A 35-year-old man was stabbed to death on Columbus’ East Side, police said.

Officers responded to a stabbing report at about 10 p.m. June 3 in the 3100 block of Allegheny Drive, according to a statement from Columbus police. Officers found Damon Riley, 35, suffering from a stab wound.

Paramedics took him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 10:30 p.m.

Another man at the scene told police he had stabbed Riley in self-defense after Riley attacked him, police said. The man is cooperating with detectives, and an investigation into the stabbing continues, police said.

Anyone with information about the stabbing can contact Columbus Police Detective Egelhoff at 614-645-4075 or provide an anonymous tip to Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477.

Public Safety and Breaking News Reporter Bailey Gallion can be reached at bagallion@dispatch.com.

Long gone are the mask mandates, stay-at-home orders and even the strangely empty toilet paper shelves.

But five years after the COVID-19 pandemic upended life in Ohio and across the globe, its impact lingers. Hospitals, which once served as the frontlines of the fight against COVID, have been forever altered.

The way Ohioans get their health care has changed, for example, with many seeking online treatment options that didn’t exist before the pandemic.

The “warp speed” at which a COVID vaccine was developed means future ones won’t take as long and can rely on newer technology, said Dr. Joe Gastaldo, vice president of clinical affairs at OhioHealth’s Dublin Methodist Hospital. And Ohioans are more respectful toward those with compromised immune systems who Gastaldo said are more at-risk of developing severe disease.

“I think we’re probably in a better place,” Gastaldo said. “Hopefully we can keep the playbook ready to go for the next pandemic.”

While health care may be the most obvious industry still dealing with COVID’s impact, it’s hardly the only one.

The virus continues to touch everything from the way central Ohioans learn and eat out and even how they interact with one another. Here are the ways COVID continues to impact us half a decade on.

A ‘sea change’ in how central Ohioans dine out

When the pandemic began in 2020, there might not have been a single industry more upended than bars and restaurants.

For weeks, the state halted in-person dining to prevent the spread of COVID, forcing restaurants to bolster their carryout businesses to survive. Five years later, many central Ohioans have returned to indoor dining but the take-out option is more popular than ever, said John Barker, president and chief executive officer of the Ohio Restaurant and Hospitality Alliance.

And the businesses that capitalize on the increased interest in takeout have proven to be financially successful despite charges from companies like DoorDash or Grubhub, Barker said. The shift, which Barker said peaked during the height of the pandemic, has proven that it’s here to stay.

“What’s causing the takeout and delivery increase is a sea change in society,” Barker said. “For the guys who are driving sales and doing the best…it’s a higher and faster growing part of their business.”

Beyond take-out, the pandemic’s fallout has continued to ripple throughout the restaurant business, said Cameron Mitchell, founder and CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, which includes more than 20 concepts such as The Pearl in the Short North Arts District and the newly opened Butcher and Rose steakhouse downtown.

Costs have increased dramatically in recent years and supply chain issues and labor shortages brought on by COVID continue to plague the business and have even caused many restaurants to shutter, Mitchell said. But Mitchell said he’s focused on the future and finding new ways to adapt in the rapidly changing post-pandemic world.

“As it stands, 2025 looks promising for restaurants…” he said. ” I’m proud of how far we’ve come, but we remain focused on the road ahead.”

How work-from-home changed Downtown Columbus

As COVID arrived in Ohio, many companies sent employees to work from home to stop the spread of the virus.

Five years on, that tide is starting to turn as JPMorgan Chase, Wendy’s, Nationwide and most recently state government have begun to require workers to return to the office.

At the height of the pandemic, office space occupancy hovered around 10%, said Dan Dunsmoor, managing partner and co-founder of Allied Real Estate Advisors. Dunsmoor estimates that the occupancy rate has bounced back to more than 75% as of early 2025.

“It’s a huge rebound,” Dunsmoor said. “There’s been a major migration to high-quality buildings in high-quality locations that have high-quality amenities because it just makes it more attractive for people to be in the office.”

The pandemic, however, has reshaped downtown Columbus.

Former office buildings, such as PNC tower, now Preston Centre, have transformed into residential towers.

