Tell-It Report: DOJ Ends Police Reform Efforts the Same Week of George Floyd’s Death Anniversary
The Justice Department is halting its oversight of decree settlements that came in the wake of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd’s killings.
In Gullah Geechee communities, a "tell-it" was a designated lookout, community warning system and the most trusted source for news and information. The Tell-It Report is ContrabandCamp’s weekly roundup of the Black stories that deserve more attention — from politics to entertainment.
Bull Connor is probably smiling in his grave. Cops had a big week as we found out the Justice Department is walking away from overseeing police departments accused of abuse in several cities across the nation, New Orleans police have been secretly using AI facial recognition to track down suspects in real time, and the North Carolina state troopers who allegedly tried to cover up their involvement in 31-year-old Tyrone Mason’s death won’t see any criminal charges.
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DOJ pulls back on federal oversight of police reform across the country.
On May 21, the Justice Department announced its plans to end its oversight of police departments accused of violence in Minneapolis and Louisville, the New York Times reported. This comes just two months after the five-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s death and days before George Floyd’s, both of whom police killed in 2020. Their deaths sparked nationwide protests calling for police reform.
The Justice Department is dropping police abuse cases filed by Black people in the aforementioned cities and also closing civil rights investigations against police departments across the country in Memphis, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Trenton, N.J., and Mount Vernon, N.Y., according to the Times.
The move is a part of the Trump administration’s overall plan to end proposed and ongoing efforts put in place by the Biden administration to address law enforcement accused of civil rights violations.
“It’s our view at the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under the Trump administration that federal micromanagement of local police should be a rare exception, and not the norm,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told reporters, according to the Associated Press.
The Times reported that officials are also retracting findings of wrongdoing and ending federal oversight decrees that are currently in place in other cities, including Baltimore, Newark and Ferguson, Mo., according to Reuters. “I would get rid of some of them today if I could,” Dhillon said.
The Trump administration’s move was expected, as the president has referred to reform as an attack on police. Officials in Minneapolis and Louisville have stated that they will continue to move forward with the consent decree’s recommendations.
“We’re doing it anyway,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told MPR News. “We will implement every reform outlined in the consent decree — because accountability isn’t optional. Our independent monitor has lauded the meaningful progress we’ve made under the state settlement agreement, and the public can count on clear, measurable proof that our reforms are moving forward.”
At a press conference, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said their reform objectives would remain the same, stating, “It will just be a different process.”
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represented both Taylor and Floyd’s families, issued a statement calling the rollback an attempt “to erase truth and contradicting the very principles for which justice stands,” Reuters reports.
He continued, "These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures; they were lifelines for communities crying out for change, rooted in years of organizing, suffering, and advocacy."
New Orleans police secretly monitored the city using prohibited facial recognition technology.
The New Orleans Police Department secretly used facial recognition technology to scan live surveillance around the city in search of suspects for two years, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
According to the Post investigation, police had been using Project NOLA’s private network, consisting of over 200 surveillance cameras, to monitor the streets. Officers would receive AI-generated notifications through a mobile app showing the names and locations of suspects.
Their surveillance violates a 2022 city council ordinance that limits cops from using facial recognition to identify specific individuals in violent crimes. The Post reported that police used the technology to arrest dozens of people, including four with non-violent charges. However, officers didn’t reveal their use of the technology for several arrests.
Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told the outlet that this is a “nightmare scenario.” He said, “This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone — for that matter, everyone — as we go about our lives walking around in public.”
By the end of 2024, 15 states had laws regarding police use of the technology, Tech Policy reports. Though other states around the country have used facial recognition technology, this is the first known instance of police in a major city using it to make arrests using information from live feeds. The Post notes that some local departments’ use of racial recognition software may have violated local laws, with some arrests occurring based solely on AI matches, which is problematic given that the technology is less reliable for people of color, women and older adults.
NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick paused the surveillance program in April, two months after the Post began public records requests, and, reportedly, after a captain flagged the alerts as a potential issue. The department said in a statement to the Post that it “does not own, rely on, manage, or condone the use by members of the department of any artificial intelligence systems associated with the vast network of Project Nola crime cameras.”
On May 16, Project NOLA shared on Facebook that it used live facial recognition to quickly locate one of the 10 inmates who recently escaped from Orleans Justice Center. The project shared that it had found another escapee on May 20.
Project NOLA founder Bryan Lagarde told Axios that NOPD is “regrettably” not participating in alerts, but federal agencies and the Louisiana State Patrol are still receiving them. While NOPD reviews its use of technology, Kilpatrick told the Post that she’s in favor of the city having its own facial recognition program.
N.C. mother’s quest for answers in son’s death leads to investigation of troopers
Henrietta Mason has filed a lawsuit seeking answers and justice after her son, Tyrone Mason, died in a fatal wreck after a North Carolina state trooper initiated a chase in October 2024. The lawsuit comes after the Wake County district attorney announced that the officers involved would not face charges.
Henrietta Mason was asleep on the couch with her 3-year-old granddaughter when State Trooper Garrett Macario tried to pull over her 31-year-old son, she told The News & Observer. Tyrone accelerated and slammed into a concrete wall in Raleigh, North Carolina. As soon as she learned about his death, about 30 minutes after the crash, she began asking questions.
“I never thought my baby would leave this world before me,” the heartbroken mother said at a press conference, as reported by ABC11. “From day 1, when they came to me and told me my son died in a single-car accident with no witnesses, I told them that is not true.” She was also told there was no police chase.
Mason’s lawsuit accuses Macario of “conspiring” with his supervisor, Sgt. Matthew Morrison, to cover up Macario’s role in the accident instead of checking for her son’s safety, according to The News & Observer. It alleges that Macario checked the car’s exterior, “but did not render aid or even check to see if he was alive, injured or in need of assistance.”
The lawsuit states that Sgt. Morrison told Macario to say that he “drove up on” the wreck, to which Macario complied. He also told Morrison that Tyrone Mason had died despite failing to do a thorough check and administering aid.
“As such, no one attempted to render aid to Decedent until officers from the Raleigh Police Department arrived on scene and learned that Defendant Macario had not already done so,” the lawsuit reads.
Henrietta said that she couldn’t get a straight answer from police regarding what happened. “I kept running into a brick wall. I felt like no one cared to even look into it,” she told the outlet.
A state medical examiner’s report stated that Mason died at the scene of the crash. A toxicology report found that he had a blood alcohol content of .11, which is above the stat legal limit of .08. A report done by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation also pointed to Macario’s lack of action in response to the crash. However, his irresponsibility in the situation wasn’t enough for District Attorney Lorrin Freeman to charge the officers.
"While their dishonesty violates the standards to which law enforcement officers must adhere, the District Attorney is not pursuing criminal charges as the evidence would not support a successful prosecution," her office wrote. Freeman also noted that she would not pursue driving-while-impaired cases that rely on the officers. The North Carolina State Highway Patrol will decide if the officers, who were placed on leave during the investigation, will remain employed, according to ABC 11.
The family’s attorneys, Ben Crump and Bakari Sellers, have called for officials to release the footage related to the crash. Crump issued a statement calling the DA’s decision “an insult” to the family.
“Henrietta Mason is heartbroken once again,” the statement reads. “Not only has she had to bury her son, she has been failed repeatedly by the North Carolina State Troopers, the Raleigh Police, and now Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman, who all seem more interested in protecting a couple of liars than delivering justice for Tyrone Mason."
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