Five years after a Minneapolis police officer brutally murdered a handcuffed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for over nine minutes, prompting worldwide protests against wrongful police killings of Black people, the Trump administration has taken a giant step back from police reform.

The Justice Department announced in May that it is abandoning agreements reached with police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., mandating reforms designed to reduce killings, brutality and other police misconduct. The Justice Department is conducting a review to determine if it should drop similar agreements with about a dozen other police departments.

On top of this, the Justice Department will end civil rights investigations of alleged criminal conduct by the Louisiana State Police and police departments in Memphis, Mount Vernon, N.Y., Oklahoma City, Phoenix and Trenton, N.J.

Thankfully, Minneapolis officials announced that they will abide by their agreement, known as a consent decree, reached with the Justice Department in the closing days of the Biden presidency. But it is absurd to depend on police departments to police themselves. The federal government has a duty to protect people from police who engage in criminal conduct.

The dangerous pullback by the Justice Department is likely to result in more wrongful deaths at the hands of police — particularly of Black people and members of other minority groups.

A nationwide count by the Washington Post of deadly shootings by police from 2015 through 2024 found that Black people “are killed by police at more than twice the rate” of white people........

© The Hill