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Minneapolis City Council Members Announce Intent To Disband The Police Department
The Appeal ^ | 7th June 2020 | Jay Willis

Posted on 06/07/2020 2:31:50 PM PDT by Ennis85

On Sunday afternoon, a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce their commitment to disbanding the city’s embattled police department, which has endured relentless criticism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, on May 25.

“We’re here because we hear you. We are here today because George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police. We are here because here in Minneapolis and in cities across the United States it is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety is not keeping our communities safe,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said Sunday. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed. Period.”

The City Council’s decision follows those of several other high-profile partners, including Minneapolis Public Schools, and the University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Parks and Recreation, to sever longstanding ties with the MPD.

The announcement today also arrives after several members of the Council have expressed a complete loss of confidence in the Minneapolis Police Department.

“We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” tweeted Council Member Jeremiah Ellison on June 4, pledging to “dramatically rethink” the city’s approach to emergency response. In a TIME op-ed published the next day, Council Member Steve Fletcher cited the MPD’s lengthy track record of misconduct and “decades-long history of violence and discrimination”—all of which are subjects of an ongoing Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation—as compelling justifications for the department’s disbandment. “We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon or pulling out handcuffs,” Fletcher wrote.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said last night that he opposed disbanding the police department at a protest organized and led by Black Visions Collective against police violence in the city. That answer earned him a thundering chorus of boos and chants of “Shame!” and “Go home, Jacob, go home!” The New York Times called the scene a “humiliation on a scale almost unimaginable outside of cinema or nightmare.”

“The last Democratic mayor, Betsy Hodges, handled the murder of Jamar [Clark] poorly. We told her she was going to lose her job. And she did,” Miski Noor, a Black Visions Collective organizer, said on Frey’s refusal to disband the Minneapolis Police Department.

Since taking office in January 2018, Frey has overseen reforms to the MPD’s body camera policy that impose harsher discipline on officers who fail to comply, and barred officers from participating in so-called “Bulletproof Warrior” training, which encourages law enforcement to use deadly force if they feel their lives are in jeopardy. The officer who shot and killed Philando Castile during a 2016 traffic stop had attended a seminar two years earlier.

More recently, however, Frey has faced criticism from community groups for supporting increases to the MPD’s budget, and for the city’s failure to invest significantly in community-based public safety programs during his tenure.

For years, activists have argued that MPD has failed to actually keep the city safe, and City Councilmembers echoed that sentiment today during their announcement. MPD’s record for solving serious crimes in the city is consistently low. For example, in 2019, Minneapolis police only cleared 56 percent of cases in which a person was killed. For rapes, the police department’s solve rate is abysmally low. In 2018, their clearance rate for rape was just 22 percent. In other words, four out of every five rapes go unsolved in Minneapolis. Further casting doubt on the department’s commitment to solving sexual assaults, MPD announced last year the discovery of 1,700 untested rape kits spanning 30 years, which officials said had been misplaced.

The Council’s move is consistent with rapidly-shifting public opinion regarding the urgency of overhauling the American model of law enforcement. Since Floyd’s killing and the protests that ensued, officials in Los Angeles and New York City have called for making deep cuts to swollen police budgets and reallocating those funds for education, affordable housing, and other social services. Law enforcement officers are not equipped to be experts in responding to mental health crises, often leading to tragic results—nationally, about half of police killings involve someone living with mental illness or disability. As a result, public health experts have long advocated for dispatching medical professionals and/or social workers, not armed police, to respond to calls related to substance use and mental health. Polling from Data for Progress indicates that more than two-thirds of voters—68 percent—support the creation of such programs, versions of which are already in place in other cities such as, Eugene, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado.

“Our commitment is to do what is necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth that the Minneapolis Police are not doing that,” Bender said Sunday. “Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: anticop; betsyhodges; civilunrest; georgefloyd; jacobfrey; jamarclark; jeremiahellison; lisabender; minneapolis; minnesota; miskinoor; newyorktimes; philandocastile; police; riots; stevefletcher
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1 posted on 06/07/2020 2:31:50 PM PDT by Ennis85
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To: Ennis85

Beg pardon??


