Last year, the Trump Justice Department ended its oversight of police reform efforts in cities including Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, arguing that such reforms were “factually unjustified.” However, a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveals that police officers in these cities continued engaging in behaviors that initially prompted federal intervention, such as excessive and dangerous use of force against individuals experiencing mental health crises.

The ACLU reviewed hundreds of police use-of-force reports from four communities where the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) had previously found evidence of unconstitutional policing. The records mainly cover late 2024 through early 2025, a period following President Donald Trump’s second term victory and the DOJ’s shift away from civil rights enforcement.

Among the incidents highlighted, Minneapolis police repeatedly used a Taser on a man who complied with their orders. In Louisville, an officer broke a man’s car window during a mental health call while another officer pointed a gun, escalating the situation. The report also notes that Louisville Metro Police Department officers used excessive force on handcuffed individuals and inadequately reviewed these incidents, often mischaracterizing facts to justify the force used.

“We did this project because we feared the Department of Justice was abandoning communities that needed help to ensure that reforms were made in their communities, and our analysis of the records unfortunately proves that to have happened,” said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing for the ACLU.

The ACLU report specifically focuses on Louisville and Minneapolis because these cities had signed reform agreements with the Biden Justice Department before the Trump administration dropped the underlying lawsuits and quashed the cases in 2025.

In response, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the ACLU’s findings as “partisan talking points” from an organization she said “suffers from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Jackson defended the Trump administration’s approach, stating, “President Trump is a champion for our great law enforcement officers and has encouraged them to arrest criminals and enforce the law — unlike the Biden Administration.”