Trump DOJ moves to end Minneapolis’s federal consent decree

May 21st, 2025

Dear community, 

This morning, the Department of Justice moved to end the federal consent decree. 

In 2024, The United States Department of Justice determined upon completion of a extensive investigation, that the City and MPD engaged in a pattern or practice of violating Constitution and federal law, including excessive force, racial discrimination against Black and Native residents, discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities, and violations of free speech protections. 

The findings from the Department of Justice investigation were supposed to lead to a federal consent decree, a binding legal agreement that mandated about 400 individual reforms that the City would be required to implement. In February, the Trump administration paused the federal consent decree and has extended the pause multiple times. This morning, the Department of Justice moved to end the federal consent decree and a final decision will be made by the presiding judge in the coming weeks. 

Mayor Frey has publicly stated support for enacting the provisions of the federal consent decree regardless of the Trump administration’s actions in the case. While this is encouraging, I believe that Minneapolis residents deserve not only a verbal commitment, but a legally binding one too. 

Community members have noted that “there is a clear difference between a promise made by politicians and a legally binding settlement.” I couldn't agree more. 

Mayor Frey has been the sole authority over MPD since he was elected in 2017, and has often spoken publicly about a commitment to police reform. The findings from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the Department of Justice confirm that both before and after the murder of George Floyd, Mayor Frey did not use his authority to correct MPD policies and practices that enabled a pattern of racism, discrimination, and excessive force. Residents have paid for this failure through physical and psychological trauma, millions of dollars in misconduct payouts, less effective public safety services, and severely damaged trust in local government. 

The City’s legally binding agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights has shown promising early outcomes to actually hold the Frey administration accountable to implementing the reforms that they claim to support. This week, the agreement’s independent evaluator, ELEFA, released their second progress evaluation. This evaluation is an extremely helpful tool for tracking specific and measurable progress towards reform. The report states that “Although the City and MPD have not met all the goals targeted for ‘Year One’ of the Evaluation Plan… MPD and the City have made important and demonstrable progress towards meeting the Settlement Agreement.” 

Thanks to the progress report, I and my colleagues have clear details that we can use to learn more about what barriers are blocking reform and work together to eliminate those barriers. The Council and the public deserve this level of consistent and specific reporting about the administration’s progress on implementing the reforms that would have been included in the federal consent decree as well. 

Given this context, I will be moving forward legislative action that requests the City Attorney to formally begin the process of amending the City’s existing settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights to incorporate all the provisions from the Department of Justice Consent Decree that the Trump administration is moving to end. 

Ensuring that the provisions that were intended to be in the federal consent decree are included in our MDHR settlement agreement will bolster accountability and limit the ability for goalposts to be changed later, either by this mayoral administration or future ones. 

This legislative action will come before Council during the first week of June and I will share updates as it progresses. 

I have heard from many residents that empty words and promises can no longer be the City’s response as it relates to police reform. For decades, City leaders have broken promises to residents, and those broken promises ultimately led to the murder of George Floyd and many other victims. The action I am bringing forward is intended to demonstrate this Council’s commitment to not repeat this pattern, and instead to use every tool we have to hold this Mayor and future Mayors accountable to ensuring that MPD provides Minneapolis residents with high quality safety services that respects their human and Constitutional rights.