One Year After the Trump Administration Abandoned Police Reform, New ACLU Report Finds Evidence of Continued Excessive Force

NEW YORK — One year after the Trump administration abandoned federal police oversight across the country, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report raising concerns that the patterns of excessive force and racial discrimination identified by the prior Department of Justice (DOJ) were ongoing when this administration withdrew from oversight.

The report, Regressive Policing Under President Trump, provides a one-year update on the ACLU's Seven States Safety Campaign, launched shortly after the DOJ’s announcement that it was abandoning police reform across the country. The campaign focused on law enforcement agencies in seven states where federal civil rights investigations and reports confirmed widespread patterns of police abuse. These included municipal police departments and county sheriff departments in Tennessee, Massachusetts, New York, Arizona, Mississippi, Minnesota, and Kentucky. Through coordinated public records requests and advocacy, the campaign sought to uncover whether the constitutional violations identified by the DOJ continued despite the Trump administration's decision to walk away.

“The Trump administration abandoned oversight based on the false claim that the alarming problems uncovered in the DOJ’s investigations were either untrue or had already been addressed,” said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy director of policing at the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project. “Our preliminary review of these records suggests that many of the same problems identified by the DOJ persisted at the exact moment the federal government was using those claims to justify walking away. Since then, this administration has been actively encouraging the same types of aggressive policing tactics that the DOJ has found to be dangerous and unconstitutional. If the federal government refuses to protect people’s constitutional rights, we deserve transparency about whether the known police misconduct in our communities is being taken seriously.”

Last May, the ACLU and local partners submitted coordinated public records requests to police departments in seven states, seeking use-of-force reports and other records that could shed light on policing practices and patterns of misconduct. The ACLU received more than 600 use-of-force reports and additional records, though many agencies delayed or continue to withhold responsive documents in violation of state public records laws.

“During the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) seriously investigated the Rankin County sheriff’s department and the Lexington police for brutality and overreach that targeted Black citizens in their respective communities,” said Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi. “There are many public accounts of cruel and racist conduct by officers at both agencies. A change of administrations may have halted those DOJ investigations, but it did not change the fact that these law enforcement agencies terrorized Black men and women. We cannot stand silent and watch the federal government walk away from protecting communities from serious police misconduct.”

The ACLU’s preliminary review of the records suggests that excessive force continues to be a problem across multiple agencies, including improper escalation of force against people experiencing mental health crises, misuse of Tasers, and problematic internal review processes that may fail to identify or address improper use of force. The ACLU’s initial assessment also raises concerns that the racial discrimination identified in DOJ investigations has persisted.

Many agencies resisted providing records they are legally required to share. The ACLU had to file lawsuits to compel the agencies to comply with state public records laws and provide the information requested. This includes Memphis and Phoenix, where agencies withheld use of force reports that are plainly public records. One year later, records from numerous departments are still outstanding.

The full report is available here: https://www.aclu.org/publications/regressive-policing-under-president-trump