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The Minneapolis City Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police. The move comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department after the country erupted in protest over the killing of Floyd, a black man who died when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. “The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that...

The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously today to approve a resolution intended to abolish the existing police force and replace it with something else. What exactly that is hasn’t been spelled out yet. “We acknowledge that the current system is not reformable — that we would like to end the current policing system as we know it,” council member Alondra Cano said.The resolution starts a yearlong process to create a new public safety model. All 12 City Council members are listed as co-authors…The council will start a yearlong process “of community engagement, research, and structural change to create a...

Monday on CNN’s “New Day,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender defended her council’s attempt to disband the Minneapolis police department following the death of George Floyd. Bender said, “I think in Minneapolis, watching George Floyd’s death, and the actions of the four police officers that were involved has been a huge wake-up call for so many in Minneapolis to see what many already knew, which is that our police department is not keeping every member of our community safe. And so I think step one for us is to tell the truth. Nine council members from communities all across...

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Sunday reiterated that he doesn't support abolishing the city's police force, hours after a veto-proof majority of members of the Minneapolis City Council said they want to take that drastic step in the wake of the in-custody death of George Floyd. Frey, who ordered a police station to evacuate as rioters burned it to the ground last month, was shouted down by a large gathering of demonstrators near his home on Saturday when he defied their demands to shutter the city's police forces. "I'll work relentlessly with Chief [Medaria] Arradondo and alongside community toward deep,...

Councilwoman Alondra Cano tweeted the department isn’t "reformable." A majority of the Minneapolis City Council agreed Sunday to dismantle the city’s police department after the in-custody killing of George Floyd, a council member said. In an interview with NBC News, councilman Jeremiah Ellison said the council would work to disband the department in its "current iteration." "The plan has to start somewhere," he said. "We are not going to hit the eject button without a plan so today was the announcement of the formulation of that plan." Speaking during a community meeting earlier, council President Lisa Bender called the city’s...

Minneapolis’ left-leaning City Council members on Sunday announced a veto-proof push to disband the Minneapolis police department, ramping up a major conflict inside the city following the death of George Floyd while in police custody. Many activists have been pushing at least for their cities to defund local police departments, a move many other analysts considered unrealistic. The measure has been the main focus for many people protesting against police brutality. The city council members spoke at a protest at Powderhorn Park, a neighborhood in Minneapolis. The number of supporters in attendance represented a veto-proof majority to push the measure...

Minneapolis City Council members are expected to vote today on changes they plan on incorporating pertaining to the police department in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The plan was still in the works on Thursday, according to Star Tribune. City officials and members of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights discussed the process of Mineappolis’s probe meant to determine if the city’s police department engaged in racial discrimination in the last 10 years. Today, officials are set to vote on a temporary injunction to immediately halt some MPD practices during an emergency meeting called by Mayor Jacob Frey. If...

If you’ve been tuned into the Minneapolis public safety scene, you know that for years, Reclaim the Block and other grassroots community groups have been asking the city to do one thing: stop investing in policing. Budget meeting after budget meeting, they’d turn out with their petitions and signs, demanding the city put less money into its police department and more money into programs that stop crimes from happening in the first place – affordable housing, addiction counseling, violence prevention programs. The council’s been listening. “I think we’ve had a vision for a while of wanting to see another kind...

Members of Minneapolis City Council are adding fuel to growing calls for the disbanding of the Minneapolis Police Department in the wake of George Floyd's killing. There have been rumblings in recent days of looking for alternative approaches to law enforcement and crime prevention in Minneapolis, as trust in the police department continues to plummet after the 46-year-old's death. Chief among those calling for change is Northside council member Jeremiah Ellison, who on Thursday tweeted "we are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department." "And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together," he added. "We are...

The Minneapolis City Council president will vote to abolish the city's police department for a "transformative new model of public safety." On Thursday, Lisa Bender, the Minneapolis City Council president, committed to abolishing law enforcement in the city, which is home to approximately 430,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. "Yes. We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety," Bender said in response to Jeremiah Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and another member of the city council. **SNIP** In an interview with local...

Budget meeting after budget meeting, they’d turn out with their petitions and signs, demanding the city put less money into its police department and more money into programs that stop crimes from happening in the first place – affordable housing, addiction counseling, violence prevention programs. The council's been listening. “I think we’ve had a vision for a while of wanting to see another kind of city response to those [911] calls,” says Council Member Steve Fletcher, whose Ward 3 covers parts of downtown. Calls about mental health crises could be answered by mental health professionals. Calls about opioid abuse could...