UPDATE: Department of Justice Finds Minneapolis Police Engaged in Pattern and Practice of Unconstitutional Policing
UPDATE: TRANSFORMATIONAL PROCESS UNDERWAY
It is heartening to see that the process called for under the city’s consent decree is underway, following Hennepin County District Court Judge Karen Janisch’s approval of the agreement.
Some objections have been raised and the city responded here.
The City and Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) are required to engage with and collect feedback from community members while developing and updating policies. The City and MPD will hold two public engagement sessions on different topic areas in Minneapolis. The dates, times and places of the upcoming meetings are on the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) website.
Additionally, MDHR and the City are reviewing applications for an independent evaluator team. Once selected, this team of experts will support the City and MPD, monitor their progress, engage with community members and police officers, and provide regular, public reports, the MDHR states.
Finalists for the independent evaluator team are scheduled to attend the coming-up public engagement sessions.
Let’s hope and trust that this process continues to be promising.
Continue Reading For the Original Article
Department of Justice Finds Minneapolis Police Engaged in Pattern and Practice of Unconstitutional Policing
In a long-awaited investigation report, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has determined that the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) has long employed a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing that exploded into public view with the death of George Floyd. The Report titled “Investigation of the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Department,” conducted by the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Civil Division, was released publicly on June 16, 2023
The Report’s conclusions did not surprise many residents of the city or many lawyers familiar with the conduct of the Minneapolis police. It may have come to a surprise to those who heard the state’s witnesses in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck. Some of the state’s witnesses testified to the effect that the techniques used by Chauvin were not part of the culture and patterns of the Minneapolis police and that in his conduct related to killing George Floyd, Chauvin had gone “rogue.” But the investigation differed, resulting in an 89-page report.
The Report makes clear that for “years, MPD used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offense and sometimes no offense at all. MPD used force to punish people who made officers angry or criticized police. MPD patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing, or using force against people during stops. The City sent MPD officers to behavioral-health related 911 calls, even when a law enforcement response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results.” (Report, p.1)
The Report’s discussion of the MPD’s use of excessive force addressed weaknesses in several stages of policing in Minneapolis, including training, supervision and accountability. It also identified remedial actions, which likely will be the subject of the consent decree to which the MPD has agreed in principle. Another consent decree between the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and MPD was executed March 31, 2023. After a hearing on the state consent decree on July 13, 2023 before Hennepin County District Court Judge Karen Janisch, the Court approved the decree with community meetings to follow later in the summer. That decree is specifically addressed to transformational changes in department culture, including racial bias.
Training
The Report critique of training is straightforward: MPD training does not ensure effective, constitutional policing. It identified a “wide range” of problems in recruit, in-service, and field training programs, including the qualifications of instructors, poor training materials and chronic understaffing in the training division. “These problems have plagued MPD for several years, resulting in deficient and inadequate training,” the Report says.
Not only are instructors poorly qualified and training materials weak and confusing, there is an overreliance on the use of force, the Report continues. MPD staff favored training on officer defensive tactics over training on de-escalation and did not provide opportunities for officers to practice de-escalating, it says.
The Report paid particular attention to the field training officers (FTOs), who it said should be evaluated along with the trainees to ensure they are modeling MPD values and ethical conduct. It found that FTOs are not always suitable for the role and some are themselves under investigation. “Ensuring the FTOs teach right from wrong is essential to ensuring that recruits abide by the policies and values of MPD,” the Report concludes.
The Report lists three broad recommended remedial measures, which on paper appear obvious:
Improve training department-wide;
Improve training for supervisors; and
Reform the field training officer program.
Supervision
The Report also criticizes supervision, which it concludes is inadequate, due to inadequate training. The Report continues, “MPD supervisors, in turn, struggle to understand policy and effectively communicate changes to officers.” The Report concludes that the MPD leaves sergeants to learn on the streets how to assess whether force complies with policy and doesn’t always promptly train officers on new policies. The Report also found that supervisors do not have the tools and data to prevent, detect and correct problematic officer behavior. Officers do not always file police reports for stops and searches and need not record the facts or nature of some encounters with the public. Furthermore, MPD’s staffing practices undermine effective supervision because officers may select their work schedules. This means officers do not have an assigned sergeant with whom to develop a relationship. It also means that sergeants cannot effectively supervise officers.
The Report also notes that some patrol officers manage opportunities for lucrative off-duty security jobs. Because MPD allows patrol officers to control whether supervisors get off-duty employment opportunities, supervisors have ample disincentive to hold officers accountable.
The Report sets out three remedial measures to be employed to improve supervision:
Require consistent activation, de-activation and review of body-worn cameras;
Require review of all stops; and
Revise staffing practices to achieve unity of command.
Accountability
As the Report describes, accountability means timely, thorough and objective investigations into alleged officer misconduct as well as meaningful discipline. MPD’s accountability system is fundamentally flawed, the Report concludes, describing it as “an opaque maze with multiple dead ends where meritorious complaints are dismissed without investigation and often for no discernable reason. Significant allegations in complaints are mischaracterized or ignored.” The DOJ reviewed a random sample of more than 400 complaints that the Office of Police Conduct Review (OPCR) closed after 2016. The Report did not include analysis of a recent settlement agreement between Minneapolis and the Minnesota Department of Human rights that has resulted in a new misconduct process manual effective on April 20, 2023.
The Report also notes that MPD officers’ misconduct costs the city “dearly.” Between 2018 and 2022, the city paid $61,502,925 to settle claims of police misconduct.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on July 12, 2023 that the MPD had hired, then fired, an officer who had been involved in a high-profile use of force incident in a previous job in Fairfax County, Va. in June of 2020. The officer was hired as the DOJ conducted its investigation, which started in April 2021. Chief Brian O’Hara said he did not see a video of the incident but that claim is disputed by the officer and others in the department. The officer, with whom the MPD now says it had “separated,” has accused the chief of defamation.
The report lists six recommended remedial measures on the subject of accountability, some of which could fall into the category of, “do we really have to tell them this?”:
Identify, address and document all allegations raised in misconduct complaints;
Require officers to report misconduct;
Facilitate civilian’s access to the complaint process;
Improve civilian’s complaint investigations;
Fully staff OPCR and MPD Internal affairs units;
Improve the review process of OPCR and MPD internal affairs investigations; and
Improve quality of data and civilian oversight.
Accountability relies on having healthy police officers, which in turn requires adequate support, the Report continues. The lack of support of officers can mean they cannot serve the community appropriately. Officers said they felt inadequately supported and MPD leaders said existing resources were inadequate.
Officer unwellness results in shortages of employees and more workers’ compensation claims for post-traumatic stress disorder and other injuries. The city paid over $27 million for injuries claimed in 2020. Just this May the department reported that it developed a wellness program and a partnership with an external provider of psychological and other services.
Whatever your view on the MPD and its officers, it is clear that the community and the city have work to do.