By Reuters: Police in Minneapolis routinely use extreme drive and discriminate in opposition to Black and Native American folks, the U.S. Justice Department mentioned on Friday after a two-year investigation prompted by the police killing of George Floyd.
The metropolis has agreed to what’s going to possible be years of federal oversight as it really works to reform the Minneapolis Police Department, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland mentioned in asserting the findings.
The scathing 89-page report vindicated long-standing group complaints of rampant abuse by the police drive that predated Floyd’s homicide by white former police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on his neck for greater than 9 minutes.
“We found that the Minneapolis Police Department routinely uses excessive force, often when no force is necessary, including unjust deadly force and unreasonable use of Tasers,” Garland mentioned at a press convention on the metropolis’s federal courthouse.
The report discovered that officers ceaselessly violated residents’ constitutional rights. They used probably lethal neck restraints, since banned by the town, and shot at folks in conditions the place there was no quick menace.
Other findings included officers ceaselessly failing to intervene after they noticed colleagues utilizing extreme drive, discriminating in opposition to folks with behavioral well being disabilities and unconstitutionally retaliating in opposition to protesters and journalists.
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“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect, but the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible,” Garland mentioned on the press convention with Mayor Jacob Frey and different metropolis officers.
Frey and different Minneapolis officers will negotiate an settlement with the Justice Department generally known as a consent decree through which a federal choose will oversee the town’s progress in reforming the police division.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division launched its investigation in April 2021 after Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on the handcuffed man’s neck as he begged for his life earlier than going limp.
Floyd’s homicide in May 2020, captured in a bystander’s cellphone video, sparked nationwide protests decrying police brutality and racism within the prison justice system. In Minneapolis, protesters broken property, together with a police precinct home that was set ablaze.
Many in Minneapolis complained Chauvin’s extreme use of drive in opposition to Floyd was not an distinctive case, however slightly a commonplace apply of the town’s cops abusing the rights of Black residents.
Garland mentioned the investigation discovered that there have been a number of incidents through which metropolis cops “were not held accountable for racist conduct” till there was a public outcry.
Marcia Howard, a Minneapolis instructor and distinguished civil rights activist, mentioned the report was being cautiously welcomed by group members who’ve occupied the intersection the place Floyd was killed, in what’s now a years-long protest in search of an overhaul of the police.
“It emphasizes what Black and Indigenous people have been saying for years, that we have lived under the yoke of a racist regime in the Minneapolis Police and they have gone unchecked with their egregious uses of force,” Howard mentioned.
Mayor Frey mentioned he welcomed the Justice Department’s assist in reforming the police division.
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“Our success will be defined by the people of Minneapolis feeling safe when interacting with police in our city,” he mentioned.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, launched a press release calling the report’s findings disturbing. He repeated his name for Congress to cross reforms “that increase public trust, combat racial discrimination and thereby strengthen public safety.”
Negotiating the consent decree with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is anticipated to take a number of months, officers mentioned. The division has negotiated comparable federal oversight agreements in different cities, together with Ferguson in Missouri, Baltimore and Cleveland.
Chauvin, the previous officer convicted on state costs for Floyd’s homicide, later pleaded responsible to federal costs that he violated Floyd’s civil rights, and is serving a 21-year sentence in federal jail. Three different cops concerned within the arrest have been additionally convicted on state and federal costs.
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