But converting a floor of offices — which might at most have two restrooms already — into a floor of apartments with multiple bathrooms and kitchen spaces can be costly, said Marc Conte, executive director of Capital Crossroads and the Discovery Improvement District, an organization of businesses that works to improve safety, outreach and beautification of each area.

On top of conversion costs, Conte said high interest rates and rising costs in building supplies has meant that many building owners have really had to mull over what the best way forward is for their facilities.

Whether Downtown continues to improve will largely depend on what kind of hiring employers do in the near and long-term future and what they do with their physical spaces, Conte said.

“It’s all about job growth…that’ll really be the determining factor of what office occupancy looks like” Conte said. “I think we’re in a really good position.”

Heated discourse became the norm during COVID pandemic

Something else COVID changed is the way Ohioans interact with each other.

Forced to stay at home during the first year of the pandemic, many turned to the internet for social connection and debate. And while the worldwide web likely helped many through 2020, its long-term impact had some negative consequences, said John Forren, executive director of the Menard Family Center for Democracy at Miami University.

Interacting virtually instead of in-person caused people to dehumanize who they were debating issues with, Forren said.

“It’s easier to understand someone’s point of view if you can attend to that conversation rather than playing with your phone while on a Zoom,” Forren said.

The phenomenon began to play out early on in the pandemic in real-time.

Public health measures used to slow the spread of COVID became hot-button political issues overnight as did racism in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis. Despite stay-at-home orders, Ohioans routinely flooded the streets of downtown Columbus around the Statehouse to protest.

Dr. Amy Acton, the former health director turned 2026 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was the target of such attacks due to her position as health director and her faith as a Jewish woman. Acton told The Dispatch the pandemic fueled some of the vitriol in politics today, but she said she thinks Ohioans are ready to turn the temperature down on things.

“I think in our society, we see where people are almost intentionally pitting groups against one another, stoking fear and stoking alienation,” Acton said. “I think people are longing for some trustworthiness, some decency and we are at risk if we don’t learn the lessons from the past.”

In their words: 5 years after pandemic began, central Ohio leaders reflect on COVID

A rise in crime that Columbus is still recovering from

In the early days of the pandemic, local police donned masks and gloves. Columbus police officers were instructed not to enter homes unless it was essential, and to speak to people outside from a safe distance.

Like many cities, Columbus initially saw a drop in crime as stay-at-home orders took people off the streets and closed businesses in March 2020.

But by May, violence rose, alarming residents, police and crime experts. By Sept. 30, 2020, there had been 116 homicides in Columbus for the year, a 39% increase from the prior year.

It was one of the reasons Malissa Thomas St. Clair co-founded Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children in August 2020.

“It was almost like a free-for-all of crime and homicide,” she said. “It was our enough was enough moment.”

Although they’ve decreased, homicide rates have remained higher than before the pandemic when between 90 and 100 people were killed each year.

Homicides peaked in 2021 with 205. Last year, they declined 17% going from 149 in 2023 to 124 in 2024, records show.

While annual homicides still remain higher than pre-pandemic lows in Columbus, Thomas St. Clair said she’s confident they’ll continue trending down if central Ohioans do their part.

“The entire city is tired of losing their loved ones,” she said. “Five years later, I am seeing the community is becoming more involved.”

The Columbus Division of Police declined to make someone from the department available for an interview. Spokeswoman Caitlyn McIntosh said via email that “there were no major impacts” to staffing during the pandemic.

When asked how it impacted crime, McIntosh said, “Crime has been trending down.”

COVID required a new ‘toolkit’ to fight homelessness

Homelessness, evictions and the cost of housing in central Ohio all soared in the wake of the pandemic.

In 2024, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Franklin County hit an all-time high for the second year in a row during the annual point-in-time count.

There were 25,329 eviction cases filed in Franklin County Municipal Court in 2024, due in large part to pandemic-related ripple effects, said Franklin County Municipal Court Administrative Magistrate Tony Paat. Evictions in 2024 were up almost 6% from the 23,904 evictions reported in 2023, according to data from the Franklin County Municipal Court Clerk’s Office.

