Officials in Memphis said that the city would not immediately agree to negotiate an overhaul of the Memphis Police Department with the federal government. Mayor Paul Young warned that doing so could be “bureaucratic and costly.” Young’s comments came after the Justice Department released findings of a 17-month-long investigation, saying Memphis officers unlawfully used excessive force, disproportionately targeted Black people and mistreated children and those with mental health issues. Pushing back against the Justice Department’s request to negotiate a legally binding consent decree, Young cited changes that the police department introduced after several officers fatally beat Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, last year. Those changes and others still to come, he said, would constitute “an effective improvement plan that transcends what is undoubtedly a bureaucratic and costly consent decree,” the New York Times reports.
Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said DOJ could sue Memphis given the scope of the constitutional violations that its investigation found. President Biden has less than two months left in office, and the incoming Trump administration may not want to see the case through. The unusual resistance to negotiating a consent decree, which would allow for federal oversight of the police department, comes as the DOJ is scrambling to finish at least six investigations into police conduct before Trump is inaugurated. During his first term, the Justice Department walked away from policing cases pursued by the Obama administration. Memphis came under national scrutiny in January 2023, when an encounter between a group of Black police officers and Nichols, a Black FedEx worker, quickly became violent. Surveillance and body camera footage showed officers punching, kicking and beating Nichols, who was driving home from work. He died in the hospital days later.
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