'Cracking heads': Trump, DOJ moves signal end of reforms after George Floyd movement

USA Today

26-05-2025

'Cracking heads': Trump, DOJ moves signal end of reforms after George Floyd movement
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Minneapolis commits to police oversight after George Floyd probe
In January, Minneapolis committed to police reform after the George Floyd investigation.
When George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer five blocks from her home, Nichole Subola visited the site of his death again and again, trying to wrap her mind around it.
Police reform seemed within reach as she watched the global impact of the protests. The floral arrangements, drawings and signs filled the streets in a place that came to be known as "George Floyd Square."
Five years later, Subola, 59, isn't sure if local police will follow through on their commitment now that the Trump administration is abandoning federal consent decrees in cities that promised real change in training and hiring practices.
"There's a consensus here that the police need to do better, but it's so hard to erase what happened viscerally," she said. "There's just no trust in the police, not for me and my community, and other parts of the city, there just isn't. I don't think it was there to begin with."
Millions poured into the country's streets demanding systemic change in the wake of Floyd's murder on Memorial Day − coupled with the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police two months prior. Many believed America was turning a corner in terms of police accountability.
Even Trump, who rarely criticized police action, called Floyd's death a "very sad event" in a May 27, 2020 tweet. "Justice will be served," he said.
Much of that was snatched away in the years that followed, most notably in 2021 when Congress failed to pass sweeping reform package dubbed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
During Biden's presidency, federal investigators started a dozen "pattern or practice" probes into police departments across the nation, including Phoenix, Trenton and Memphis. None yielded any court-binding consent decrees, however, and then came the largest setback of all: Donald Trump returning to the White House.
The president's team has now swung the pendulum in the opposite direction from five years ago, even attempting to rescind findings of constitutional violations in the cities where Floyd and Taylor lost their lives.
Experts and voters on both sides of the debate say the U.S. Justice Department's decision on May 21 establishes a new political order for the country's ongoing police accountability debate, including the possibility of pardoning officers convicted by federal prosecutors during the Biden years.
Ending consent decrees part of Trump's larger DOJ revamp
Among Trump's allies in the law enforcement ranks, there are cheers among those who argue consent decrees micromanage departments and were overused by the previous administration.
Police reforms are better handled by local elected leaders and residents, who know their public safety needs better than Washington, said Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which supports officers who are prosecuted or fired for actions while in the line of duty.
"It should be a patchwork," he said. "Law enforcement is local, so the police in Minneapolis should conduct themselves in the way the citizens of Minneapolis want."
But those on the other side of the fence assert the president is giving police officers a green light to do as they please.
Jim Mulvaney, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who previously served as deputy commissioner of New York state's human rights division, points out Trump often encouraged law enforcement to be rougher on certain suspects during the campaign.
"He signaled back then that hard-handed law enforcement was what he wanted," he said. "Not obeying the Constitution, but cracking heads."
Pulling back from those consent decrees coincides with a larger sea change at the Justice Department, which has reportedly lost 70% of its civil rights division lawyers since January.
Administration officials have also shifted the division's focus toward enforcing the president's executive orders, such as combating antisemitism in higher education, ending alleged radical indoctrination in public schools and defending women's rights from "gender ideology extremism" in athletics and other areas.
Up until the DOJ's announcement this month, Mulvaney said there has been a long-held presumption that the federal government would keep local law enforcement in check.
"They've now been told, don't worry about it. And I think that that's only going to encourage bad behavior and at a very high cost," he said.
Many who anticipated reversal shift focus to local communities, other strategies
Many activists and voters who spoke with USA TODAY echoed those concerns, but emphasized they aren't giving up on racial equality or seeking changes to law enforcement.
Instead of lobbying Congress or engaging in large acts of civil disobedience, different forms of resistance are being spotlighted.
"The solutions have never come from the system; they always came from people in the community. So I think this could be an opportunity to build more of that energy if we use it properly," said Rodney Salomon, 37, of Neptune Township, N.J., co-founder of KYDS, Konscious Youth Development & Service, a nonprofit that focuses on transforming communities through mindfulness, restorative practices and youth leadership.
Others point to seeking change through economic actions like the Black-church led boycott of Target after the retail giant quashed its diversity initiatives. The company's first-quarter sales fell 3.8%, compared to analysts' estimates of a 1.08% decline.
They are looking to find innovative ways to protect residents through technology, such as Selwyn Jones, a Floyd relative who developed the MYTH app, which would send out a panic alert to a person's emergency contacts when they're involved in a police interaction in real time.
Kay Harris, 72, who lived in Asbury Park, N.J., through the city's race riots in the 1960s, said federal oversight is critical, but balancing the scales may have to come from other branches of government, such as the courts.
"We cannot depend on the local precincts to do it themselves. I mean that is why we are in the position we are in right now," she said.
"That doesn't mean that all police officers are unethical, but there are just too many rogue police officers who do just what they want."
Asbury Park, for instance, settled at least five suits in roughly a decade involving allegations of racial discrimination. The victims were awarded $1.9 million in defense and settlement costs, city officials say.
"If (Trump) is the law and order president, then he should ensure then law and order is followed appropriately," Harris said. "He is trying to roll things back to the 1950s."
Minneapolis, Louisville are moving forward with police reforms
The Trump administration's decision to walk back reform efforts came days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd's murder on May 25, 2020.
That timing wasn't lost on Justin Thamert, of Foley, Minnesota, a town about 65 miles north of Minneapolis, who said emotions remain raw. "I don't think anybody's gotten over it," he said.
The 34-year-old mechanic, who voted for Trump last fall, said the Biden administration turned its back on law enforcement and made officers feel afraid to do their jobs.
