude to the consent decree. Garland mentioned the steps “provide a starting framework to improve public safety, build community trust and comply with the constitution and federal law.”
The mayor mentioned metropolis leaders desire a single monitor to supervise each the federal plan and the state settlement to keep away from having “two different determinations of whether compliance has been met or not. That’s not a way to get to clear and objective success.”
Several police departments in different cities function beneath consent decrees for alleged civil rights violations. A consent decree requires businesses to fulfill particular targets earlier than federal oversight is eliminated, a course of that usually takes a few years at a price of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
Floyd, 46, was arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 invoice for a pack of cigarettes at a nook market. He struggled with police after they tried to place him in a squad automobile, and although he was already handcuffed, they pressured him on the bottom.
Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years for homicide. He additionally pleaded responsible to a federal cost of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in that case. He is serving the sentences concurrently in Tucson, Arizona.
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Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
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Find AP’s full protection of the killing of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd
Source: www.bostonherald.com”