The Trump administration’s announcement on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from federal oversight plans for the Minneapolis Police Department came as the city was preparing to mark the five-year anniversary of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of the police.
Officials and residents expressed dismay about the administration’s decision, saying that oversight had been aimed at ending what federal authorities had described as a longstanding pattern of violent, racist and unconstitutional practices by the city’s Police Department.
The timing of the announcement, during a week when Mr. Floyd’s death is being observed with panel discussions, concerts, vigils and other gatherings in Minneapolis, struck many in the city as insensitive.
Mr. Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020, when a police officer held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes.
“The Trump administration is sending a signal that they don’t care about Black lives,” said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer and activist in Minneapolis.
Officials in Minneapolis said they had long anticipated that the Trump administration would withdraw from an agreement that had been signed just days before President Biden left the White House.
The agreement included a series of policies aimed at overhauling how police officers are trained, monitored and held accountable for misconduct. Under the agreement, compliance would have been assessed by an independent group and a federal judge over several years.
Announcing withdrawals from the decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Harmeet K. Dhillon, told reporters on Wednesday that such agreements — known as consent decrees — have tended to be ineffectual. She said they often cost too much and last too long.
Justice Department officials said the timing of the announcement was unrelated to the anniversary of Mr. Floyd’s death. The department faced court deadlines this week to notify federal judges in Minneapolis and Louisville how it intended to proceed on consent decrees negotiated by the Biden administration.
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said his administration remained committed to sweeping changes outlined in the federal agreement, even though the Trump administration would no longer be involved.
“We will comply with every sentence of every paragraph of the 169-page consent decree that we signed this year,” Mr. Frey said. “People have been demanding for years that we do this work, and we’re not going to let them down.”
In a statement, the Minneapolis police union said it was pleased that the Department of Justice had abandoned the agreement, which had not yet taken effect.
“Today’s decision reflects recognition that additional oversight is unnecessary,” the union said in a statement. The statement added: “We acknowledge there is work that remains to be done to rebuild community trust.”
Mr. Frey called the timing of the Trump administration’s announcement callous, saying “what this shows is that all Donald Trump cares about is political theater.”
Late last month, Mr. Trump signed an executive order outlining steps his administration intended to take to empower local law enforcement agencies to “aggressively police communities against all crimes.” Those included reassessing whether consent decrees and other measures negotiated under the Biden administration might “unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.”
Minneapolis officials said on Wednesday that the city had made significant strides in its efforts to limit the use of force, improve training and hold officers accountable for misconduct. Still, the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, acknowledged that changes will take years to put in place and that the effort has been vexing for a department that lost hundreds of officers in the aftermath of Mr. Floyd’s murder.
“This is a police force that has been depleted over the last few years, while the demands of crime and investigations have risen dramatically,” Chief O’Hara said. Crime in Minneapolis rose significantly in the years after Mr. Floyd’s death but has been on a downward trend more recently.
In addition to the federal consent decree, Minneapolis had previously entered into a legal agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, promising an overhaul of police practices. The state agreement will remain in effect and includes provisions that overlap with many of the changes the Police Department promised to make under the federal agreement.
“The state court consent decree isn’t going anywhere,” said Rebecca Lucero, the commissioner of the Department of Human Rights. She added that a “tremendous amount of work” lies ahead for the city’s Police Department.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat who prosecuted the police officer who killed George Floyd, called Mr. Trump’s decision regrettable but hardly surprising.
“This dismissal, as predictable and shameful as it is, does not erase D.O.J.’s historic finding that Minneapolis engaged in a pattern of racially discriminatory, unlawful and unconstitutional policing,” Mr. Ellison said in a statement.
Devlin Barrett contributed reporting.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy.
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