VIPD Maintains Full Consent Decree Compliance as Court Tests Whether Reforms Will Last

The V.I. Police Department entered its latest quarterly consent decree hearing having achieved a milestone federal court records confirm: compliance with every provision of the long-running police reform agreement. But those same records show why the more consequential question now is not whether VIPD can reach compliance, but whether it can keep it. The U.S. Department of Justice told Chief U.S. District Judge Robert A. Molloy in a February 23 filing that the Independent Monitoring Team had found VIPD compliant with Paragraph 37, the final provision standing between the department and full compliance with the decree. The finding meant, DOJ wrote, that VIPD was “now in compliance with every provision of the Consent Decree.” Federal attorneys said the department’s focus would consequently shift from reaching the milestone to maintaining it, particularly in the use-of-force and management-and-supervision areas, while the parties identified a path toward eventual termination of the decre...