After years of operating under a consent decree, the Springfield Police Department is no longer bound to the arrangement. Following a recent filing and changes in federal attitudes, the decree has been dismissed.
Joined by members of the police force, Mayor Domenic Sarno says this week marks the end of a consent decree the city agreed to in 2022.
“This is a big day for the city of Springfield,” Sarno announced Thursday. “The decree has been dismissed, and now, we continue to move forward with our police department.”
For four years, Springfield PD has been tasked with making changes from top to bottom, after the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation in 2018, later confirming cases of unreasonable force and inadequate training, plus flawed recordkeeping and accountability systems.
New body cameras, internal policies and software would come, along with more progress marked by compliance authorities.
But with the second Trump administration, consent decrees across the country started coming to an end last year.
Springfield PD wasn’t part of the initial wave, but with the city’s contract with its third-party “Compliance Evaluator Team” ending in April 2026, city leaders sought a court dismissal for the arrangement.
Officials like City Solicitor Stephen Buoniconti and Police Superintendent Larry Akers argue Springfield's situation differs from other police department decrees ending, and that Springfield PD's reforms had already been rolled out and were largely, if not completely finished by the time federal attitudes changed in 2025.
On Thursday, Akers vowed that improvements made over the last four years will be sticking around.
“I have no desire to go back to the previous recordkeeping routines, our past use of force policies, our disciplinary standards or any of what some people called ‘neanderthal’ and outdated police methods of the past,” Akers said. “We're moving full-steam ahead, with constitutional policies and procedures...”
In its latest filing last month, the CET indicated Springfield PD had demonstrated progress on multiple fronts, while emphasizing a need to ensure progress continues and is sustainable.
