Minneapolis and Louisville
In May 2025, the Justice Department asked judges to dismiss the consent decrees it had reached with police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville. These agreements were the result of federal investigations that found constitutional violations and discriminatory policing in both cities.
The Minneapolis consent decree was a 169-page document negotiated after the police killing of George Floyd. The Louisville agreement followed the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor. Both included dozens of proposed reforms covering use of force, de-escalation training, accountability systems, and community oversight.
The DOJ dropped them both.
Five More Investigations Closed
The Civil Rights Division also closed investigations into police departments in Phoenix, Trenton, Memphis, Mount Vernon, and Oklahoma City, as well as the Louisiana State Police. These were active federal investigations into whether those departments engaged in patterns of civil rights violations.
5 police reform consent decrees dismissed. Investigations in 6 more cities closed. The federal government walked away from police accountability.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said “overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities” and turn power over to “unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda.”
The consent decrees were negotiated with the cities. Minneapolis signed its agreement voluntarily. The reforms were not imposed against the city’s will. They were agreed to.
”We’re Doing It Anyway”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responded to the dismissal by pledging to continue implementing every reform in the 169-page decree. “We’re doing it anyway,” he said. “We will comply with every sentence, every paragraph.”
Louisville officials made similar commitments. The cities chose to continue the reforms without federal oversight, using their own funding and accountability structures. The question is whether voluntary compliance holds without the enforcement mechanism that a consent decree provides.
The Pattern
The consent decree dismissals fit a broader pattern. 17 inspectors general fired in one night. The SEC froze enforcement.
The EPA dropped enforcement by 87%. The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section was gutted from 40 lawyers to 2.
The agencies that investigate misconduct are being defunded, disbanded, or told to stop. The consent decrees were the last federal mechanism for holding police departments accountable after a finding of constitutional violations. That mechanism is now gone.
Update, June 2, 2026: One year after Louisville adopted its own police reform plan, the city’s progress has shown mixed results. A mental health review panel created to overhaul how officers respond to crisis calls only met for the first time in March, almost a year after it was announced.
The stakes became clear when police fatally shot 28-year-old Katelyn Hall in March during a mental health crisis at her apartment. The incident has prompted the city to explore pairing mental health professionals with police officers, an approach the Justice Department had recommended in 2023.
Louisville’s self-directed reform effort is being watched as a test case for whether cities can effectively overhaul their police departments without federal oversight. Inspector General Ed Harness said the key question is “whether reform can happen voluntarily, with compliance and supervision by elected leaders.” Louisville police responded to 3,200 mental health calls last year, with only about 8 resulting in injury.
Update, June 30, 2026: The American Civil Liberties Union released a report finding that officers in Louisville and Minneapolis continued to use excessive force after the Trump Justice Department dropped federal reform oversight in 2025. ACLU investigators reviewed hundreds of use-of-force records from departments in six cities, including Phoenix, Worcester, and Mount Vernon, and found agencies misusing Tasers and failing to properly review force incidents. The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment; White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the findings as “partisan talking points.”
In Louisville, the ACLU documented officers striking handcuffed individuals in the face and head and mischaracterizing facts in use-of-force reviews to make incidents appear more justified. In March 2026, Louisville police fatally shot 28-year-old Katelyn Hall inside her apartment during a mental health crisis; the case remains under investigation. Two months later, an officer shot and killed 27-year-old Martin Nitzken Jr., who was unarmed; that officer has been indicted on charges of manslaughter and reckless homicide and has pleaded not guilty.
Both Louisville and Minneapolis adopted local versions of their former federal reform agreements, with independent monitors now overseeing compliance. Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, the ACLU’s deputy project director on policing, said the persistence of documented problems indicates “the police departments are not doing enough to improve that conduct.” ProPublica has reported that reform progress in Louisville has been slow, particularly in the area of mental health response.
Sources
- NPR: DOJ Moves to Dismiss Police Consent Decrees in Louisville and Minneapolis
- DOJ: Civil Rights Division Dismisses Biden-Era Police Investigations
- Minnesota Reformer: Trump Administration Withdraws From Minneapolis Consent Decree
- CNN: Justice Department Moves to End Consent Decrees With Police Departments