Backing the Blue: Justice Department Drops Lawsuits Against Police Departments in Minneapolis and Louisville

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“The Civil Rights Division will work with, not against, our brave police.”

The Civil Rights Division will also be closing its investigations into, and retracting the Biden administration’s findings of constitutional violations on the part of, the following additional local police departments:

• Phoenix, Arizona
• Trenton, New Jersey
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Mount Vernon, New York
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Louisiana State Police

Harmeet Dhillon, U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights:

“I have directed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to dismiss two last-minute Biden-administration lawsuits, against the Louisville, Ky., and Minneapolis police departments. The suits sought to subject both cities to sweeping, minutely detailed consent decrees that would inhibit local policing for years, make area residents less safe, and cost local taxpayers millions of dollars…. I have also directed the Civil Rights Division to close its investigations into, and to rescind, the Biden-era findings of constitutional violations by the following additional local police departments: Louisiana State Police; Memphis, Tenn.; Mount Vernon, N.Y.; Oklahoma City; Phoenix; and Trenton, N.J. Many of the Biden Civil Rights Division’s published reports lambasting these departments also praise them for resolving identified problems. Notwithstanding our reversal of the Biden administration’s flawed and unreliable attacks on police, we reiterate that the Justice Department plays an important role in protecting the civil rights of all Americans. This includes protecting against constitutional violations inflicted by law-enforcement officers. Nobody is above the law, not even the police. Yet the overwhelming majority of police officers should be free to continue what they do best: protect and serve their communities. The Civil Rights Division will work with, not against, our brave police. They risk their lives daily to keep their communities secure—the most fundamental of government services in a civilized society (Wall Street Journal).”

he U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division Dismisses Biden-Era Police Investigations and Proposed Police Consent Decrees in Louisville and Minneapolis

Today, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is beginning the process of dismissing lawsuits against the Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis, Minnesota police departments.

These lawsuits, which were filed at the last minute by the Biden administration after President Donald Trump’s reelection, accused Louisville and Minneapolis of widespread patterns of unconstitutional policing practices by wrongly equating statistical disparities with intentional discrimination and heavily relying on flawed methodologies and incomplete data. They also sought to subject the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments to sweeping consent decrees that went far beyond the Biden administration’s accusations of unconstitutional conduct; the decrees would have governed many aspects of those police departments, including their management, supervision, training, performance evaluations, discipline, staffing, recruitment, and hiring.  In short, these sweeping consent decrees would have imposed years of micromanagement of local police departments by federal courts and expensive independent monitors, and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of compliance costs, without a legally or factually adequate basis for doing so.

“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” added Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees.”

The Civil Rights Division will be taking all necessary steps to dismiss the Louisville and Minneapolis lawsuits with prejudice, to close the underlying investigations into the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments, and to retract the Biden administration’s findings of constitutional violations.

The Civil Rights Division will also be closing its investigations into, and retracting the Biden administration’s findings of constitutional violations on the part of, the following additional local police departments:

• Phoenix, Arizona
• Trenton, New Jersey
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Mount Vernon, New York
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Louisiana State Police

The Department of Justice will continue to offer its full support to police departments across the country, including through grants and technical assistance. The Department is confident that the vast majority of police officers across the Nation will continue to vigorously enforce the law and protect the public in full compliance with the Constitution and all applicable federal laws. When bad actors in uniform fail to do so, the Department stands ready to take all necessary action to address any resulting constitutional or civil-rights violations, including via criminal prosecution.