President Donald Trump’s administration has begun the process of ending federal involvement in reforming local police stations. This is a civil rights effort that took away steam after the deaths of unarmed black people like George Floyd and Breana Taylor.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that cities in Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis, Minnesota will cancel two proposed settlements in which cities agree to federal surveillance of police departments.
These settlements, commonly known as the consent law, include a set of steps and goals by which the parties negotiate and federal courts assist in enforcement.
Additionally, the Department of Justice said it would withdraw reports about six other local police stations that have discovered patterns of discrimination and excessive violence.
The Trump administration has organized the announcement as part of an effort to transfer greater responsibility to individual cities and states, and away from the federal government.
“Our view in the civil rights and justice department under the Trump administration is that federal microcontrollers of local police are a rare exception and not the norm,” said Hermet Dillon, Justice Department Attorney General.
She argued that such federal oversight is a waste of taxpayer funds.
“There’s a lack of accountability, there’s a lack of control over the local area. I think there’s an industry out there that’s ripping taxpayers apart and keeping citizens safe,” Dillon said.
However, civil rights leaders and police reform advocates responded to anger over the news that arrived days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s murder.
Pastor Al Sharpton was one of the leaders who called on police departments to take meaningful action after the viral video captured Floyd’s final moments. On May 25, 2020, white police officer Derek Chaubin choked his knees around Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, suffocating him and died.
“This move is not just a policy reversal,” Sharpton said. “It’s a moral retreat that sends a horrifying message that accountability is an option when it comes to black and brown victims.”
He warned that the Trump administration’s moves sent police departments to say they were “over-scrutiny.”
Floyd’s murder year was also characterized by many other famous deaths, including Taylor.
The 26-year-old medical worker was in bed late at night on March 13, 2020. Her boyfriend fired a gun once, fearing that they were being attacked. Police killed Taylor, who was hit six times, and responded with a volley of bullets.
Her death and others sparked a period of national unrest in the United States, with millions of people protesting on the streets as part of a social justice move like the lives of black people. The 2020 “Rakumin” is considered to be one of the largest demonstrations in US history.
These protests unfolded in the declining months of Trump’s first term, and when Democrat Joe Biden took over as president in 2021, the Justice Department embarked on a series of 12 investigations investigating allegations of over-reading and excessive violence in police force.
These studies, called “patterns or practices” probes, were designed to examine whether police brutality was one-off or part of a larger trend in a particular police department.
Floyd’s murder took place in Minneapolis and Taylor, Louisville. These are the two cities that the Trump Justice Department decided to drop a settlement on Wednesday. In both cities, under Biden, the Justice Department has found discriminatory police patterns.
“Police officers often have to make brief decisions and risk their lives to keep their communities safe,” reads a report on Minneapolis.
However, the local police department added, “We used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed crimes at best and sometimes never committed any crimes.”
Other police stations scrutinized during this period included a police station located in Phoenix, Arizona. Memphis, Tennessee. Trenton, New Jersey. Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Louisiana State Police.
Dillon, who currently runs the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, has positioned the withdrawal of these Biden-era survey results as a policy pivot. She also denounced the consent order as an overused tool and indicated she would consider withdrawing some already in place agreements.
However, the process could include judge approval.
And while some community advocates have expressed concern that the consent order could put a strain on the already overgrown law enforcement sector, others have opposed the Justice Department’s latest move, claiming that retreat could remove resources and momentum from police reform.
At the Louisville Metro Police Station (LMPD), Chief Paul Humphrey said his commitment to better police has surpassed a settlement. He showed he was looking for an independent monitor to oversee reform.
“It’s not these words in this paper,” he said. “It’s about the work that men and women with LMPD, men and women with Metro government, and the community do together to make us a safer and better place.”
And in Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey said he could double and continue to move forward with the police reform plan his city agreed to.
“We will comply with all sentences in every paragraph of the 169-page consent decision we signed this year,” he said at a press conference.
“We make sure we are moving forward with every sentence in every paragraph, both the settlement and consent decisions around the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.”
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