2023-06-16 21:07:56
The murder at the hands of the police George Floyd just over three years ago now Minneapolis helped to open the eyes of a good part of the United States and the rest of the world to a serious and serious problem of excessive use of force and racism in law enforcement bodies. For many in the affected communities, and in Minneapolis in particular, that was a familiar reality. And this Friday the Justice Departmentafter a exhaustive investigation For more than two years, it has published a ferocious report that confirms in devastating detail the extent of what these communities denounced, often to no avail.
“The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the Minneapolis Police Department and the city engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the constitution and federal law,” the 92-page document reads. , built after studying what happened years before and after the murder of Floyd. “Uses unreasonable force, violates first amendment rights, and discriminates on the basis of race and disability.”
It was those patterns and practices that “made possible what happened to George Floyd“said the US attorney general at a press conference, Merrick Garland, which has presented the document together with other federal and local authorities. He asserts that local police “also lack systemic safeguards that can prevent or deal with such abuses, such as effective accountability, rigorous training, robust supervision, and adequate support for officers.” And it makes 28 recommendations to end the systemic abuses and the discrimination.
large-scale reform
The head of Justice has also announced that his department and the municipal authorities have reached an agreement in principle to negotiate what is known as “a consent decree”: an agreement for a large-scale reform of the police to be signed and implemented under judicial supervision.
Although another state investigation last year pointed to the problematic reality in Minneapolis and started steps toward reform, the reach and weight of the federal government is greater. Under the Administration of Joe Biden other similar investigations have already been opened in places like Phoenix and Oklahoma. And reform in Minneapolis can serve as a national roadmap as the Democrat’s administration tries to push through a transformation of law enforcement.
Both in the press conference and in the report, a chilling x-ray of the reality that the citizens of Minneapolis have experienced has been made, especially harsh and discriminatory towards black people, Native Americans and people with mental disabilities, but which has also affected protesters or journalists.
Unjustified use of force
For example, it details the “routine use of excessive force, often when that force is not necessary, including unjustified and lethal use of force or unreasonable use of taser“, electric shock guns. And between January 2016 and August 2022, for example, a “significant portion” of 19 shootings committed by the police were uyou are unconstitutional of lethal force, when the shots arrived “without first determining if there was immediate threat of harm to agents or others”.
It is something that in the appearance before the media was exemplified by the case of a woman who in 2007 called to report a possible sexual assault and died at the hands of a police officer who was “scared” when, answering the call, the woman approached the patrol car. Another case that has been highlighted is that of an off-duty officer who, just three seconds after getting out of his vehicle, shot at a car with six people.
The report also found that “routinely” officers “disregard the safety of people in their custody.” And it has verified that, in addition to George Floyd, who died after having repeatedly said that he could not breathe while Derek Chauvin had his knee on his neck and other agents helped him immobilize him, there have been numerous incidents in which police officers respond to detainees who They say “I can’t breathe” with a version of “can you breathe, are you talking“.
It has also determined that officers continued to use drowning tactics even when they were banned in June 2020.
Discrimination and passivity
Research has also reaffirmed that agents they patrolled differently based on the racial composition of the neighborhood they were in, without there being a legitimate or safety-related reason.
List chapters that exemplify that discrimination. And it shows how, after the Floyd case, they tried to avoid recording information that could point to their questionable attitudes. Race or gender data in traffic stop reports, for example, went from being included in 71% of cases to only 35%.
The document confirms that although many citizens had been denouncing the problems for some time, these complaints fell on deaf ears. And they were often hampered by the slow pace of investigating reported misconduct. 53% of these investigations were unresolved after one year of investigation, and more than 26% were still unresolved after two years of investigation.
The mayor, Jacob Frey, has participated in the presentation of a report that, he has assured, “opens a new chapter in the history of Minneapolis”. “We understand that change is not negotiable,” he has declared.
Brian O’Hara, current police chief, has also spoken to the press. “We recognize the pain, the rabiathe frustrationhe fear and the feeling of vulnerability that many people in our community have endured,” he said.
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