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- How the Civil Rights Division Investigates Police Shootings
- Specialized Expertise in Use-of-Force Cases
- The Federal Legal Standard for Officer Misconduct
- How the Preliminary Review Process Works
- Federal and State Prosecution Authority
- Knowledge Lost Through Resignations
- Impact on Future Cases
- Historical Precedent
- What Was Dismantled
At least 11 federal prosecutors resigned in January 2026 after the Justice Department announced it would not investigate a police shooting—before the career experts who handle these cases had even looked at the evidence. Six prosecutors resigned from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office, and five from the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section, with resignations occurring on January 13.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced around January 13, 2026, that the Department of Justice would not look into the killing of Renee Good—a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman shot by an ICE agent on January 7. The announcement came before the Civil Rights Division had conducted its standard preliminary review. Career prosecutors who spend their lives looking into police shootings had not examined the evidence. The system designed to handle this had not even been engaged.
Six prosecutors from the Criminal Section resigned. The section chief, principal deputy chief, deputy chief, and acting deputy chief also left. Then six more federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned.
How the Civil Rights Division Investigates Police Shootings
The Civil Rights Division was created in 1957 to concentrate expertise in constitutional violations in one place. Its Criminal Section developed specialized competency in investigating police shootings—expertise that exists nowhere else in the federal government with the same depth.
When a case like Good’s arrives, career prosecutors in the Criminal Section conduct a preliminary review jointly with the local U.S. Attorney’s Office. They examine the incident description, available video, witness statements, and preliminary forensics. This determines whether the case meets the basic standards that decide if the feds should step in.
This system of steps exists because cases involving significant constitutional questions require careful, thorough analysis. And because local political pressures shouldn’t determine federal enforcement.
Blanche announced his decision before that preliminary review happened in the Good case. Career prosecutors who are trained to apply specific legal standards to use-of-force cases had no formal opportunity to analyze the evidence. Multiple senior prosecutors responded by resigning—not because they disagreed with a prosecutorial judgment, but because the institutional process had been violated.
Specialized Expertise in Use-of-Force Cases
The Criminal Section’s expertise is built on a specific body of case law, forensic standards, and techniques honed through decades of federal prosecutions. When they look into a police shooting, they approach it differently than state investigators or general federal investigators would.
The federal approach focuses on whether the officer violated the victim’s constitutional protections—particularly the constitutional right to not be stopped or held without good reason. This is different from state criminal standards, which might focus on murder or manslaughter. A federal investigator examines whether the officer had legitimate grounds for the initial stop, whether the force matched the actual danger, and whether the officer’s actions were “reasonable” under the specific circumstances.
Federal prosecutors have developed expertise in analyzing split-second decision-making in high-stress situations, in applying case law about officer liability, and in understanding when force crosses from lawful to unconstitutional.
The FBI’s Civil Rights Unit, which coordinates closely with the Civil Rights Division, maintains specialized expertise in forensic reconstruction of use-of-force incidents. Detailed ballistic analysis. Trajectory reconstruction. Medical examination of injuries and their timing. Expert assessment of officer positioning and line of sight.
The Federal Legal Standard for Officer Misconduct
The law the Division enforces makes it a crime for government officials to violate people’s rights. This law criminalizes violating someone’s constitutional protections while acting as a government official.
The statute requires prosecutors to prove that an officer knowingly broke the law or didn’t care if they were breaking it. Not that force was used, but that the officer acted with knowledge that the conduct was unlawful or didn’t care whether their actions were illegal.
Video evidence matters, but it’s not the final answer. Prosecutors must understand what the officer perceived in the moment, whether the officer’s training emphasized calming things down or ramping things up, whether the officer received specific instruction about use of force in these circumstances, and whether the officer’s conduct aligned with or violated those instructions.
If prosecutors were looking into Good’s death under this law, they would need to examine whether firing at a slowly-moving vehicle departing the scene—with an occupant attempting to escape rather than attack the officer—constituted an intentional or reckless violation of her right to not be stopped without good reason.
The federal approach is distinct from state murder statutes. A state prosecutor might focus on whether the officer intended to kill and whether self-defense justified the killing. A federal prosecutor focuses on whether the force violated the Fourth Amendment—whether it was “reasonable” under the circumstances.
How the Preliminary Review Process Works
The preliminary review process works as a way to decide which cases deserve federal attention. It ensures that cases receiving federal resources meet basic standards. It allows career prosecutors to evaluate whether enough evidence to justify a federal examination exists before significant resources deploy. It prevents cases from being initiated on purely political grounds while also preventing legitimate cases from being dismissed without rigorous analysis.
When the decision is made to open a full examination, significant resources deploy. A team of federal prosecutors coordinates with FBI special agents, forensic specialists, and sometimes external experts in biomechanics, weapons trajectory, or medical science. These teams conduct witness interviews using standard procedures developed from hundreds of previous cases. They issue official notices telling agencies to keep evidence safe. They coordinate with state and local investigators, sharing information while maintaining the distinct federal work.
Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck on May 25, 2020, in the George Floyd case. The FBI and Civil Rights Division began their work immediately. Nearly a year later, Chauvin had been charged federally with violating Floyd’s protections. He was ultimately convicted of murder by the state and pleaded guilty to federal crimes—a demonstration of how this work complements rather than replaces state accountability.