2 posted on 06/07/2020 2:32:47 PM PDT by freepertoo
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To: Ennis85

They ain t seen anything yet. Systemic dumbassery.


3 posted on 06/07/2020 2:34:22 PM PDT by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Ennis85

I hope they do it. I will watch what happens.


4 posted on 06/07/2020 2:34:46 PM PDT by Rapscallion (Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.)
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To: freepertoo

Who will protect the thugs, rioters, and looters then? Will there be a bag limit on them?


5 posted on 06/07/2020 2:34:46 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: freepertoo

That should work out well. /S


6 posted on 06/07/2020 2:35:03 PM PDT by Mark17 (Father of US Air Force Officer, who graduated from Air Force pilot training, on 1 May 2020)
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To: Ennis85

Mogadishu on the Mississippi.


7 posted on 06/07/2020 2:35:10 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents_Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Ennis85

sick out....and suddenly a career ending PTSDS....


8 posted on 06/07/2020 2:35:12 PM PDT by cherry
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To: Ennis85

9 posted on 06/07/2020 2:35:29 PM PDT by moovova
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To: All

So these crazy bastards are actually going to disband the PD? can they do that?


10 posted on 06/07/2020 2:35:41 PM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: Ennis85
Democrats are so stupid and crazy news reads like Mad Magazine.
11 posted on 06/07/2020 2:36:00 PM PDT by Vision (Obama corrupted, sought to weaken and fundamentally change America; he didn't plan on being stopped.)
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To: Ennis85

City full of radical Aholes, massive unemployement and poverty, no PD...Sounds goot,wha could go wrong?


12 posted on 06/07/2020 2:36:00 PM PDT by CGASMIA68
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To: Lurkinanloomin

LOL! (not really, but... well yeah, really LOL!)


13 posted on 06/07/2020 2:36:07 PM PDT by workerbee (==)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
...officials in Los Angeles and New York City have called for making deep cuts to swollen police budgets...

Partisan Media Shills update.


14 posted on 06/07/2020 2:37:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Ennis85

On Sunday afternoon, a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce their commitment to disbanding the city’s embattled police

How many places in America today have veto proof councils of absolutely psychotic left wing radicals. The NYC council springs to mind. These people can impliment any insanity the want to.


15 posted on 06/07/2020 2:37:10 PM PDT by TalBlack
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To: Ennis85

I will sit back and watch how many murders are committed once this happens, and it will..it will make the death count in Chicago look like a drop in the bucket. Why would ANYONE build a business in Minneapolis just to watch while its looted and burned


16 posted on 06/07/2020 2:37:42 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: gibsonguy

Sure, why not? This is their plan (seriously):

— County mental health professionals sent to mental health calls, not police officers.

– Using fire department EMTs to respond to opioid overdose calls.

– The use of “unarmed, community-oriented street teams” on weekend nights downtown “to focus on de-escalation.”

– Traffic enforcement turned over to cameras and potentially parking enforcement teams.

– And while there was no specific reference made to plans for handling violent crime, Fletcher says the council would “invest in cultural competency and mental health training, de-escalation and conflict resolution.”


17 posted on 06/07/2020 2:37:50 PM PDT by bigdaddy45
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To: Ennis85

And replace it with? I see militias springing up overnight. There will be retribution the likes we’ve never seen. If the blacks feel discriminated against now, just wait until white militias take there revenge on their sorry asses. I can hear 911 operators now saying there is a 4 hour delay in responses.


18 posted on 06/07/2020 2:38:06 PM PDT by DownInFlames (Galsd)
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To: SunkenCiv

They will give more money to illegal aliens and “Communities of color” but not give a drop to help the homeless off the street..they can still take a crap on the sidewalk


19 posted on 06/07/2020 2:38:37 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: Ennis85

Are they doing this to try to prevent the city from being liable for damages?


20 posted on 06/07/2020 2:38:42 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
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