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.
Read more on the Civil Rights hub and the two-tier justice system brief.