In what comes as an unsurprising conclusion, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into the conduct of the Minneapolis Police Department found evidence that officers used excessive force and engaged in racial discrimination. The “pattern of practice” investigation began in April of 2021, the day after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the second-degree murder of George Floyd in May of 2020.

In his announcement on Friday, Garland stated that there is “reasonable cause to believe that the MPD and the city of Minneapolis engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitution.” He added:

We found that MPD and the city of Minneapolis engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, unlawfully discriminating against Black or Native American people in enforcement activities, violating the rights of people engaged in protective speech, and discriminating against people with behavioral disabilities when responding to them in crisis.

Minneapolis:

Democrat Mayor
Democrat City Council
Democrat District Attorney
Democrat Attorney General
Democrat Congresswomen
Democrat US Senators
Democrat State Legislators
Democrat State Senators
Democrat Police Chief

Now Biden’s DOJ has found “systemic racism” in the… https://t.co/A3tB8VsxEw

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) June 16, 2023

While Garland was quick to point out that “We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” he seemingly couldn’t help himself and laid blame at the feet of Minneapolis police, saying that “patterns and practices we observed made what happen to George Floyd possible.”

Floyd’s death sparked violent protests across the nation, and protesters called on cities to defund the police. Garland discussed several instances of Minneapolis police using excessive force, including the shooting of an unarmed woman. The officer involved said he shot the woman because she “spooked” him. Garland also discussed another case where a car in which four Somali teenagers were riding was stopped, and an officer made inappropriate racial comments to them.

The remedy for alleged excessive use of force by Minneapolis police was to disband the police department. One of the most vocal of those calling for total abolishment of the police department was Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). At the time, top House Democrats were all-in on the defund the police movement, including squad members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Cori Bush (D-MO), along with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Nine members of the Minneapolis City Council also made their intentions of defunding and dismantling the police department known.

I double dog dare Merrick Garland to walk down the center of Martin Luther King Boulevard in Minneapolis at night time without a police escort.
You can bring your social workers with you, of course.#GeorgeFloyd

— andieiam (@andieiamwhoiam) June 16, 2023

But while the Justice Department and Merrick Garland were on the hunt for any hint of excessive force or anything that might be deemed discrimination by police officers, crime in Minneapolis in 2020 following the death of Floyd skyrocketed. The murder rate in Minneapolis jumped to one of the highest in the nation, up from 46 in 2019, to 93 in 2021. Violent crime in 2021 rose 21.6 percent from 2020. Even through the first half of 2022, the Minneapolis murder rate was in the top quarter percentile of cities per capita across the nation at 19th of 70.

By the end of 2021, Merrick Garland and the DOJ were forced to deal with the spike in crime in large, mostly Democrat-run cities and announced a grant award of $1.6 billion to many cities in order to combat high crime rates. Included were many of those cities that realized along the way that defunding the police wasn’t working. The funds could be used for a wide array of ways to fight crime, including hiring more officers.

Crime in Minneapolis and other large cities continues to rise, and it is sure to become an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. There may be other police departments in other cities that Merrick Garland and the DOJ are looking to “fix” for Democrats.

Merrick Garland now going after the Minneapolis Police Department. Garland is a left wing political hack who sides with criminals.

— Proud American 🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@RaptorGuy2018) June 16, 2023