The city of Minneapolis is moving forward with an agreement to overhaul its police department. On Thursday, Hennepin County Judge Karen Jansich approved a massive deal between the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the city of Minneapolis to reform the city’s notorious police department.
The agreement comes after a long-awaited reckoning with the Minneapolis Police Department in the wake of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by former police officer Derek Chauvin. Following Floyd’s death, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights led an investigation into the police department.
As many Black Minnesotans likely could have told you, the investigation’s findings were disturbing. The MDHR found that the police and city engaged in a “pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.” In fact, despite Black residents making up 19 percent of the city, the report found that 63 percent of the use of force incidents were against Black people.
The settlement agreement, which was reached in March, is intended to fix these human rights violations. The Root reported on the key tenants of the deal earlier this year:
The agreement would require police to:
- Require officers to de-escalate
- Prohibit officers from using force to punish or retaliate
- Prohibit the use of certain pretext stops
- Ban searches based on alleged smells of cannabis
- Prohibit so-called consent searches during pedestrian or vehicle stops
- Limit when officers can use force
- Limit when and how officers can use chemical irritants and tasers
- Ban “excited delirium” training
Not everyone is thrilled that the agreement is going through. Several community based groups have raised concerns. Notably, the Twin Cities Police Watchdog Group argued that the agreement isn’t fully binding for officers because it allows their union contracts to supersede aspects of the deal.
“That means cops can sidestep anything in this consent decree by putting it in their union contract,” group volunteer Andrew Kluis said in June at a community review of the settlement agreement, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
It’s too soon to say if the deal with have it’s intended effect or if community groups are right and this will just be another policy officers find a way to sidestep.