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Sparked by George Floyd's death, an investigation launched into the Minneapolis Police Department revealed a decade-long history of racial discrimination embedded in their police tactics.
On Wednesday (April 27), the Minnesota Department of Human Rights released a revealing report after two years of examining 10 years worth of police practices from training to traffic stops. The results overwhelming found the department guilty of arresting and using excessive force on Black people at a much higher rate than their white counterparts and creating a culture where racist language was acceptable, AP News reports.
According to the report, the Minneapolis Police Department “demonstrates significant racial disparities with respect to officers’ use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations, and arrests.”
The data showed cops “used covert social media to surveil Black individuals and Black organizations, unrelated to criminal activity, and maintain an organizational culture where some officers and supervisors use racist, misogynistic, and disrespectful language with impunity.”
The report signals a systematic issue within Minneapolis police, and doesn't point to specific individuals, Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said.
“This investigation is not about one individual or one incident,” Lucero said to AP News.
Following the release of the report, the human rights department will negotiate a court-enforceable agreement, known as a consent decree, with the city of Minneapolis to take action against the issues engrained into police culture.
Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney who represented Floyd's family, said the Minnesota human rights report was "historic" and "monumental in importance."
“We call on city, state, and Police leaders to accept the challenge of these findings and make meaningful change at last to create trust between communities of color in Minneapolis and those who are sworn to protect and serve them,” Crump said in a statement.
Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said to AP News, “The findings were no surprise, but now there’s an agency with the muscle to make those changes happen.”
Days after former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd, the Minneapolis Department of Human Rights began investigating the police department that all of the nation had eyes on. According to AP, the U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating Minneapolis policing but is not near a conclusion.
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