George Floyd’s killing capped years of violence, discrimination by Minneapolis police, says U.S. Justice Dept

The U.S. Justice Department on Friday issued a withering critique of Minneapolis police, alleging that they systematically discriminated against racial minorities, violated constitutional rights and disregarded the safety of people in custody for years before George Floyd was killed.

The report was the result of a sweeping two-year probe, and it confirmed many of the citizen complaints about police conduct that emerged after Floyd’s death. The investigation found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people engaged in constitutionally protected speech.

The inquiry also concluded that both police and the city discriminated against Black and Native American people and those with “behavioral health disabilities.”

“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference in Minneapolis. “But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”

Garland said officers routinely neglected the safety of people in custody, noting numerous examples in which someone complained that they could not breathe, only to have officers reply with a version of “You can breathe. You’re talking right now.”

The officers involved in Floyd’s May 25, 2020, arrest made similar comments.

Police “used dangerous techniques and weapons against people who committed at most a petty offense and sometimes no offense at all,” the report said. Officers “used force to punish people who made officers angry or criticized the police.”

Police also “patrolled neighborhoods differently based on their racial composition and discriminated based on race when searching, handcuffing or using force against people during stops,” according to the report.

A man holds an image of George Floyd at a vigil on the second anniversary of the death of Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

As a result of the investigation, the city and the police department agreed to a deal known as a consent decree, which will require reforms to be overseen by an independent monitor and approved by a federal judge. That arrangement is similar to reform efforts in Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago and Ferguson, Missouri.

Consent decrees require agencies to meet specific goals before federal oversight is removed, a process that often takes many years and requires millions of dollars.

Terrence Floyd, a younger brother of George Floyd, praised the Justice Department for its review.

“That’s how you solve and stop what’s going on with law enforcement,” said Floyd, who is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara, who was hired last year to oversee reforms in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing, said his agency was committed to creating “the kind of police department that every Minneapolis resident deserves.”

Mayor Jacob Frey acknowledged the work ahead.

“We understand that change is non-negotiable,” Frey said. “Progress can be painful, and the obstacles can be great. But we haven’t let up in the three years since the murder of George Floyd.”

The scathing report reflected Garland’s efforts to prioritize civil rights and policing nationwide. Similar investigations of police departments have been undertaken in Louisville, Phoenix and Memphis, among other cities.

The Minneapolis investigation was launched in April 2021, a day after former officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the killing of Floyd, who was Black.

During their encounter, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before going limp as Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes. The killing was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests as part of a broader national reckoning over racial injustice.

The Justice Department reviewed police practices dating back to 2016, and found that officers sometimes shot at people without determining whether there was an immediate threat.

Officers also used neck restraints like the one Chauvin used on Floyd nearly 200 times from Jan. 1, 2016 to Aug. 16, 2022, including 44 instances that did not require an arrest. Some officers continued to use neck restraints after they were banned following Floyd’s killing, the report said.

The investigation found that Black drivers in Minneapolis are 6.5 times more likely to be stopped than whites, and Native American drivers are 7.9 times more likely to be pulled over. And police often retaliated against protesters and journalists covering protests, the report said.

The city sent officers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, “even when a law enforcement response was not appropriate or necessary, sometimes with tragic results,” according to the report.

The findings were based on reviews of documents, body camera videos, data provided by the city and police, and rides and conversations with officers, residents and others, the report said.

President Joe Biden called the conclusions “disturbing” and said in a written statement that they “underscore the urgent need for Congress to pass common sense reforms that increase public trust, combat racial discrimination and thereby strengthen public safety.”

Some changes have already been made.

The report noted that police are now prohibited from using neck restraints like the one that killed Floyd. Officers are no longer allowed to use some crowd control weapons without permission from the chief. “No-knock” warrants were banned after the 2022 death of Amir Locke.

The city has also launched a program in which trained mental health professionals respond to some calls rather than police.

Keisha Deonarine, director of opportunity, race and justice for the NAACP, applauded the Justice Department for holding police accountable but said much work remains, and not just in Minneapolis.

“This is a constant issue across the nation,” Deonarine said. “When you look at the police system, it’s a militarized system. It is absolutely not used, utilized or trained in the way that it should be.”

The Justice Department is not alone in uncovering problems.

A similar investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found “significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.” It criticized “an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic and disrespectful language with impunity.”

The federal report recommends 28 “remedial” steps to improve policing as a prelude to the consent decree. Garland said the steps “provide a starting framework to improve public safety, build community trust and comply with the constitution and federal law.”

The mayor said city leaders want a single monitor to oversee both the federal plan and the state agreement to avoid having “two different determinations of whether compliance has been met or not. That’s not a way to get to clear and objective success.”

Floyd, 46, was arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He struggled with police when they tried to put him in a squad car, and though he was already handcuffed, they forced him on the ground.

Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years for murder. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years in that case. He is serving those sentences in Tucson, Arizona.

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Memphis police dissolve unit charged with murder of Black motorist Tyre Nichols

The Memphis police chief disbanded the city’s so-called Scorpion unit on Saturday, citing a “cloud of dishonor” from newly released video that showed some of its officers beating Tyre Nichols to death after stopping the Black motorist.

Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis acted a day after the harrowing video emerged, saying she listened to Nichols’ relatives, community leaders and uninvolved officers in making the decision. Her announcement came as the nation and the city struggled to come to grips with the violence of the officers, who are also Black. The video renewed doubts about why fatal encounters with law enforcement keep happening despite repeated calls for change.

Protestors marching though downtown Memphis cheered when they heard the unit had been dissolved. One protestor said over a bullhorn that “the unit that killed Tyre has been permanently disbanded.”

Referring to “the heinous actions of a few” that dishonored the unit, Davis contradicted an earlier statement that she would keep the unit. She said it was imperative that the department “take proactive steps in the healing process.”

“It is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit,” she said in a statement. She said the officers currently assigned to it agreed “unreservedly.”

The unit is composed of three teams of about 30 officers whose stated aim is to target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime. It had been inactive since Nichols’ Jan. 7 arrest.

Scorpion stands for Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods.

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Davis had said she would not shut down a unit if a few officers commit “some egregious act” and because she needed it to continue to work.

“The whole idea that the Scorpion unit is a bad unit, I just have a problem with that,” Davis said then.

Davis became the first Black female chief in Memphis one year after George Floyd was killed at the hands of Minneapolis police. At the time, she was chief in Durham, North Carolina, and had called for sweeping police reform.

Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, lawyers for the Nichols family, said the move was “a decent and just decision.”

“We must keep in mind that this is just the next step on this journey for justice and accountability, as clearly this misconduct is not restricted to these specialty units. It extends so much further,” they said.

The five disgraced officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — have been fired and charged with murder and other crimes in Nichols’ death, which came three days after the arrest. They face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

The video images released Friday show police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him in an assault that the Nichols family legal team has likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Nichols calls out for his mother before his limp body is propped against a squad car and the officers exchange fist-bumps.

The video also left many unanswered questions about the traffic stop and about other law enforcement officers who stood by as Nichols lay motionless on the pavement.

“Nobody tried to stop anything. They have a duty to intervene, a duty to render care,” Brenda Goss Andrews, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said in an interview after viewing the video.

She also was struck by the immediate aggression from officers as soon as they got out of the car: “It just went to 100. … This was never a matter of de-escalation,” Goss Andrews said, adding, “The young man never had a chance from the moment that he was stopped.”

Davis has said other officers are under investigation, and Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said two deputies were relieved of duty without pay while their conduct is investigated.

Rodney Wells, Nichols’ stepfather, said the family would “continue to seek justice” and those who failed to render aid are “just as culpable as the officers who threw the blows.”

A Memphis police spokeswoman declined to comment on the other officers’ conduct.

Cities nationwide had braced for demonstrations after the video emerged, but protests were scattered and nonviolent. Several dozen demonstrators in Memphis blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River toward Arkansas. Protesters also blocked traffic in New York City, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.

Blake Ballin, the lawyer for Mills, told AP in a statement Saturday that the videos “produced as many questions as they have answers.”

Some of those will focus on what Mills “knew and what he was able to see” and whether his actions “crossed the lines that were crossed by other officers during this incident,” Ballin said.

Davis acknowledged that the police department has a supervisor shortage and said the lack of a supervisor in the arrest was a “major problem.” City officials have pledged to provide more of them.

It’s not clear why the traffic stop happened in the first place. One officer can be heard on video saying that Nichols wouldn’t stop and then swerved as though he intended to hit the officer’s car. The officer says that when Nichols pulled up to a red light, the officers jumped out.

But Davis said the department cannot substantiate the reason for the stop.

“We don’t know what happened,” she said, adding, “All we know is the amount of force that was applied in this situation was over the top.”

After the first officer roughly pulls Nichols out of the car, Nichols can be heard saying, “I didn’t do anything,” as a group of officers begin to wrestle him to the ground.

One is heard yelling, “Tase him! Tase him!”

Nichols calmly says, “OK, I’m on the ground,” and that he was just trying to go home. Moments later, he yells at them to “stop.”

Nichols is then seen running as an officer fires a Taser. The officers start chasing Nichols.

Others are called, and a search ensues before Nichols is caught at another intersection. His mother’s home, where he lived, was only a few houses away, and his family said he was trying to get there.

The officers beat him with a baton, and kick and punch him. The attack continues even after he collapses.

It takes more than 20 minutes afterward before any sort of medical attention is provided.

During the wait for an ambulance, officers joke and air grievances. They complain that a handheld radio was ruined, that someone lost a flashlight, that multiple officers were caught in the pepper spray used against Nichols.

Throughout the videos, they make claims about Nichols’ behavior that are not supported by the footage or that the district attorney and other officials say did not happen. In one, an officer claims that during the initial traffic stop Nichols reached for the officer’s gun and almost had his hand on the handle, something not shown in the video.

After Nichols is in handcuffs and leaning against a police car, several officers say he must have been high. Later one says no drugs were found in Nichols’ car, and another immediately counters that he must have ditched something while running away.

During a speech Saturday in Harlem, the Rev. Al Sharpton said the beating was particularly egregious because the officers were Black, too.

“Your Blackness will not stop us from fighting you. These five cops not only disgraced their names, they disgraced our race,” Sharpton said.

(AP)

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