Minneapolis approves federal oversight plan for police

About 4½ years after the police killing of George Floyd triggered state and federal investigations and protests worldwide, Minneapolis officials have reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice outlining sweeping reforms to address discriminatory policing.

The Minneapolis City Council discussed the consent decree in a closed-door session for nearly seven hours Monday before emerging to vote 12-0 to approve it. (Council Member Michael Rainville inadvertently missed the vote.)

The 170-page document details changes the Minneapolis Police Department must take in the coming years under the supervision of a federal judge, including regulating how police interact with suspects; adopting a new disciplinary scale; following through on investigations into serious misconduct even if an officer leaves the department; requiring that the chief act on discipline recommendations within 60 days; and limiting off-duty work.

The consent decree — a legally binding agreement enforced by an independent monitor — lays out how the Minneapolis Police Department will reform its training, discipline and policies to address systemic problems laid out by the DOJ in 2023. U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at the time that those problems “made what happened to George Floyd possible.”

The DOJ found Minneapolis police used excessive and unjustified deadly force; routinely discriminated against Black and Native American people; violated reporters’ and protesters’ free speech rights; and discriminated against people with behavioral health disabilities.

The two sides now race to get a judge to sign off on the the agreement, filed late Monday afternoon in federal court, before President-elect Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20. Trump’s administration was hostile to such agreements during his first term, scaling them back and calling them a “war on police.” Trump’s re-election this fall put Minneapolis in a race against the clock because formal talks with the feds didn’t begin until nearly a year after the DOJ reported its findings in June 2023.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, who traveled to Minneapolis to announce the agreement Monday, said the DOJ “swiftly got to the table” to negotiate with the city.

“It was important that we get it right. We owe that to people here in Minneapolis. This was not a race to the finish line,” she said.

Clarke was asked multiple times whether the Trump administration could derail the agreement, but she declined to speculate.

“I can’t predict the future,” she said. “What I can tell you is that the findings we identified in Minneapolis are severe. These are real issues that impact people’s lives. The community wants reform. The city wants reform, the police department wants reform, and the Justice Department stands here today as a full partner in the effort of achieving reform and transformation for this community.”

Mayor Jacob Frey said “change is afoot” in Minneapolis.

“It’s a good agreement, and at the same time, I want to be honest with every resident throughout our city: It is not a panacea. There aren’t any shortcuts, and success is not guaranteed.”

Similar oversight agreements have been instituted in other U.S. cities, such as Baltimore, Cleveland and New Orleans, often after high-profile police killings, but this marks just the second consent decree during President Joe Biden’s administration — despite its launching of a dozen federal investigations into police departments nationwide.

Council Member Robin Wonsley said in an email to her constituents that she has no faith that the Trump administration will be a “serious partner” in supporting implementation of the consent decree.

She noted Minneapolis is already 18 months into a similar court-enforceable agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights it signed in 2023, after the state did its own investigation into MPD. Some of the reforms dictated in the federal agreement are already under way as a result of the state agreement. Both the state and federal agreements call for the same outside group — Effective Law Enforcement for All — to monitor the city’s progress.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who was hired two years ago in part because he helped implement a consent decree in Newark, N.J., said the department has “turned a corner.”

“We are not going to just comply with its terms, but we will exceed expectations, and we will make change real for people on the street.”

Lt. Sherral Schmidt, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, told the Star Tribune her union had not yet seen a copy of the consent decree and was not involved in negotiating its terms.

Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, criticized the fact that the decree wasn’t made public before Monday’s vote. “I’m glad they voted in favor of it, but it would surely be nice to know what they actually voted in favor of and I think it was pretty wrong for them not to share that with the community,” she said.

The police force has long been a lightning rod in Minneapolis.

Floyd’s killing sparked a brief movement to defund the police, with nine council members publicly vowing to “begin the process of ending” the police department 13 days after Floyd’s death.

It never happened: Minneapolis voters rejected a 2021 ballot measure that would have replaced the police department with a new kind of public safety agency. And they re-elected Frey, who opposed defunding the police.

Police department funding dipped in 2021 but has steadily increased since then, to a record $229 million this year, which will cover historic pay raises and dozens of new positions to carry out reforms.

Meanwhile, about 500 officers have left the department, with many retiring and claiming disability from post-traumatic stress disorder after the protests and riots that followed Floyd’s murder.

“We have traveled a very, very long and challenging journey,” Council President Elliott Payne said after the vote. “This is marking the end of the beginning on a very long road.”