The results are mixed in the latest report on the Minneapolis Police Department's agreement to make transformational changes addressing racial discrimination.
It shows progress in use-of-force policies, but also outlines delays in misconduct accountability and investigations.
"We knew when we started and agreed to the settlement agreement that this would be a long journey, that this would not be a sprint but a marathon for us," explains Minneapolis Public Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette. "We get these reports, we look at what we've done well, and then those things that we need improvement on, we will continue to work on those things until we get it right."
The nonprofit Effective Law Enforcement For All authored the report.
The court-mandated agreement was put into place following the death of George Floyd at the hand of an MPD officer, Derek Chauvin, who is serving 22.5 years in federal prison for killing Floyd.
On the plus side, the report found progress in the use-of-force policies but also outlines delays in misconduct accountability and investigations.
"The one thing that I think people don't see is the number of city employees that are not just in the police department working on this, but throughout the city that are committed to making this institutional, transformal reform happen for our police department," Barnette adds.
This is the fourth update provided by Effective Law Enforcement For All.
The city's consent decree with the state was kept in place, despite the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump dropping the federal consent decree.
That was put in place after a 2023 investigation by President Biden's DOJ, which found significant evidence of MPD using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black and Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protected speech, and discriminating against people with disabilities when responding to them in crisis.
