The Minneapolis City Council will soon hear the details of federally mandated police reforms. Sources told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this week that the city reached a tentative agreement with the Department of Justice about a consent decree.

City Council members are expected to go into a closed-door session for a briefing on the case on Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. Members could then vote on an agreement or take more time to review the information.

“It’s honestly hard to know what to expect,” said Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network. “Especially given the fact that we’re now at the eleventh hour with regard to the City and the Department of Justice being able to finalize the federal consent decree.”

The DOJ announced its investigation in 2021 under the Biden administration and the findings were shared in 2023. The City of Minneapolis agreed to a consent decree rather than contested litigation after the DOJ found the Minneapolis Police Department used unjustified deadly force and discriminated against Black and Native community members, among other violations.

Sources told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the goal is to get a consent decree filed in federal court and signed by a judge by Jan. 20, which is the day President-Elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.

During the previous Trump administration, the DOJ put limits on consent decrees.

“Different presidential administrations have had different levels of prioritization of this particular kind of program,” said Michelle Phelps, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. She is also the author of ‘The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence and the Politics of Policing in America.’   

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) already has a separate court-enforceable settlement agreement with the City and MPD. Reforms under that agreement are underway.

“It is very historically significant that the city will potentially be under a consent decree both through state authorities and federal authorities,” said Phelps.

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The same independent monitor is expected to oversee both. When the state agreement was reached, officials said any differences in the two agreements will be worked out in court but didn’t expect a conflict.

“The goal, initially at least, was for those two consent decrees to be working in tandem,” said Phelps. “We’ll see this week what that consent decree looks like and how it may or may not be different from what the city is already required to do under the first consent decree.”

The state agreement includes additional requirements for supervisors as well as a new focus on the well-being of officers. According to MDHR, it also requires the city and its police department to require officers to deescalate, prohibit officers from using force to punish or retaliate, ban searches based on alleged smells of cannabis, prohibit so-called consent searches during pedestrian or vehicle stops and restrict less-lethal uses of force — including rubber bullets, chemical irritants and Tasers.

Levy Armstrong hopes the federal consent decree will include tougher standards for the SWAT team and revisit the practice of coaching, which are one-on-one sessions to address policy infractions. A judge recently ruled those are considered private personnel data and will stay hidden from the public.

“Proper checks and balances across the board in the key areas the Department of Justice laid out in their scathing report after they investigated the Minneapolis Police Department is what’s going to be key,” said Armstrong. “We have not received word that we will have the chance to review the document ahead of Monday’s meeting or even to know what’s contained within it which is really disheartening.”

The City Council is set to consider the agreement more than four years after George Floyd’s murder.

“There is no reason it should’ve taken this long,” said Armstrong.