Minneapolis cops used excessive force and targeted racial minorities BEFORE George Floyd death: DOJ

Minneapolis police used excessive force and targeted racial minorities before George Floyd was killed, a damning Justice Department report finds.

Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference Friday in which he blasted police for repeated use of excessive force, discrimination against black people and abuse of the mentally ill.

The two-year federal investigation “found that the systemic problems in MPD enabled what happened to George Floyd.”

The investigation was launched in April 2021, a day after former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the May 2020 murder of Floyd.

Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe before going limp as Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine and a half minutes. The murder was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests as part of a wider national reckoning over racial injustice.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland released a damning report on Friday documenting systematic abuses and discrimination at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department after a two-year investigation

Garland also said Minneapolis police have repeatedly violated the freedom of speech of protesters and journalists.

The report found that police officers in Minneapolis have used excessive force, discriminated against black and indigenous peoples, assaulted mentally ill individuals and flouted protesters’ First Amendment rights with impunity, the Justice Department said Friday.

It also found that police lack the systemic safeguards that can prevent or address these abuses, such as effective accountability, rigorous training, robust oversight and appropriate officer support.

A similar study led the Minnesota Department of Human Rights to a “court-enforceable settlement agreement” to address the long list of issues identified in the report, with input from residents, officers, city employees and others. Frey and state human rights commissioner Rebecca Lucero signed the agreement in March.

The state investigation, which concluded in April 2022, found “significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic controls, searches, citations, and arrests.” And it criticized “an organizational culture in which some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic and disrespectful language with impunity.”

Lucero said the legally binding agreement requires the city and the precinct to make “transformative changes” to restore the force’s organizational culture, noting it could serve as a model for how cities, precincts and community members elsewhere work to create a end racial discrimination. based policing.

The federal investigation could trigger a separate, but similar, court-enforceable agreement, known as a consent decree, that would overlap the settlement with the state. Various police departments in other cities, such as Seattle, operate under permission decrees for alleged civil rights violations.

Floyd, 46, was arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He struggled with the police when they tried to put him in a patrol car, and although he was already handcuffed, they forced him to the ground. As Chauvin pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck, J. Alexander Kueng held Floyd’s back, Thomas Lane held Floyd’s feet, and Tou Thao held back bystanders.

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 concurrent sentences at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona.

Kueng, Lane and Thao were convicted of federal charges in February 2022. All three were convicted of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care, and Thao and Kueng were also convicted of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the murder. Lane and Kueng have since pleaded guilty to a state count of complicity in second-degree manslaughter. In return, counts of complicity in murder were dropped.

Lane, who is white, is serving his 2 1/2-year federal sentence at a Colorado facility. At the same time, he is serving a three-year state sentence. Kueng, who is black, is serving a three-year federal sentence in Ohio while also serving a 3 1/2-year state sentence.

Thao, who is Hmong American, received a federal sentence of 3 1/2 years. The judge will speak in the state case in May found him guilty of complicity in manslaughter. Thao had said it would be “lying” to plead guilty and he agreed to let the judge decide the case. The judge set the sentence on August 7.