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted existing disparities in our community and created unprecedented challenges for those at risk,” said Shannon Isom, president and CEO of the Community Shelter Board.

At the same time, the median home sale price increased over 50% from 2019 to 2024 and the amount needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment locally, called the “housing wage,” rose 36%.

Some federal COVID relief money for housing is still being spent, but all are set to be exhausted locally this year.

Still, despite record-high evictions and homelessness and soaring housing costs, the pandemic did have some positive impacts, said Carli Boos, executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio.

“We started building the toolkit we need to really beat this housing problem,” she said.

Eviction court, while it saw record filings following the pandemic pause, also experienced positive changes.

The pandemic relief funding greatly improved services within the court, allowing nonprofit agencies like Legal Aid of Southern and Central Ohio, Community Mediation Services, Job and Family Services and more to offer services to those facing eviction, said Paat and Self Help Center Director Robert Southers. The Self Help Center offers free, walk-in services to help people represent themselves in court and used COVID relief funding to hire a social worker and navigator for clients.

Ultimately, Boos said the pandemic became an eye-opener and demonstrated how housing costs had become unmanageable because housing instability started to affect more people.

“That’s a feeling of insecurity we haven’t been able to shake, especially as those costs keep going up,” Boos said. “It’s why we’re seeing so many people from all over the region pushing for real housing relief.”

Ohio students ‘lost a lot of ground’ to COVID

From college campuses to Columbus City Schools, COVID spared no part of education as students were forced to learn remotely for much of the pandemic.

Those abrupt changes have had a lasting impact as students in Ohio have struggled academically and mentally since the pandemic.

The third-grade reading level has improved to 64.5% proficiency, according to state report cards, up from a low point of 51.9% in the 2020-2021 school year. But, that’s still below the pre-pandemic level of 66.7%

Math skills remain even further behind, with just 55.9% of students proficient in algebra, down from 61.1% in 2018-2019.

Aaron Churchill, a researcher with The Fordham Institute, said Ohio students “lost about year’s worth of learning.”

“Kids lost a lot of ground when the schools were closed, they’re trying to learn remotely,” Churchill said. “It was a very ineffective way of learning.”

COVID also cast a long shadow on childhood mental health, experts told The Dispatch.

In 2021 and 2022, 40% of students had under­gone at least one adverse child­hood expe­ri­ence (ACE), such as fam­i­ly eco­nom­ic hard­ship, divorce or a caregiver spending time in jail, according to a 2024 report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Kam Twymon, former vice president of community-based and education services at the Buckeye Ranch, said there will likely be long-term consequences for student mental health.

“We have basic needs that are not met, we understand what isolation and lack of socialization does to the brain,” Twymon said.

Community colleges were among the hardest-hit institutions by the pandemic.

Vulnerable students, many of whom attended school part time, put college on the back burner, said Columbus State Community College President David Harrison.

Though the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic flung Columbus State and others in higher education into uncharted territory, Harrison said it made him realize how the college could better serve Columbus.

He joined the board of OhioHealth and learned of the region’s nursing shortage. That led to a partnership and a joint investment of more than $120 million between the college and the health system, with a goal to double the number of health care professionals locally within a decade.

Harrison also saw how the loss of in-person learning impacted pandemic-era high school graduates.

So he restarted talks with City Council President Shannon Hardin to figure out how to attract and enroll more Columbus City Schools grads. That conversation led to the Columbus Promise, which just announced its second phase of fundraising to send more CCS students to Columbus State tuition free.

“I wish COVID had never happened,” Harrison said. “But our folks took a terrible situation and made the best of it, learned from it, and really used that sense of resilience.“

Dispatch reporters Danae King, Bailey Gallion, Sheridan Hendrix and Cole Behrens contributed to this story.

mfilby@dispatch.com

@MaxFilby

Five years ago today, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on 46-year-old George Floyd’s neck and back for 9 minutes 29 seconds, executing him in broad daylight as a group that included at least four children watched on.

Video of the Black man’s inhumane murder emerged months after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. The killings elevated the notion that Black lives matter, and sparked protests, riots and meaningful discussions.

