Justice Department ends police reform agreements and halts investigations into major departments
Source: CNN Politics
Updated 12:29 PM EDT, Wed May 21, 2025
CNN — The Trump administration is moving to dismiss federal oversight agreements in Louisville and Minneapolis reached following the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor and police killing of George Floyd, and dropping investigations into several major US police departments.
The move, announced by the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, reflects the administration’s opposition to agreements that require reforms of police departments where the DOJ found a pattern of misconduct. The agreements, called consent decrees, are approved by a federal judge and are used as a monitoring system for police department reform when an investigation finds that it is needed.
“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. In court filings Wednesday morning, the Justice Department asked judges in Minnesota and Kentucky to dismiss the consent decrees reached with the police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville.
“After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest,” the DOJ said of the Minneapolis agreement. The Civil Rights Division is also closing investigations into local police departments in Phoenix; Trenton, New Jersey; Memphis, Tennessee; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and the Louisiana State Police.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/politics/justice-department-consent-decree-police-department
The Consent Decrees are approved by a judge for some set period of time and I don't know if they can suddenly just dismiss that.