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The group that’s overseeing court-ordered reforms of the Minneapolis Police Department says MPD is making progress toward meeting its goals. The city 

 Effective Law Enforcement for All — known as ELEFA — to monitor compliance with a state settlement agreement. The group is providing updates to the public at 

Near the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights concluded an extensive investigation into the MPD. In a 

, MDHR described a department that had a longstanding culture of racism and misogyny and that used force disproportionately against people of color.  

To get on the right side of the law, police and the state entered into a legal agreement that a Hennepin County judge is overseeing. 

Attorney David Douglass leads ELEFA and has spent the last decade overseeing police reforms in New Orleans. At the Sabathani Community Center near George Floyd Square on Wednesday evening, Douglass told an audience of around 100 people that things are going well.

“We have not really found any resistance to this process in the department or in the city,” Douglass said. “Everyone knows that change is needed here and everybody wants to see change happen.”

ELEFA has outlined a detailed, four-year 

 for meeting the 144 pages of requirements. By mid March, MPD must have new policies in place that govern the use of force, body camera usage, and interactions with minors. The department must also make “substantial progress toward or complete elimination of” the backlog of internal affairs and civilian complaints against officers. 

Michael Harrison, who’s also on the ELEFA team, led the New Orleans and Baltimore police departments through their court-ordered oversight. Harrison said as the new policies are set, officers will be trained on them.

“Policy is not a live policy or an effective policy until the members are actually trained to it,” he said. 

Harrison noted that Minneapolis residents are highly engaged with the process.

 “We were pleasantly surprised to see the level of organization, the level of commitment, the level of knowledge that community members have about the reform process even before this settlement agreement,” he said.

Activist Michelle Gross, with Communities United Against Police Brutality, said in a phone interview on Wednesday that ELEFA has been responsive to the community. Gross said her group pushed back on a police proposal that would have classified pointing a gun at a person as a low-level use of force. 

“That’s a terrifying situation for the community, to have a police officer point a gun at them,” Gross said. “And so we felt like that needed to be a much higher level use of force, and we raised that and other issues and took them to ELEFA.” 

Gross added that the use of force policy is still under review. 

While the court-ordered settlement agreement with the state is active, the city has been negotiating with the U.S. Department of Justice over the details of a parallel federal consent decree. Gross said both agreements are needed because the feds have broader enforcement powers. 

But during his first term, President-elect Donald Trump opposed consent decrees as anti-police. ELEFA’s David Douglass said that he does not expect the MPD to be operating under a federal consent decree now that Trump is headed back to the White House.

“We know as a factual matter that the first Trump administration not only did not initiate any consent decrees, it attempted to unwind some of the ones that had been negotiated shortly before they came into office,” Douglass said. 

A spokesperson for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told the 

 this week that the city remains committed to negotiating a federal consent decree. Even without a federal court’s oversight, Douglass said the police department’s agreement with the state remains a viable path toward much-needed reform. 

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The department must meet 144 pages of requirements within a four-year timeline under its settlement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. The state-level agreement could become the only legal settlement driving broad reform in the department; a federal consent decree is expected to be abandoned by the incoming Trump administration.

The group that’s overseeing court-ordered reforms of the Minneapolis Police Department says MPD is making progress toward meeting its goals.

Police monitor says MPD making progress on court-ordered overhaul

Ben Hovland | MPR News

A Black woman listens to a white woman speak

Police monitor says MPD making progress on court-ordered overhaul

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