The Justice Department is dropping negotiations for court-approved settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville police agencies, despite having found that authorities routinely violated the civil rights of Black people.
The two cases sparked worldwide outrage over fatal police encounters in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s final year in office. Federal authorities also are closing investigations and retracting findings of wrongdoing against police departments in Phoenix; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police.
“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general overseeing the department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement May 21.