A state investigation has discovered that police in the US city of Minneapolis have participated in a practice of racial discrimination for at least the past decade.

Following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, the investigation was initiated.

The state of Minnesota’s civil rights enforcement agency investigated how officers used force, stopped, searched, and arrested blacks vs white individuals.

Their research discovered significant discrepancies in the treatment of different races.

Its findings could be used to compel the police department to alter its practices and procedures.

Derek Chauvin, a white ex-police officer, was sentenced to more than 22 years in jail last year for the on-duty murder of Floyd.

The review of police files, interviews, and body camera footage took nearly two years, exposing a “pattern and practice” of racial prejudice, according to investigators.

While African Americans make up 19% of the Minneapolis population, they accounted for 54% of all traffic stops between 2017 and 2020, according to the investigation.

Between 2010 and 2016, black persons accounted for 63 percent of police use-of-force occurrences.

A “paramilitary approach to police” and a culture that is “ineffective at holding officers accountable for misconduct” are blamed in the 72-page assessment.

It further claims that cops “consistently utilize racist, sexist, and insulting language and are rarely held accountable” for their actions.

Officers also set up bogus social media accounts to track black people for reasons “unrelated to criminal activity and without a public safety goal,” according to the study.

The findings, according to Minnesota Force of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero, show the local police department “engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination over the last decade.”

The findings were “repugnant, at times horrifying,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat.

Interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman stated that improvements had already been made to the force.

“We are committed to promoting public trust and officer safety through ongoing investments in our people, training, policies, and processes,” she said.

While the report was being written, other incidents of police aggression in Minnesota made the news.

Prosecutors recently stated that they would not charge the police who killed Amir Locke, a black man who was asleep on a couch in his cousin’s apartment when a Swat team stormed in.

In February, a white cop in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center was sentenced to prison for fatally shooting a black man during an arrest after mistaking her gun for a Taser.

Minneapolis voters narrowly rejected a proposal last year to eliminate the police force and replace it with a “public-health oriented” department of public safety.

In 2021, homicides in the city were almost double the national average for the years 2015-19.

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