Probe slams Minneapolis police over racism, fake social media accounts

A freshly introduced probe observed that the Minneapolis Police Section (MPD) engaged in race-based mostly policing, failed to maintain officers accountable for wrongdoing, and improperly made use of social media accounts to concentrate on Black men and women and Black companies.

In its report posted Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Human Legal rights (MDHR) comprehensive how officers had stooped, searched, arrested, cited and applied extreme drive toward Black and Indigenous people at a higher rate than their white counterparts.

Of 14 people today MPD officers have killed considering the fact that 2010, 13 were being Black or Indigenous, the report famous.

The section explained it reviewed 700 hours of body-worn digital camera footage and approximately 480,000 webpages of documents, obtaining MPD officers made use of racist, misogynistic and in any other case disrespectful language towards suspects, witnesses and bystanders.

“When MPD officers scream obscenities at group users, it would make it complicated for prosecutors to do their job and hence undermines the felony justice technique,” the department wrote in its report.

The MDHR’s report also noted that the department’s accountability methods are ineffective at keeping officers accountable for misconduct, noting that cases of law enforcement misconduct are not effectively investigated or addressed, indicating officers are not consistently held accountable.

The report also found that the MPD utilized a variety of social media accounts to concentrate on Black leaders, Black businesses and elected officials without the need of a community safety aim for the duration of the 10-calendar year period.

“Specifically, MPD officers sent pal requests, commented on posts, sent personal messages, and contributed to conversations,” the report stated. “When executing so, officers posed as like-minded folks and claimed, for case in point, that they met the targeted human being at a prior demonstration or protest. In social media posts and messages, MPD officers applied language to even more racial stereotypes involved with Black persons, primarily Black females.”

Tale proceeds

The human rights agency introduced its investigation amid the fallout from the police-concerned killing of George Floyd in Might 2020, which sparked countrywide outrage and protests demanding an stop to law enforcement brutality and racial inequality.

Derek Chauvin, the officer convicted of murder for kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for extra than nine minutes, requested the courtroom this week to attractiveness his conviction. Chauvin is at this time serving a prison sentence of 22 ½ many years.

“Following the murder of George Floyd, calls for to close discriminatory policing tactics reverberated across the world,” MDHR Commissioner Rebecca Lucero stated in a statement.

“Those needs continue to be just as urgent now with the announcement of the investigative results which paints an unsettling picture of the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Law enforcement Division participating in a sample of racial discrimination about the last decade,” Lucero additional.

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