Years after George Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis police to take on reform

(MINNEAPOLIS) — The Minneapolis City Council has approved a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to implement major reforms within the Minneapolis Police Department under the watch of an appointed, independent court monitor.

The decree still needs to go through other levels of approval, including the mayor’s office, before it is filed in federal court, according to Council President Elliott Payne.

“On behalf of the council and the entire city, I’d like to thank our community for standing together united in this and for having patience with us as we have traveled a very, very long and challenging journey,” said Payne. “We are just beginning and we know we have a long way to go.”

The police reform negotiations follow a two-year investigation from the Department of Justice into the Minneapolis Police Department’s patterns and practices.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report following a two-year investigation that found MPD was engaged in a pattern of discriminatory law enforcement practices, used unjustified deadly force in encounters with suspects, engaged in unreasonable use of force in encounters with young suspects and at times failed to give proper medical aid to people they had taken into custody.

The investigation was prompted in part by the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, which sparked racial justice and anti-police brutality protests nationwide. The report found that “the systemic problems in MPD made what happened to [Floyd] possible,” and such problems had continued despite reform efforts.

“We also found that MPD officers routinely disregard the safety of people in their custody. Our review found numerous incidents in which MPD officers responded to a person saying that they could not breathe with a version of, ‘You can breathe, you’re talking right now,'” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

In one 2017 case, Garland said an MPD officer shot and killed an unarmed woman who he said had “spooked him” when she approached his squad car.

“The woman had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in a nearby alley,” he said.

MPD officers were also found to stop, search and use force against people who are Black and Native American at disproportionate rates, according to the report.

MPD is already under a consent decree from the state to “make transformational changes to address race-based policing,” following a 2023 agreement between the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the City of Minneapolis.

The human rights agency described the consent decree as “a court-enforceable agreement that identifies specific changes to be made and timelines for those changes to occur.”

In 2022, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights similarly found that the Minneapolis Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. This led to a state consent decree agreement that is ongoing.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.