Department of Justice scraps Memphis Police investigation

The U.S. Department of Justice will retract findings from a December 2024 investigation of the Memphis Police Department. (Photo by Karen Pulfer Focht for Tennessee Lookout)

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division announced Wednesday it will close its investigation into the Memphis Police Department and retract a December 2024 report addressing constitutional violations by police. 

The DOJ found police in Memphis used excessive force, engaged in unlawful traffic stops and routinely discriminated against Black residents after a 2023 investigation spurred by the death of 23-year-old Tyre Nichols when he was beaten by police officers during a traffic stop. 

In addition to ending the Memphis case, the DOJ said in a press release it will close investigations into local law enforcement agencies in Phoenix; Oklahoma City; Trenton, New Jersey; Mt. Vernon, New York; and into the Louisiana State Police. 

The agency also will dismiss lawsuits against the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments, accusing the Biden administration — which filed the suits — of using flawed data to impose orders on the two departments to stop discrimination. 

Department of Justice opens civil rights probe of Memphis after Tyre Nichols death case

“Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Louisville police came under investigation after the shooting death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, who was in her apartment with her boyfriend when seven officers forced entry as part of a search for drugs. An investigation following the incident found the police had targeted the wrong apartment. 

The DOJ opened an investigation into police in Minnesota when a bystander’s video showed officer Derek Chauvin applying a chokehold to George Floyd — who was Black — in May 2020, killing Floyd. Chauvin was convicted of second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represented the families of Nichols, Taylor and Floyd, called the move by the federal agency a “slap in the face” to the families. 

“By walking away from consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, and closing its investigation into the Memphis Police Department while retracting findings of serious constitutional violations, the DOJ is not just rolling back reform, it is attempting to erase truth and contradicting the very principles for which justice stands,” Crump said in a statement.

“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,” said Crump.