Federal prosecutors brought charges against officers involved in a raid where police entered without announcing themselves first in the Breonna Taylor case. Former Louisville police detective Brett Hankison was convicted of using excessive force and sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
Expertise in these prosecutions has developed because they happen regularly. Prosecutors learn how to apply whether the officer knew what they were doing was wrong in use-of-force cases. They develop relationships with forensic experts. They understand the legal standards established in prior cases. They can move quickly in a new case because they’re not starting from zero.
Federal and State Prosecution Authority
The principle that both state and federal governments can prosecute the same crime has been part of American law since the founding. The same conduct can violate both federal and state law, and both sovereigns can prosecute. A federal officer who violates a person’s federal constitutional protections can be prosecuted federally for that violation. The same officer can also be prosecuted by the state for violations of state criminal law—murder, manslaughter, assault, or reckless endangerment.
Federal officers don’t enjoy blanket immunity from state prosecution unless they can demonstrate that their actions were directly related to their federal job and required to do it.
Prosecutors in the Criminal Section normally coordinate with state and local authorities in these cases. They understand the jurisdictional terrain and work to ensure that both state and federal work proceeds without interference, with information appropriately shared.
Excluding state authorities and preventing them from accessing evidence represented not merely a prosecutorial choice, but a claim about power that broke with how things are normally done.
Knowledge Lost Through Resignations
When prosecutors and agents resign from these positions, the knowledge departs with them. A newly hired prosecutor cannot immediately absorb the case law, procedural knowledge, and experience that a seasoned career attorney brings.
The Criminal Section’s leadership structure—the section chief, deputy chief, and principal deputy chief, multiple of whom resigned in January 2026—represents knowledge about how to prioritize cases, how resource allocation decisions are made, and how federal work is coordinated with state and local authorities.
The resignations reflected a systematic dismantling of the role and a reassignment of priorities that prosecutors viewed as incompatible with their professional obligations.
Multiple officials told ABC News that federal prosecutors in Minneapolis had resigned out of concerns that the DOJ was focusing on investigating Good for alleged ties to groups that have been protesting immigration enforcement efforts in Minneapolis. Looking into the wrong person—the victim instead of the officer—represented something that career federal prosecutors found to be a violation of their professional ethics.
When the FBI took over sole authority for examining the shooting and excluded Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from accessing federal evidence, state authorities lost access to forensic information. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced they would conduct their own investigation, but without cooperation from federal law enforcement, they faced significant obstacles.
Impact on Future Cases
If the preliminary review process is consistently bypassed in future cases, this decision will affect many beyond the Good case.
The message sent to career prosecutors is that their role and expertise aren’t valued. The preliminary review process they conduct won’t influence decisions. The legal analysis they perform on whether cases meet federal standards will be overridden by political judgment.
This creates pressure on remaining career attorneys to either resign, as many did, or to work in a place where their expertise isn’t valued and their professional judgment is routinely set aside.
When a new high-profile police shooting occurs, fewer experienced prosecutors will be available to conduct preliminary review. Knowledge about how to approach a particular type of case will be diminished.
The precedent established in January 2026 suggests that decisions about which cases merit federal enforcement may increasingly be made at the level of the Deputy Attorney General rather than by career prosecutors with specialized expertise. If future administrations follow this pattern, capacity will weaken.
This signals to other federal agencies and state authorities that the federal government may not look into violations as a mechanism for ensuring accountability. State attorneys general and local prosecutors who would normally coordinate cannot be certain that the traditional role will be honored.
Historical Precedent
Has any previous administration announced a decision not to look into a case before completing its preliminary review? The available record doesn’t reveal such a case.
Even during the first Trump administration, when enforcement saw reduced resources and shifted priorities, the Division retained its role in investigating significant officer-involved shootings.
Explicitly excluding the Division from its traditional role, and announcing a conclusion before preliminary review was completed, appears to represent something that’s never been done before—skipping required steps.
Work opened into George Floyd’s death, Breonna Taylor’s death, and numerous other police shootings across different presidential administrations. Standard practice has been to move relatively quickly when a case involves alleged misconduct resulting in death—not to avoid examination, but to initiate it.
What Was Dismantled
The resignations represent a deliberate dismantling of the systems and knowledge that the federal government has developed over seven decades to examine police misconduct.
The Criminal Section exists as a place where knowledge about these cases is stored—about how to conduct them fairly, thoroughly, and legally. Its preliminary review process works as a way to decide which cases are worth pursuing. Its coordination with state and local authorities ensures that federal and state work proceeds in complementary fashion. Its expertise in applying whether the officer knew what they were doing was wrong allows prosecutors to distinguish between lawful and unlawful uses of force.
When that system is bypassed, something more is lost than one decision.
Career prosecutors who have devoted their professional lives to enforcement depart, taking their experience and judgment with them. Knowledge about how to approach use-of-force cases, how to develop evidence, how to analyze officer conduct under federal law, is diminished. The precedent established suggests that future administrations may similarly sideline this work from cases that, under established protocol, demand its involvement.
The Good case illuminates these mechanisms because they were broken so visibly. A decision was announced before preliminary review could be conducted. The Division was explicitly excluded from its traditional role. Multiple senior prosecutors resigned in response.
Understanding what happened requires understanding what should have happened—the institutions, procedures, expertise, and coordination mechanisms that exist to ensure that police shootings receive rigorous federal attention when circumstances warrant.
That system, built patiently over seven decades, was deliberately disabled in January 2026. The consequences will extend far beyond this single case.
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