DOJ begins dismissing Biden-era lawsuits against 2 city police departments

The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it will be dismissing lawsuits against the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments that were initiated during the Biden administration. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon described the lawsuits as overly broad and expensive, leading the department to take steps to dismiss them “with prejudice.”

In addition to dismissing the lawsuits, the Justice Department will also be winding down investigations into several other police departments, including those in Phoenix, Trenton, Memphis, Mount Vernon, Oklahoma City, and the Louisiana state police. The Biden administration’s findings of constitutional violations on the part of these departments will be retracted.

Dhillon emphasized that the consent decrees imposed by the Biden administration would have subjected local police departments to years of federal court oversight and costly compliance measures without sufficient legal or factual basis. She criticized these decrees for taking control of policing away from local communities and handing it over to unelected officials with potential anti-police biases.

The move to dismiss the lawsuits and end the investigations marks a shift in approach for the Justice Department, with Dhillon stating that they are putting an end to the “failed experiment” of imposing unjustified consent decrees on local leaders and police departments.

This breaking news story is developing, so stay tuned for updates on this significant policy change from the Justice Department.

Breanne Deppisch, a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration and focusing on the Justice Department and FBI, contributed to this report.