Final yr, when the Trump Justice Division dropped its oversight of troubled police departments in cities reminiscent of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, it argued that the reform efforts had been “factually unjustified.”
However in accordance with a brand new report by the American Civil Liberties Union, officers in these locations had been persevering with to have interaction within the very behaviors that attracted federal scrutiny within the first place, together with utilizing extreme — and harmful — pressure in opposition to individuals experiencing psychological well being crises.
The ACLU reviewed tons of of police use-of-force studies in 4 communities the place, below the Biden administration, the DOJ had discovered proof of unconstitutional policing. Of their evaluation, ACLU investigators discovered companies persevering with to misuse Tasers and failing to correctly evaluation their officers’ use of pressure.
In a single case, Minneapolis police repeatedly shocked a person with a Taser after he complied with their orders. In one other, a Louisville officer broke a person’s automobile window throughout a psychological well being name whereas a second officer pointed his gun, escalating the encounter, in accordance with the report. That officer then pulled the person from the automobile, at which level the person brandished a knife. The officers hit him with a baton and shocked him seven occasions.
The data primarily span from late 2024, after President Donald Trump received a second time period within the White Home, to early 2025, as the brand new administration started to shift the Justice Division away from its conventional concentrate on civil rights enforcement.
The report additionally cites reporting by ProPublica, which has detailed police misconduct and reform efforts in Louisville and Memphis, Tennessee. Within the fall of 2025, Trump deployed tons of of Nationwide Guard troops, U.S. Marshals and immigration officers to Memphis as a result of, he stated, “of the crime that’s happening.” The operation, ProPublica discovered, ensnared harmless residents of the majority-Black metropolis who stated they had been focused and harassed due to their race. The U.S. Marshals Service, which led the trouble, disputed the claims of racial profiling.
The goal of the ACLU effort, the authors stated, was to carry native police accountable within the absence of federal oversight and to maintain reforms shifting in communities the place investigators discovered or had issues of extreme pressure and racial concentrating on. To try this, the nonprofit made public data requests for studies detailing officers’ use of pressure and different data from police or sheriff departments in Phoenix; Louisville; Worcester, Massachusetts; Minneapolis; Mount Vernon, New York; and Memphis.
“We did this challenge as a result of we feared the Division of Justice was abandoning communities that wanted assist to make sure that reforms had been made of their communities, and our evaluation of the data sadly proves that to have occurred,” stated Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, the deputy challenge director on policing for the ACLU.
The ACLU additionally sought data from Rankin County, Mississippi, the place in 2023 members of the
Rankin County Sheriff’s Division, calling themselves the “Goon Squad,” beat and tortured two Black males. The officers had been convicted and sentenced to many years in jail in 2024. Biden’s DOJ launched an investigation into the sheriff’s division, and studies point out that the Trump administration is persevering with the probe. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s division informed Mississippi In the present day that the company “will proceed its cooperation with the investigation with a view to present that every one facets of the division’s policing are inside constitutional boundaries.”
The Justice Division didn’t reply to a request for remark. White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the ACLU’s findings as “partisan speaking factors” from a corporation that she stated “suffers from a extreme case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.” She additionally defended the administration’s strategy. “President Trump is a champion for our nice legislation enforcement officers and has inspired them to arrest criminals and implement the legislation — not like the Biden Administration,” Jackson stated.
The ACLU report spotlights Louisville and Minneapolis specifically as a result of they’d signed reform agreements with the Biden Justice Division earlier than the Trump administration dropped the underlying lawsuits and quashed the instances in 2025. The 2 cities had been additionally extra forthcoming than the others in response to the ACLU’s data requests.
In line with the report, officers from the Louisville Metro Police Division used extreme pressure, together with placing individuals of their face, head or physique whereas they had been handcuffed, and didn’t adequately evaluation incidents of pressure, mischaracterizing information throughout these opinions to make pressure seem extra affordable. A spokesperson for the Louisville police division informed ProPublica it “opinions use-of-force incidents by means of a number of layers of supervision, and when coverage violations are recognized, acceptable corrective motion is taken.”
Police additionally escalated encounters with individuals experiencing psychological well being crises by pointing their weapons at them, the ACLU discovered. The difficulty has been significantly pronounced this yr.