Five years later, it seems America’s focus on correcting racial disparity has moved us farther back. It’s hard to tell how long that regression will last.

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Some called 2020 the year of racial reckoning. America was, supposedly, finally going to tackle the lingering and painful legacies of slavery: Jim Crow, redlining, race-based microaggression etc.

More: Columbus residents ‘hunger for a chance’ yet region ranks towards bottom for racial inclusion

Coupled with the pandemic, when Black, Hispanic, indigenous and other people of color had a higher rate of COVID infection and death than white people, Floyd’s death drew attention, here in Columbus and around the nation, to disparities in everything from hiring practices to healthcare to policing.

The obligation to racial justice

A 20-year-old protester from the West Side holds a sign that says “justice” as they march north on High Street during a peaceful protest for George Floyd in downtown Columbus on Tuesday, June 2, 2020.

Pressured by consumers, companies nationwide made public declarations that they would focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. Practically every governmental body that could called racism a public health care crisis.

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine did as much when discussing findings from a task force that examined why COVID had such a disproportionate impact on Black people.

“We have an obligation to look at these racial disparities and say, ‘That’s not right.’ We have to do everything within our power to deal with this,” DeWine said.

Was there a racial reckoning?

Protesters yell at Columbus Police during a peaceful protest for George Floyd in downtown Columbus on Monday, June 1, 2020.

Fast forward to March 2025, when that very same governor signed his name to anti-DEI, union, truth and knowledge Senate Bill 1.

That destructive legislation, and the Trump Administration attacks on DEI in higher education and elsewhere, led to the closing of the Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Student Life’s Center for Belonging and Social Change, and the elimination of women, racial minority and LGBTQ programs, DEI, and/or department at Ohio University, University of Toledo, Kent State and other state higher education programs.

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Senate Bill 113, legislation similar to Senate Bill 1, would ban diversity, equity and inclusion in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms.

The racial reckoning didn’t happen ― or, at least, Americans do not think it worked.

In 2020, slightly more than half of adults polled by the Pew Research Center said increased focus on issues of race and racial inequality would lead to the sort of changes that would improve the lives of Black people.

Seventy-two percent of those polled this month said increased focus on race and racial inequality didn’tlead to changes that improved the lives of Black people.

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“George Floyd Five Years Later: Was It a Moment or a Movement?” the National Urban League’s newly released report, highlights a list of rollbacks:

The scaling back or elimination of corporate racial equity pledges

The fear of the reversal of the Biden administration’s equity-focused investments

Regression of local, state and federal levels of police reform

A swing to the past

On the night of May 28, members of the community who were outraged over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis demonstrated at the intersection at Broad and High streets Downtown.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division investigated a dozen police departments and convicted 180 police officers of violating people’s civil rights.

The Justice Department determined that authorities in those cities routinely violated the civil rights of Black people.

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The Trump administration announced just days before the anniversary of George Floyd’s death that it is dropping negotiations for court-approved settlements with Minneapolis for his murder. It is doing the same in Louisville after Breonna Taylor’s killing there.

Now the DOJ has announced it would close investigations and retract findings of wrongdoing against police departments in Phoenix; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police.

“Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general overseeing the department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a May 21 statement.

America’s reversal of its pretense of care when it comes the disparities brought to the surface after George Floyd was murdered are startling but not surprising.

Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther marches with protesters as protests continue following the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd on Tuesday, June 2, 2020 in Columbus, Ohio. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed while in police custody after allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a conveinence store. Derek Chauvin, one of four Minneapolis police officers involved in Floyd’s arrest, has himself been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. During the arrest, video footage showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes as Floyd repeatedly said “I can’t breathe.”

But as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

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I know he was right. This isn’t the first time we’ve backtracked on the road to liberty and equality for all. I have to believe this nation will eventually get there.

Five years ago today, George Floyd died with a knee on his neck.

Five years from today, the life he lost might matter more.

We will see.

What are your thoughts about the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder?

Did anything change? Was the movement overblown? Let us know in a letter to the editor of 200 words or less emailed to Letters@Dispatch.com. Include your full name, address and a daytime phone number.

Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch’s opinion and community engagement editor.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: George Floyd, 5 years later: Did we get racial justice? | Opinion

Floyd was remembered in Houston, where he grew up, and Minneapolis, where he was killed [EPA]

Americans across the country remembered George Floyd five years after he was killed by police, with special gatherings in the city where he grew up and the one where he died.

The murder of Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis by police officer Derek Chauvin led to nationwide protests against racism and police brutality.

On Sunday, Floyd’s family gathered in their hometown of Houston near Floyd’s gravesite for a service led by the Rev Al Sharpton, while Minneapolis held several commemorations.

What many hailed as a national “reckoning” with racism after Floyd’s death, though, seems to be fading as President Donald Trump starts to roll back police reforms in Minneapolis and other cities.

Attendees of a morning church service embrace each other [Reuters]

The Associated Press reported that thousands of people, including police reform and civil-rights activists, gathered on Sunday for the anniversary.

In Minneapolis, a morning church service and evening gospel concert were part of events to mark the events of 25 May 2020, at the annual Rise and Remember Festival in George Floyd Square, the intersection where Floyd was murdered and which has since been named to honour him.

“Now is the time for the people to rise up and continue the good work we started,” Angela Harrelson, Floyd’s aunt and co-chair of the Rise and Remember nonprofit, said in a statement about the festival.

Community members and Floyd’s relatives gathered around a mural at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday. [Getty Images]

Family members held a memorial service at Floyd’s gravesite [Reuters]

In Houston, where Floyd grew up and where he is buried, local organisations held poetry sessions, musical performances and speeches by local pastors.

Rev Sharpton, a civil rights leader, held a press conference and memorial service with Floyd’s family, as well as elected officials and friends. They called for changes begun in the wake of Floyd’s to continue, especially pushing President Donald Trump to keep up federal police reform agreements.

Floyd was murdered in 2020 during a police arrest in Minneapolis when Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

The killing – captured on a bystander’s phone camera – sparked global outrage and a wave of demonstrations against racial injustice and police use of force.

Chauvin has been serving a 22-year prison sentence after he was convicted of murdering the 46-year-old. Other officers were convicted for failing to intervene in the killing.

In a post on X, Rev Sharpton said Floyd’s death had “forced a long overdue reckoning with systemic racism and galvanized millions to take to the streets in protest”.

“The conviction of the officer responsible was a rare step toward justice, but our work is far from over,” he said.

In the wake of Floyd’s death, under former President Joe Biden, the justice department opened civil investigations into several local law enforcement agencies, including Minneapolis, Louisville, Phoenix and Lexington, Mississippi, where investigators found evidence of systemic police misconduct.

Floyd’s death sparked a nationwide reckoning on police brutality toward black people in the US in 2020 [Reuters]

The department reached agreements with both the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments that included oversight measures like enhanced training, accountability, and improved data collection of police activity.

But last Wednesday, the Trump administration said those findings relied on “flawed methodologies and incomplete data”.

Administration officials said the agreement were “handcuffing” local police departments.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, though, said this week that his city would still “comply with every sentence, of every paragraph, of the 169-page consent decree that we signed this year”.

Since returning to office, Trump has also taken aim at Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI) measures intended to reduce racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Early in his tenure, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate DEI policies in the federal government, some of which were the result of protests during what is often called “Black Lives Matter Summer”, held after the deaths of Floyd and others,

Critics including Trump say such programmes can themselves be discriminatory. Addressing West Point on Saturday, he said that in ending DEI in the military the administration was “getting rid of the distractions” and “focusing our military on its core mission”.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, removed Black Lives Matter Plaza, a strip of road that was emblazoned with the phrase near the White House. This week, a famous mural of Floyd in Houston was destroyed as part of a building demolition, as well, according to Houston Public Media.

Recent surveys suggest Americans believe there have been few improvements for the lives of black people in the US five years after Floyd’s passing, including a May survey from Pew Research Center in which 72% of participants said there had been no meaningful changes.

The number of Americans expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement has also fallen by 15% since June 2020, the same survey suggests.

When George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer five blocks from her home, Nichole Subola visited the site of his death again and again, trying to wrap her mind around it.

