DOJ Seeks to End Police Reform Agreements With Minneapolis and Louisville
The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that it is seeking to drop federal police reform agreements with the cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, both established in response to the 2020 police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
The move, announced on Wednesday (May 22), comes just days ahead of the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s death and has ignited sharp criticism from civil rights leaders and local officials, CBS reports.
“These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures; they were lifelines,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents both the Taylor and Floyd families. Calling the DOJ’s decision a “slap in the face,” Crump warned it would “deepen the divide between law enforcement and the people.”
The reform agreements, commonly referred to as consent decrees, were designed to address longstanding patterns of unconstitutional policing. But the DOJ, now under the Trump administration, said it is reversing course, citing “faulty legal theories” and accusing the Biden-era Civil Rights Division of using “cherry-picked” data to justify federal intervention.
However, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, argued that consent decrees created burdensome red tape for police departments.
“Overboard police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs,” she said, adding that the department would also end investigations into police departments in places including Phoenix, Memphis, and several other cities.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pushed back during a press conference, calling the decision “predictable political theater” and reaffirming his city's commitment to police reform. “The bottom line is—we’re doing it anyway,” he said. “We are serious about our commitment to reform.”
Meanwhile, the NAACP condemned the DOJ’s move as a significant setback. “It’s been five years, and police reform legislation still hasn’t passed in Congress,” said President Derrick Johnson. “Police departments still haven’t been held accountable.”
As cities vow to continue their own reform efforts, the future of federal oversight in cases of alleged systemic police misconduct remains uncertain.
