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.”
Okay.
Do it. And do it now.
Gonna get myself a lot of popcorn, sit back and enjoy the ensuing comedy.
Why didn’t they just fire chauvin after the first of multiple complaints or after finding him culpable?
They’re so stupid.
Well, the progs nationwide need a solid, irrefutable, unmistakable example of just how stupid their “ideas” really are.
If they do this PDJT needs to immediately remove and redeploy every single federal LEO in the area so as there will be no one that can answer a call from the Mayor or City Council.
When all the criminals from the surrounding area converge there will be nothing to do but fly over it with news helicopters as it will not be remotely safe to be on the ground.
.
It gets to a point where a society horrifically implodes. They have no idea what they are doing even if they think they know.
And replace it with?
They have several examples to work from...
The left has done the impossible
Coming up with something equally as stupid as ‘Open Borders”
Good gawd, what fools
Actually you are not far from their reality.
The model they want to go after is similar to what is used in China with block watchers/snitches. Who then report to the more forceful authorities. The problem with that model in the United States, especially in big cities, is no one ever reports seeing anything.
Hey, at least no more speeding tickets.
This should be interesting watching Minneapolis burn because there will be no cops at the scene to protect the firefighters so the firefighters will not be there to serve as targets.All retail stores will close in minority areas because social workers are not in the business of stopping theft.EMTs will not be going into those areas unescorted. If covid didn’t destroy their economy, Black Lives Matter will.
“Minneapolis police only cleared 56 percent of cases in which a person was killed.”
Soooo, how many cases will be cleared by a non-existent police department?
This makes no damned sense.
> I assume policing will be left to gangs who will set up territories and protection rackets. <
Yes. Someone will fill the void.
In the 1950s it would have the Mafia.
In the 1960s it would have been the Black Panthers.
My prediction: Today it will be the Muslims.
Not to mention Property Taxes.
The law of unintended consequences is going to be epic in this instance.
A teachable moment. (For the rest of the country).
Social experimentation with lives at stake is just no big thing for Minnesotans. Heck, they elected Jessie Ventura governor. They tend to move in mysterious ways.
That’s what I was thinking watching the black hoards attack the tanker truck.
One Minneapolis leftist nutbag to another: "Help, I've just been raped and robbed, and they stole all my money, my phone, my weed, and my car!"
Second Minneapolis leftist nutbag pulls out his own phone, and dials 9-1-1.
His phone says: "I'm sorry, the number you have reached, 9-1-1, is not in service."
I think you meant “ who eats their “ crayons”.
Better get my CCW.
“invest in cultural competency and mental health training, de-escalation and conflict resolution.”
Minneapolis is a pretty big town. I’m sure they have their share of rape, murder and robberies. They are going to use conflict resolution? This is going to be the purge. God help the innocent folks in this mad house.
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