A Mockery of Justice: Five Years After George Floyd, Punk’s DOJ Declares Open Season

As the calendar creeps towards May 25th, marking five agonizing years since George Floyd’s life was extinguished under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer—a murder that ignited a global inferno of grief and a desperate cry for racial justice—the nation should be reflecting on progress made and recommitting to the hard work still ahead. Instead, in an act of breathtaking cynicism that can only be described as morally disgusting, President Felonious Punk’s Department of Justice chose this very moment, this week, to effectively declare open season on police accountability. On Wednesday, May 21, 2025, the DOJ announced it is systematically dismantling federal police oversight agreements in Minneapolis, Louisville, and at least six other cities, while simultaneously attempting to whitewash the previous administration’s findings of unconstitutional and discriminatory policing. This isn’t just a policy reversal; it is a grotesque betrayal of every promise made in the crucible of 2020, a chilling signal to communities of color that their lives and constitutional rights are once again considered expendable, and an open invitation for police misconduct to flourish unchecked.

The Fleeting Promise Born from Unspeakable Pain

The summer of 2020 saw millions take to the streets, their voices raw with anguish and fury after witnessing the agonizing final minutes of George Floyd’s life, and hearing the echoes of Breonna Taylor’s killing in Louisville just weeks before. The “Defund the Police” slogan, often misunderstood or deliberately maligned, represented for many a profound demand to re-imagine public safety, to divest from systems that perpetuate harm, and to invest in communities. While radical transformation proved elusive, a key, if imperfect, institutional response came in the form of renewed federal scrutiny of police departments with documented histories of abuse. The Biden administration’s Justice Department launched numerous “pattern or practice” investigations, leading to damning findings in cities like Minneapolis and Louisville. These investigations confirmed what Black and Brown communities had been screaming for generations: systemic, unconstitutional policing, including the disproportionate targeting of people of color and the routine use of excessive force, was rampant. The proposed consent decrees that followed were meant to be legally binding roadmaps for reform, overseen by federal courts and independent monitors—a small step, perhaps, but a vital one towards accountability.

The Hammer Falls: Punk’s DOJ Obliterates Oversight

Enter Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, at the helm of President Punk’s Civil Rights Division. This week, she announced the wholesale abandonment of these critical consent decrees. The DOJ is moving to dismiss the lawsuits against Minneapolis and Louisville police departments and is closing investigations into at least six others—Phoenix, Trenton, Memphis, Mount Vernon, Oklahoma City, and the Louisiana State Police. Even more audaciously, the Punk DOJ is retracting the previous administration’s meticulously documented findings of unconstitutional violations by all eight of these departments.

The justifications offered are a masterclass in gaslighting and victim-blaming. Dhillon and the DOJ claim the proposed decrees were “factually unjustified,” “overbroad,” would lead to “years of micromanagement” by “unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” and would “divest local control of policing.” They argue that the original investigations “wrongly equated statistical disparities with intentional discrimination and heavily rely[ed] on flawed methodologies and incomplete data.” In essence, the message from Punk’s DOJ is that the documented patterns of abuse, the racial disparities, the excessive force—none of it was real, or at least, not bad enough to warrant federal intervention. It’s a narrative that seeks to erase history and invalidate the lived experiences of countless victims of police misconduct.

“It’s Okay to Kill Black People”: The Devastating Message Received

Let there be no ambiguity about what this means. For communities of color, particularly Black communities who have borne the centuries-long brunt of police violence and state-sanctioned terror, this federal retreat is not an abstract policy debate. It is heard as a deafening, terrifying declaration: the federal government will no longer stand as even a reluctant guardian against police abuse; the gates of impunity are being thrown wide open.

Civil rights organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund have long warned that dismantling federal oversight mechanisms like consent decrees—a key plank of agendas like Project 2025, which heavily influences this administration—will place Black communities at “even greater risk of discriminatory and oftentimes violent policing.” When the highest law enforcement agency in the land actively retracts findings of unconstitutional conduct and abandons agreements designed to compel reform, it sends an unmistakable signal to abusive police officers and departments: the already minimal constraints are off. It validates the deepest fears that, for some in power, Black lives still do not truly matter.

The Façade of Reform Crumbles: “Defund Never Happened,” and Now This

This brutal reversal comes after years where the “Defund the Police” movement, despite its initial prominence, failed to achieve widespread, systemic change. As detailed in critical analyses like those in Current Affairs, police budgets largely continued to grow, “reforms” were often superficial, and the fundamental power of policing as an institution remained entrenched. The DOJ’s current actions are not just a failure to advance reform; they are an aggressive, deliberate rollback of even the most moderate accountability measures that were painfully achieved.

While some localities, like Minneapolis, may have state-level consent decrees that offer a continued, albeit more isolated, path for reform, the withdrawal of federal oversight is a devastating blow nationwide. It tells other departments under scrutiny, or those contemplating reform, that the pressure is off, that the federal government is no longer watching, no longer cares. It effectively greenlights a return to the very practices that ignited a nation five years ago.

Eroding Trust, Inviting Unrest: The Inevitable Consequences

At a time when public trust in federal institutions is already at historic lows, for the Department of Justice to so blatantly align itself against police accountability and the protection of civil rights is an act of profound institutional self-harm. It deepens cynicism, fuels despair, and, as any student of history knows, when official channels for justice are perceived as deliberately and irrevocably closed, communities left with no recourse may understandably turn to other forms of expression. To expect relations between police and the communities they are sworn to protect to remain peaceful in the face of such a betrayal is naive at best, and dangerously obtuse at worst.

Conclusion: Five Years After George Floyd – A Promise Betrayed, A Nation Mourning Justice

The fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder should have been a solemn moment for America to rededicate itself to the unfinished work of justice, equality, and true public safety. Instead, the Punk administration has marked it with a decision that mocks his memory, spits on the graves of countless other victims of police violence, and sends a chilling message to every Black and Brown person in this country that their constitutional rights are conditional and their lives disposable.

This is beyond politics; it is, as you said, morally disgusting. It is an administration actively choosing to side with unaccountable state power over the fundamental human rights of its citizens. The demand now must be for more than just outrage, though outrage is a wholly appropriate response. It must be for relentless pressure, for community organizing, for supporting those still fighting for police accountability at local and state levels, and for an unwavering commitment to dismantling the systems that allow such betrayals of justice to occur. If the federal government abdicates its responsibility to protect its people, then the people themselves must, and will, continue the fight.