I have spent a lot of time and pixels covering the charges brought by the Biden Department of Justice against the City of Minneapolis. Attorney General Merrick Garland came to town in June 2023 to charge the Minneapolis Police Department with racism, find it guilty, and announce the terms to which municipal authorities had agreed.
The charges were based on an 89-page report that is still accessible here. The report stemmed from a Department of Justice investigation launched in the wake of Derek Chauvin’s conviction of the murder of George Floyd in April 2021.
According to the report, the Minneapolis Police Department uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force, unlawfully discriminates against blacks and Native Americans, violates free speech rights, and discriminates against people with behavioral health disabilities when responding to calls. “The patterns and practices of conduct the Justice Department observed during our investigation are deeply disturbing,” Garland said at the news conference in Minneapolis. We begged to differ in two posts titled Garland of thorns for MPD.”
The Biden Department of Justice flew Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke out to Minneapolis to announce a consent decree with the City of Minneapolis on January 6, two weeks before the inauguration of President Trump. I attended the press conference and wrote about it in “Is it something I didn’t say?”
The consent decree production was staged to beat the arrival of President Trump as the new sheriff in town. Reporters at the press conference asked Clarke six ways from Sunday if Trump could undo what they saw as a thing of beauty.
I wanted to pose a question or two to MPD Chief O’Hara, who spoke at the press conference in support of the consent decree. I was the only reporter in the room not to be called on. If I had been called on, I would have asked O’Hara who speaks for the MPD and whether he agreed that he is running a racist police department. I would also have asked him about the low current number of sworn officers and the difficulty of recruitment created by such consent decrees.
That was then. This is now. The Trump Department of Justice has just filed a two-page motion to dismiss the case with prejudice without ruling on the pending motion for approval of the consent decree: “After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest.” As we were saying…
Under the signature of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the motion states: “The United States therefore does not wish to pursue this action any longer and hereby withdraws its support, agreement and concurrence with the Joint Motion for Approval of Settlement. The United States will no longer prosecute this matter.”
The department remains under the strictures of a consent decree in a case brought by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Municipal authorities can do as they will with the MPD. The dismissal of the federal case will remove the hand of the federal government from this farce.