Police reform seemed within reach as she watched the global impact of the protests. The floral arrangements, drawings and signs filled the streets in a place that came to be known as “George Floyd Square.”

Five years later, Subola, 59, isn’t sure if local police will follow through on their commitment now that the Trump administration is abandoning federal consent decrees in cities that promised real change in training and hiring practices.

More: An officer partially blinded a teen amid George Floyd protests. Was force excessive?

“There’s a consensus here that the police need to do better, but it’s so hard to erase what happened viscerally,” she said. “There’s just no trust in the police, not for me and my community, and other parts of the city, there just isn’t. I don’t think it was there to begin with.”

Millions poured into the country’s streets demanding systemic change in the wake of Floyd’s murder on Memorial Day − coupled with the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police two months prior. Many believed America was turning a corner in terms of police accountability.

Even Trump, who rarely criticized police action, called Floyd’s death a “very sad event” in a May 27, 2020 tweet. “Justice will be served,” he said.

Much of that was snatched away in the years that followed, most notably in 2021 when Congress failed to pass sweeping reform package dubbed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

During Biden’s presidency, federal investigators started a dozen “pattern or practice” probes into police departments across the nation, including Phoenix, Trenton and Memphis. None yielded any court-binding consent decrees, however, and then came the largest setback of all: Donald Trump returning to the White House.

The president’s team has now swung the pendulum in the opposite direction from five years ago, even attempting to rescind findings of constitutional violations in the cities where Floyd and Taylor lost their lives.

Experts and voters on both sides of the debate say the U.S. Justice Department’s decision on May 21 establishes a new political order for the country’s ongoing police accountability debate, including the possibility of pardoning officers convicted by federal prosecutors during the Biden years.

Ending consent decrees part of Trump’s larger DOJ revamp

Feb 9, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; President Donald Trump participates in a meet and greet with the honorary coin toss participants including family members of the victims from the terrorist attack, members of the New Orleans Police Department, and emergency personnel before Super Bowl LIX

Among Trump’s allies in the law enforcement ranks, there are cheers among those who argue consent decrees micromanage departments and were overused by the previous administration.

Police reforms are better handled by local elected leaders and residents, who know their public safety needs better than Washington, said Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which supports officers who are prosecuted or fired for actions while in the line of duty.

“It should be a patchwork,” he said. “Law enforcement is local, so the police in Minneapolis should conduct themselves in the way the citizens of Minneapolis want.”

But those on the other side of the fence assert the president is giving police officers a green light to do as they please.

Jim Mulvaney, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who previously served as deputy commissioner of New York state’s human rights division, points out Trump often encouraged law enforcement to be rougher on certain suspects during the campaign.

“He signaled back then that hard-handed law enforcement was what he wanted,” he said. “Not obeying the Constitution, but cracking heads.”

Pulling back from those consent decrees coincides with a larger sea change at the Justice Department, which has reportedly lost 70% of its civil rights division lawyers since January.

Administration officials have also shifted the division’s focus toward enforcing the president’s executive orders, such as combating antisemitism in higher education, ending alleged radical indoctrination in public schools and defending women’s rights from “gender ideology extremism” in athletics and other areas.

Up until the DOJ’s announcement this month, Mulvaney said there has been a long-held presumption that the federal government would keep local law enforcement in check.

“They’ve now been told, don’t worry about it. And I think that that’s only going to encourage bad behavior and at a very high cost,” he said.

Many who anticipated reversal shift focus to local communities, other strategies

Scenes from a protest in downtown Louisville over the shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police. A lone protester kneels in front of Louisville Metro police officers at Sixth and Jefferson streets. May 28, 2020

Many activists and voters who spoke with USA TODAY echoed those concerns, but emphasized they aren’t giving up on racial equality or seeking changes to law enforcement.

Instead of lobbying Congress or engaging in large acts of civil disobedience, different forms of resistance are being spotlighted.

“The solutions have never come from the system; they always came from people in the community. So I think this could be an opportunity to build more of that energy if we use it properly,” said Rodney Salomon, 37, of Neptune Township, N.J., co-founder of KYDS, Konscious Youth Development & Service, a nonprofit that focuses on transforming communities through mindfulness, restorative practices and youth leadership.

