The letter references the recent killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville by police officers. It also notes that former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke had 20 complaints of official misconduct against him, including use-of-force complaints, in the years before he shot and killed black teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014.

In the letter, the attorneys general state that the U.S. Department of Justice initiated 69 pattern-or-practice investigations between 1994 and 2017, resulting in 40 court-enforceable consent decrees.

“Since 2017, US DOJ has largely curtailed the ability of federal law enforcement to use court-enforced agreements to reform local police departments accused of abuses, taking the position that responsibility to oversee local law enforcement belonged to states and localities,” the letter states. “… This shift has led to a precipitous decline in US DOJ’s work to reform police misconduct.”