In March, Louisville cops fatally shot and killed a 28-year-old girl named Katelyn Corridor in her condominium whereas she was experiencing a psychological well being disaster. The incident continues to be below investigation, however police have stated Corridor posed a risk to officers as a result of, they stated, she was holding a chunk of damaged porcelain.
Two months later, a Louisville police officer shot and killed 27-year-old Martin Nitzken Jr., who was unarmed and bare on the street. A caller reported Nitzken was having a “psychological break,” in accordance with native studies. The officer who shot Nitzken was indicted on costs of manslaughter and reckless murder. He has pleaded not responsible. The officer’s lawyer didn’t reply to a request to talk to his shopper.
The Minneapolis Police Division’s data confirmed proof of extreme pressure, improper use of Tasers and poor opinions of use of pressure, the ACLU report says. The police division didn’t present remark.
Each Louisville and Minneapolis have adopted native variations of the reform agreements they’d inked with the Biden administration, and native leaders have pledged to institute modifications, that are being overseen by unbiased displays. A spokesperson for town of Louisville famous that its management “voluntarily” took on the reform effort after the DOJ “deserted” federal oversight.
However, as ProPublica has reported, progress has been sluggish in Louisville, and the outcomes have been combined there, significantly within the space of psychological well being.
“That the issues are nonetheless persisting in the identical means is suggesting to me that the police departments aren’t doing sufficient to enhance that conduct,” Borchetta stated.
After the killings of Corridor and Nitzken, Louisville’s mayor, Craig Greenberg, informed native press town was “shifting as quickly” as it could to vary the way in which police reply to psychological well being calls by permitting behavioral well being consultants to assist officers throughout such incidents.
The ACLU’s findings had been “not all unhealthy,” although, the authors wrote. The nonprofit credited Louisville for its transparency and for cases through which the evaluation course of labored “to determine, right, and enhance doable misuses of pressure.”
The group had meant to provide a extra expansive report however stated that proved not possible as a result of resistance and delays by the opposite native police departments it was scrutinizing. The Justice Division had investigated these cities and issued studies discovering proof their departments had engaged in unconstitutional policing. However the instances had not progressed past that when Trump was elected.
Memphis and Phoenix refused to show over the use-of-force data, the ACLU stated, so the group turned to the courts. The nonprofit sued Memphis in February for the paperwork. “Solely then did Memphis lastly agree to reply. This manufacturing is constant, as is the ACLU’s evaluation,” the report states. A spokesperson for the Memphis Police Division blamed the delay on the ACLU’s preliminary request, which they stated was “overly broad” and lacked specificity and was thus denied.
The nonprofit sued Phoenix earlier this month for its data. The litigation is ongoing. The police division there didn’t reply to a request for remark.
In Worcester, Massachusetts, the place the DOJ had beforehand discovered officers participating in intercourse acts throughout undercover investigations, the ACLU stated officers initially withheld a considerable quantity of data, citing a statute meant to guard the privateness of sexual abuse victims. Worcester finally relented and supplied extra data, the ACLU stated, however nonetheless withheld studies for greater than a dozen incidents. “Reliance on the statute to exempt data of police exercise from public scrutiny thus turns a safety for survivors right into a sword in opposition to them,” the report states.
A spokesperson for town of Worcester rejected the ACLU’s assertion that the studies had been withheld to guard the police division. “To conclude that the studies had been withheld to guard the WPD when the legislation permits no discretion in figuring out whether or not such studies are public or not is an egregious misrepresentation of the legislation and of town of Worcester’s acceptable response in accordance with the legislation,” the spokesperson informed ProPublica in a press release.
Harmeet Dhillon, the pinnacle of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, has criticized using federal reform agreements, generally known as consent decrees, saying they symbolize an costly type of micromanagement and “divest native management of policing from communities the place it belongs.”
Notably, in its report, the ACLU discovered that quite a few the legislation enforcement companies’ use-of-force data weren’t detailed and thorough, making it tough for the general public or the companies themselves to determine issues or forestall excessive-force points.
Borchetta stated that the ACLU’s evaluation is ongoing and the group will take no matter motion is required to unlock extra public info.
“You can also make actual change when individuals in the neighborhood need change and are pushing for it,” she stated. “So we count on and hope that we are able to proceed to work with communities and assist them with this info, in order that they will get the reform the DOJ tried to disclaim them.”