Others point to seeking change through economic actions like the Black-church led boycott of Target after the retail giant quashed its diversity initiatives. The company’s first-quarter sales fell 3.8%, compared to analysts’ estimates of a 1.08% decline.

They are looking to find innovative ways to protect residents through technology, such as Selwyn Jones, a Floyd relative who developed the MYTH app, which would send out a panic alert to a person’s emergency contacts when they’re involved in a police interaction in real time.

Rodney Saloman of Neptune with his son Ra-sekou, 7 months, talks to the crowd about KYDS — Konscious Youth Development & Service — at Midtown Commons Park to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday. Neptune, NJ Saturday, June 18, 2022

Kay Harris, 72, who lived in Asbury Park, N.J., through the city’s race riots in the 1960s, said federal oversight is critical, but balancing the scales may have to come from other branches of government, such as the courts.

“We cannot depend on the local precincts to do it themselves. I mean that is why we are in the position we are in right now,” she said.

“That doesn’t mean that all police officers are unethical, but there are just too many rogue police officers who do just what they want.”

Asbury Park, for instance, settled at least five suits in roughly a decade involving allegations of racial discrimination. The victims were awarded $1.9 million in defense and settlement costs, city officials say.

“If (Trump) is the law and order president, then he should ensure that law and order is followed appropriately,” Harris said. “He is trying to roll things back to the 1950s.”

Minneapolis, Louisville are moving forward with police reforms

Protesters carry a painting of (L-R) Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd while marching on June 5, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. Protests across the country continue into their second weekend after recent police-related incidents.

The Trump administration’s decision to walk back reform efforts came days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020.

That timing wasn’t lost on Justin Thamert, of Foley, Minnesota, a town about 65 miles north of Minneapolis, who said emotions remain raw. “I don’t think anybody’s gotten over it,” he said.

The 34-year-old mechanic, who voted for Trump last fall, said the Biden administration turned its back on law enforcement and made officers feel afraid to do their jobs.

But he isn’t sure federal authorities should abandon reform efforts in Minneapolis, which include minimizing the need to use force; investigating allegations of employee misconduct; and providing confidential mental health wellness services to officers and other public safety personnel.

“I wouldn’t shut the door,” Thamert said. “I think (Minneapolis) will need help. I don’t agree with them completely pulling out.”

Leaders in the cities where Taylor and Floyd died have been quick to pledge, regardless of the Trump administration’s reversal, that they will seek to continue implementing changes to their law enforcement operations.

Minneapolis was “making more progress towards the reforms” than most other municipalities in the country under a consent decree, Mayor Jacob Frey noted, citing a recently released independent evaluator’s report. The report found the department had reduced its backlog of use-of-force cases under review from more than 1,100 to about 400 in the last six months.

“The people in this city have demanded change for years and we’re going to make sure we get this done,” Frey told USA TODAY.

Like many local officials, Frey, a Democrat, who is seeking reelection this year, has walked a political tightrope in the wake of controversial police encounters. He was criticized by Trump as a “very weak radical left mayor” in 2020 for his handling of the unrest that engulfed the city, but was slammed by left-leaning activists for opposing a 2021 ballot initiative that sought radical change and completely overhaul the police department with a new public safety agency.

The plan would have shifted oversight from the mayor’s office to the city council. However, 56% of voters rejected that idea.

Frey said Minneapolis is standing by the court-ordered reforms, emphasizing that homicides and shootings are down. The city is rolling out new use-of-force measures, improving community engagement and making sure its work is transparent and accountable, he said.

“So Donald Trump can do whatever he wants,” Frey continued. “The bottom line is, regardless of what the White House does, we are moving forward, anyway.”

Similarly, Louisville officials immediately used the DOJ’s decision to unveil a 214-page plan mirroring similar goals set by the Biden administration. It calls for hiring an independent monitor for up to five years who will help develop a plan covering use of force, community policing, misconduct investigations and behavioral health response.

“We as a city are committed to reform,” said Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat seeking reelection next year, at a May 21 press conference.

