In nearly two decades with the Minneapolis Police Department, Derek Chauvin faced at least 17 misconduct complaints, none of which derailed his career.Over the years, civilian review boards came and went, and a federal review recommended that the troubled department improve its system for flagging problematic
In nearly two decades with the Minneapolis Police Department, Derek Chauvin faced at least 17 misconduct complaints, none of which derailed his career.
His case is not unusual. Critics say the department, despite its long history of accusations of abuse, never fully put in place federal recommendations to overhaul the way in which it tracks complaints and punishes officers — with just a handful over the years facing termination or severe punishment.
Story continuesTheir deaths have unleashed a wave of tremendous protests across the country, extending far beyond Minneapolis on Friday, with protesters destroying police vehicles in Atlanta and New York, and blocking major streets in San Jose, California, and Detroit — all cities that have wrestled with accusations of police misconduct.
Dave Bicking, a board member of Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Twin Cities advocacy group, said many disciplinary actions are overturned because they are compared to previous cases, making it hard for departments to reverse a history of leniency or respond to changing community expectations.
And while black residents account for about 20% of the city’s population, police department data shows they are more likely to be pulled over, arrested and have force used against them than white residents. And black people accounted for more than 60% of the victims in Minneapolis police shootings from late 2009 through May 2019, data shows.
In 2012, the civilian board in Minneapolis was replaced by an agency called the Office of Police Conduct Review. Since then, more than 2,600 misconduct complaints have been filed by members of the public, but only 12 have resulted in an officer being disciplined, Bicking said. The most severe censure has been a 40-hour suspension, he said.
But the patchwork nature of the city’s disciplinary tracking was clear in Chauvin’s case. The city released an Internal Affairs summary with 17 complaints. The city’s police conduct database listed only 12, some of which did not appear to be included in the summary, and Communities United Against Police Brutality, which also maintains a database, had yet more complaint numbers not included in the first two sources.
During the encounter, “Officer Thao then threw” Ferguson, “handcuffed, to the ground and began hitting him.” Teresa Nelson, legal director for the ACLU of Minnesota, said attempts by the city’s police leaders to reform the department’s culture have been undermined by Kroll, who she said downplays complaints and works to reinstate officers who are fired, no matter the reason.
In 2013, the police chief at the time, Janeé Harteau, asked the Department of Justice to review the department’s warning system. A federal report found that it had “systemic challenges” and questioned its ability to “create sustainable behavior change.”
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