Opinion | Why America should read the George Floyd report

The report, released Friday, is 89 pages of disturbing but hardly surprising details regarding an institution that the DOJ describes as having systemically used excessive force as well as discriminated against racial minorities. These issues predated the murder in summer 2020 that set off protests across the country.

Minneapolis police officers shot at people who presented no immediate danger to them — firing into a car containing six people after its driver was instructed to reverse down a one-way street; discharging four rounds at a man stabbing himself with a knife but threatening no one else; killing an unarmed White woman who “spooked” an officer by approaching his squad car after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in a nearby alley. Other times, they used their weapons to intimidate, as when an officer pointed a gun at a teen he suspected of taking a $5 burrito without paying. Witnesses called 911 to report a “wacko who has a gun” accosting a kid.

Officers relied on neck restraints with abandon, and in some cases without warning, as when an officer sneaked up behind an unarmed Latino man and choked him until he blacked out. They stunned people with tasers because they didn’t comply immediately with occasionally contradictory demands: “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” a woman pulled over for an illegal U-turn yelled as an officer sent electricity into her neck. They pepper-sprayed citizens as punishment for criticizing or even just observing their activity; they responded to a diabetic woman’s plea for help by telling her they’d add a charge for obstruction and putting her in a full-body restraint. These aren’t examples of police making difficult split-second decisions to protect their safety or the safety of others. They are examples of officers hurting people for little reason at all.

The burden of this misconduct hasn’t been evenly borne among demographics. Black and Native American residents have been stopped disproportionately; their neighborhoods have been patrolled disproportionately; they’ve been the subjects of a disproportionate amount of force. The Minneapolis police have been on notice about these disparities, but despite some recent reforms, no one has done anything to sufficiently address them. To the contrary, after Floyd’s murder brought national attention to the city, many officers have simply stopped documenting race in the course of their duties.

Accountability is close to a sham; training is lackluster. The lieutenant in charge of schooling recruits on use of force is on camera spouting racism about Black people he assumes are responsible for any “looting and fires,” himself eager to “f—in’ put people in jail and just prove the mayor wrong about his white supremacists from out of state.” This instance of bigotry is tame compared with others the report catalogues.

These “pattern and practice” reviews fell out of favor during Donald Trump’s presidency, but their return is welcome. The imprimatur of the Justice Department, plus the push of a consent decree, might be what’s necessary to reverse long-standing and deplorable trends — in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Better still, police departments should take it upon themselves to remove the same rot in their own cities.