this is good and what the AG should do when faced with a police department as screwed up as the MPD, but pattern and practice investigations aren't enough anymore. They take too long, cost a lot and the PDs rarely comply with the resulting consent decrees.

dismantle the system. https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/status/1384862310943055875

In the wake of the killing of Mike Brown, I wrote an explainer about how consent decrees between police departments and the DOJ work. https://rewirenewsgroup.com/ablc/2016/02/12/boom-lawyered-consent-decree-edition/

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994—which Congress passed in the wake of LAPD officers assaulting Rodney King—permits the DOJ to file a lawsuit against a city if that city's PD is engaged in a pattern & practice of violating citizen's constitutional rights.

Lawsuits are a pain in the ass, so the DOJ will usually offer to enter into a consent decree with the offending police department. The consent decree is essentially a settlement agreement requiring the PD to enact reforms (bias training, no bench warrants, use dash cams etc)

The police department agrees to implement these reforms and the DOJ will assign a judge to enforce the consent decree. So after a certain number of years, the PD has to demonstrate that they have complied with the reforms set out in the consent decree or they will get sued.

Usually consent decrees will give a PD 5 years to get its shit together—although some consent decrees can take a decade or more. I think the LAPD Rampart consent decree was a decade.

Here's the problem though: After the PDs enact reform and the judge or independent monitor assesses compliance with the consent decree and everything is found to be hunky dory, what happens?

The police departments backslide.

That's what happened in Pittsburgh, for example. Pittsburgh enacted a bunch of reforms as required by one consent decree, was released from that consent decree, started back up with the bullshit, and the DOJ forced them into yet another consent decree.

This has been going on since 1994 which is when Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act). Have things gotten better since 1994?

They have not.

Which is why consent decrees don't really work and the entire system needs to be dismantled.

That said, it is a good thing that we have an attorney general who will bother to even take the minor step of forcing Minneapolis PD into a consent decree.

Lord knows Bilbo Bigot and Bill Barr couldn't be bothered.