Justice Department dismiss civil rights investigations on local police departments
In addition to Louisville and Minneapolis, investigations are cancelled in cities such as Phoenix, Trenton, Memphis and Oklahoma City, following a decrease in scrutiny under the Trump administration.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice said that they are dismissing Biden-era lawsuits against local police departments. Louisville and Minneapolis departments are the main focus of this measure, and they are in the process of looking into other departments' investigations.
Other investigations that will be dismissed by the DOJ are in Phoenix; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police. During Donald Trump's first term, the Civil Rights Division reduced their oversight in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and Ferguson, Missouri.
An exodus of lawyers in the Civil Rights department
According to current and former officials, around 70% of lawyers in the Civil Rights Division have left or will have left the department since President Donald Trump took office in January. For at least 60 years, the department was created in order to combat discrimination and to protect Americans' constitutional rights.
Harmeet Dhillon, Justice Department Assistant Attorney General, at a press conference said that those investigations are expensive, overly broad, and do not solve the problems they set out to address. He also said that the Biden-era investigations were wrong because they wrongly equated statistical disparities with intentional discrimination.
Harmeet Dhillon, Justice Department Assistant Attorney General, said that the investigations are expensive and overly-broad. Photo: AFP News.
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George Floyd and Breonna Taylor cases
This announcement was made just 4 days before the 5th anniversary of George Floyd's death. Minneapolis police officers choked him to death in 2020. Another case that year was Breonna Taylor, a young woman killed in a failed raid by the Louisville Police Department. Taylor was shot eight times in her own apartment. Those cases sparked many protests and riots around the country, calling for justice for them and other cases involving the police.
Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said that her department remained in place while the DOJ “walks away” from their federal consent decree. “Under the state agreement, the City and MPD must make transformational changes to address race-based policing. The tremendous amount of work that lies ahead for the City, including MPD, cannot be overstated. And our Department will be here every step of the way,” said Lucero.
