Trump administration denied Minneapolis nearly $1 million over ‘defund the police’ comments

Trump administration officials used a “seriously flawed” process when they rejected a Minneapolis grant request over City Council members’ support for the “defund the police” movement, according to a newly released audit.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance denied Minneapolis’ 2020 application for $900,000 to address opioid overdoses, according to the report published this month by the Department of Justice inspector general.

“BJA’s justification for denying Minneapolis funding contained critical errors and omissions that we believe rendered the justification inadequate,” the inspector general’s office wrote.

The federal denial came as opioid overdose deaths across Minnesota were skyrocketing. The number of deadly overdoses involving opioids more than doubled from 2019 to 2021, according to Minnesota Department of Health data.

The city had proposed using the dollars for a three-year Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion project. It aimed to reduce the number of people having run-ins with law enforcement and the corrections system and cut down on opioid overdoses.

“The City of Minneapolis is losing community members to the opioid epidemic at an alarming rate,” Minneapolis Health Department Deputy Commissioner Heidi Ritchie said in a statement Tuesday. “To combat this crisis, the City is looking for new and innovative ways to help our community members who are struggling with opioid misuse. We welcome any opportunity for funds to assist our response.”

Minneapolis was one of 212 groups that applied for federal funding in 2020 through the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program.

The city received the second-highest peer review score of any application. The Bureau of Justice Assistance ultimately recommended distributing $147 million to 110 of 212 applicants. Minneapolis was not among them.

Minneapolis had applied for the nearly $1 million in May 2020, four days before a police officer murdered George Floyd. As federal officials considered the city’s application, nine of the 13 council members expressed support for starting “the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.”

That July, the Bureau of Justice Assistance sent a memo with its funding recommendations to the Office of Justice Programs for approval and cited “statements of governing officials and recent news reports” as the reason Minneapolis was left out, according to the recent audit.

“The BJA [Acting] Director is extremely concerned that Minneapolis officials do not understand the impact of defunding their police, and does not believe that this law enforcement grant can be properly administered without a vibrant, fully funded police department,” the memo said.

Minneapolis was not the only community considering “defund the police” measures after Floyd’s killing, the audit says, noting that officials in Los Angeles also talked about such measures.

However, that community wasn’t removed from the running for a grant. Los Angeles County submitted a similar project to what Minneapolis proposed and ranked 68th among the applicants. It received $1.2 million.

“It’s really unfortunate” that Minneapolis, despite its high application score, was targeted over City Council members’ comments, said Brian Zirbes, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Resources for Recovery and Chemical Health.

Zirbes has experience with government funding requests from a previous job at the Minneapolis Department of Human Services. He said that it was “almost unheard of” to reject a top-scoring grant applicant. That denial “is kind of shocking,” he said.

“Overdose death rates are at an all-time high in Minnesota and are having a disproportionate impact in Black and brown communities,” Zirbes said. “We need a comprehensive approach to address this problem.”