But he isn't sure federal authorities should abandon reform efforts in Minneapolis, which include minimizing the need to use force; investigating allegations of employee misconduct; and providing confidential mental health wellness services to officers and other public safety personnel.
"I wouldn't shut the door," Thamert said. "I think (Minneapolis) will need help. I don't agree with them completely pulling out."
Leaders in the cities where Taylor and Floyd died have been quick to pledge, regardless of the Trump administration's reversal, that they will seek to continue implementing changes to their law enforcement operations.
Minneapolis was "making more progress towards the reforms" than most other municipalities in the country under a consent decree, Mayor Jacob Frey noted, citing a recently released independent evaluator's report. The report found the department had reduced its backlog of use-of-force cases under review from more than 1,100 to about 400 in the last six months.
"The people in this city have demanded change for years and we're going to make sure we get this done," Frey told USA TODAY.
Like many local officials, Frey, a Democrat, who is seeking reelection this year, has walked a political tightrope in the wake of controversial police encounters. He was criticized by Trump as a "very weak radical left mayor" in 2020 for his handling of the unrest that engulfed the city, but was slammed by left-leaning activists for opposing a 2021 ballot initiative that sought radical change and completely overhaul the police department with a new public safety agency.
The plan would have shifted oversight from the mayor's office to the city council. However, 56% of voters rejected that idea.
Frey said Minneapolis is standing by the court-ordered reforms, emphasizing that homicides and shootings are down. The city is rolling out new use-of-force measures, improving community engagement and making sure its work is transparent and accountable, he said.
"So Donald Trump can do whatever he wants," Frey continued. "The bottom line is, regardless of what the White House does, we are moving forward, anyway."
Similarly, Louisville officials immediately used the DOJ's decision to unveil a 214-page plan mirroring similar goals set by the Biden administration. It calls for hiring an independent monitor for up to five years who will help develop a plan covering use of force, community policing, misconduct investigations and behavioral health response.
"We as a city are committed to reform," said Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat seeking reelection next year, at a May 21 press conference.
There are some omissions in Louisville's new plan, however.
The trimmed-down local plan removed a line about the use of Tasers that mandated officers learn about "the risks to persons exhibiting signs of mental illness, substance use, or experiencing behavioral health crisis," according to the Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Antonio Brown, 39, participated in the Louisville protests almost daily in the summer of 2020. He said his faith in federally supported police reforms waned after Trump was reelected.
"I'm not surprised by what Trump's administration is doing, but I do wonder what our mayor is going to do, because he ran on change," Brown said.
Other city officials and local activists have expressed skepticism about Greenberg, who contested some findings in the original 2023 federal report that determined the Louisville police department "unlawfully discriminates against Black people in its enforcement activities."
Critics point out that the independent monitor's contract under the local plan is only renewable for up to five years, for instance. Greenberg also hasn't committed to rehiring the city's inspector general, who is charged with examining police misconduct and has butted heads with Louisville police since 2021.
"It's definitely going to get worse if we don't see any change," said Brown, a machine operator at a local manufacturing company. "This is why we came outside –for reform. So if we don't get reform... I'm not going back in."
Could police officer pardons be Trump's next step?
As advocates on both sides of the police accountability debate decipher what Trump's about-face means for those communities, some are now focusing on what his administration might do next as allies seek to redefine the summer of 2020.
Conservative activists have publicly lobbied for the president to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of Floyd's murder.
Trump previously said that he wasn't considering pardoning Chauvin. But, Minneapolis officials said they are prepared for an emergency response with state and federal authorities while calming the waters.
Frey pointed out, for example, that even if Chauvin were to be pardoned by Trump from his 21-year federal sentence, that would not free the former officer for his 22-year state sentence for second- and third-degree murder. By law, Trump doesn't have the power to pardon state sentences.
In recent weeks, Trump's suppoters have publicly called for the same reprieve to be extended to former Louisville police detective Brett Hankinson, one of three officers who raided Taylor's apartment in 2020. He faces a life sentence after being found guilty last fall by a federal jury of violating the 26-year-old ER technician's civil rights.
Right-leaning advocates noted Hankison was acquitted on state charges in 2022, and spotlight that no one was injured as a result of his gunfire on the night Taylor was shot to death.
"Hankison should be completely (absolved) of any wrongdoing," Brandon Tatum, a former Arizona police officer turned YouTube political commentator, told his roughly 1.6 million Instagram followers on May 14.
Tatum argued Hankinson is more deserving of a pardon than Chauvin, adding that he reached out to leaders in Congress to contact the White House on behalf of the former Louisville officer.
Johnson, of the law enforcement defense fund, has called on the Trump administration to take a closer look at other cases they describe as "politically motivated," including a 2023 case involving a Massachusetts police sergeant facing federal charges for filing a false report.
He said his group has not actively advocated for Hankinson's pardon, but that it does, "believe he is a good candidate for clemency."
Trump has already wielded his executive authority in such a manner during his first week in office when he pardoned two Washington, D.C. police officers convicted last fall in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a moped on a sidewalk without a helmet when he ignored instructions to stop.
Jerrod Moore, 44, an Atlanta construction inspector, said federal authorities investigating these type of case could have done more to weed out bad officers. He said changes coming from the national level have proven to be unreliable, and that he wouldn't be surprised if Trump pardoned more police officers convicted of violating people's constitutional rights in the coming years.
"He's very selective about who he wants to pardon, and if he does, it will be an officer in one of the more egregious crimes," Moore said. "It's very clear who his target audience is. Look who he's pardoned already."
Contributing: Charles Daye, Stephanie Kuzydym, Josh Wood, Keely Doll, Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY Network