Mayor Craig Greenberg, center, made remarks about the consent decree issued by the Department of Justice as Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke, left, and Louisville Police Chief Paul Humphries looked on during a press conference at the Mayor’s Gallery in Louisville, Ky. on Dec. 12, 2024.

There are some omissions in Louisville’s new plan, however.

The trimmed-down local plan removed a line about the use of Tasers that mandated officers learn about “the risks to persons exhibiting signs of mental illness, substance use, or experiencing behavioral health crisis,” according to the Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Antonio Brown, 39, participated in the Louisville protests almost daily in the summer of 2020. He said his faith in federally supported police reforms waned after Trump was reelected.

“I’m not surprised by what Trump’s administration is doing, but I do wonder what our mayor is going to do, because he ran on change,” Brown said.

Other city officials and local activists have expressed skepticism about Greenberg, who contested some findings in the original 2023 federal report that determined the Louisville police department “unlawfully discriminates against Black people in its enforcement activities.”

Critics point out that the independent monitor’s contract under the local plan is only renewable for up to five years, for instance. Greenberg also hasn’t committed to rehiring the city’s inspector general, who is charged with examining police misconduct and has butted heads with Louisville police since 2021.

“It’s definitely going to get worse if we don’t see any change,” said Brown, a machine operator at a local manufacturing company. “This is why we came outside –for reform. So if we don’t get reform… I’m not going back in.”

Could police officer pardons be Trump’s next step?

Former LMPD detective Brett Hankison walks towards the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Louisville, Ky, Oct. 15, 2024

As advocates on both sides of the police accountability debate decipher what Trump’s about-face means for those communities, some are now focusing on what his administration might do next as allies seek to redefine the summer of 2020.

Conservative activists have publicly lobbied for the president to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of Floyd’s murder.

Trump previously said that he wasn’t considering pardoning Chauvin. But, Minneapolis officials said they are prepared for an emergency response with state and federal authorities while calming the waters.

Frey pointed out, for example, that even if Chauvin were to be pardoned by Trump from his 21-year federal sentence, that would not free the former officer for his 22-year state sentence for second- and third-degree murder. By law, Trump doesn’t have the power to pardon state sentences.

In recent weeks, Trump’s suppoters have publicly called for the same reprieve to be extended to former Louisville police detective Brett Hankinson, one of three officers who raided Taylor’s apartment in 2020. He faces a life sentence after being found guilty last fall by a federal jury of violating the 26-year-old ER technician’s civil rights.

Right-leaning advocates noted Hankison was acquitted on state charges in 2022, and spotlight that no one was injured as a result of his gunfire on the night Taylor was shot to death.

“Hankison should be completely (absolved) of any wrongdoing,” Brandon Tatum, a former Arizona police officer turned YouTube political commentator, told his roughly 1.6 million Instagram followers on May 14.

Tatum argued Hankinson is more deserving of a pardon than Chauvin, adding that he reached out to leaders in Congress to contact the White House on behalf of the former Louisville officer.

Johnson, of the law enforcement defense fund, has called on the Trump administration to take a closer look at other cases they describe as “politically motivated,” including a 2023 case involving a Massachusetts police sergeant facing federal charges for filing a false report.

He said his group has not actively advocated for Hankinson’s pardon, but that it does, “believe he is a good candidate for clemency.”

Trump has already wielded his executive authority in such a manner during his first week in office when he pardoned two Washington, D.C. police officers convicted last fall in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a moped on a sidewalk without a helmet when he ignored instructions to stop.

Jerrod Moore, 44, an Atlanta construction inspector, said federal authorities investigating these type of case could have done more to weed out bad officers. He said changes coming from the national level have proven to be unreliable, and that he wouldn’t be surprised if Trump pardoned more police officers convicted of violating people’s constitutional rights in the coming years.

“He’s very selective about who he wants to pardon, and if he does, it will be an officer in one of the more egregious crimes,” Moore said. “It’s very clear who his target audience is. Look who he’s pardoned already.”

Contributing: Charles Daye, Stephanie Kuzydym, Josh Wood, Keely Doll, Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY Network

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump, DOJ moves signal shift for police accountability after Floyd