Activists raise alarm over nonprofit monitoring Minneapolis police

The nonprofit selected to oversee police reforms in Minneapolis has faced criticism in New Orleans over its impartiality and community engagement, and some Minneapolis activists want a judge to reconsider the company’s selection.

Last week, Minneapolis officials reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice on sweeping reforms its police department will make in hopes of ending discriminatory policing.

The consent decree lays out how the Minneapolis Police Department will change training, discipline and policies to address systemic problems laid out by the DOJ in 2023. It is a legally binding agreement enforced by an independent monitor that decides when the city has achieved sustained, constitutional policing, and reports that to a federal judge.

The city of Minneapolis and DOJ agreed to use the same nonprofit chosen by the state to oversee reforms mandated by a settlement agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. It’s called Effective Law Enforcement for All, or ELEFA.

ELEFA, which has offices in Louisiana and Maryland, will be paid up to $1.5 million annually to oversee the state agreement. The federal agreement calls for the city to pay ELEFA an additional fee of up to $750,000 annually, if the nonprofit is approved as monitor.

If approved by the federal judge overseeing the case, ELEFA would review and approve MPD policies, assess the city’s performance and engage with the public, posting semi-annual progress reports and surveying the satisfaction of police officers and the community.

The firm was co-founded by David Douglass, who will co-lead the monitoring in Minneapolis and is deputy monitor for New Orleans, which entered the federal oversight agreement in 2013. After 12 years of federal oversight, a judge ruled Tuesday that the New Orleans Police Department is ready to begin the process of exiting the consent decree.

ELEFA is co-led by former New Orleans Police Chief Michael Harrison, a former Baltimore police commissioner — the only chief in the nation who has overseen two departments under federal consent decrees.

Activists in both New Orleans and Minneapolis have criticized ELEFA, suggesting it has conflicts of interest because it has created a situation where former police are overseeing current police.

New Orleans activists also cited their police department’s low clearance rates for sexual assaults and the “collapse” of community engagement, according to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate.

One group, New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police, disputed that the police department was “bias-free” in its policing and said ELEFA has hired some of the same NOPD officers it’s supposed to monitor.

Ashley Burns, a member of the New Orleans independent monitoring team who co-founded ELEFA but is no longer affiliated with the firm, accused Douglass of having a conflict of interest but did not provide specifics during an Oct. 29 public forum in New Orleans about the city’s plan to exit federal oversight.

“You know you don’t give a damn about New Orleans or Minneapolis,” Burns told Douglass at the forum, according to the Times-Picayune.

Two days after the forum, the chair of a New Orleans group called Community United For Change sent a letter to the DOJ calling for an investigation of ELEFA “for possible crimes and ethical violations.”

Neither ELEFA, Douglass, or Burns responded to a Star Tribune request for comment.

The Minneapolis consent decree contains a clause that says the independent monitor and its team members “shall not accept employment or provide consulting services that would present a conflict of interest with the monitor’s responsibilities under this decree.”

Activist groups in New Orleans and Minneapolis have sent a letter to the federal judges overseeing Minneapolis' and New Orleans' consent decrees urging them to re-examine ELEFA. The Minneapolis groups that signed the letter include Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, Mpls For A Better Police Contract, Minnesota Wrongfully Convicted Judicial Reform, Twin Cities Coalition For Justice, and Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America.

Stacey Gurian-Sherman of Mpls For A Better Police Contract said the judge needs to have as much information as possible.

“With Judge Paul Magnuson now assigned the [Minneapolis] case, I would guess he has the same dilemma we all do in approving a less-than-desirable consent decree or none at all, and will sign onto it,” she said. “The more we know about New Orleans experience, the more we know its compliance and monitoring are troubling.”

Douglass has said he founded ELEFA to bring lessons learned in the process of reforming the New Orleans Police Department to communities nationwide.

City spokesperson Jess Olstad released a statement supporting ELEFA “as the city’s fully vetted independent monitor.”

“The organization has seasoned law enforcement experts on its team who are familiar with instituting the kind of police reform we are committed to achieving here in the city of Minneapolis. This helps provide the technical assistance needed to enact lasting change in our city.”