Who investigates cold cases or handles ongoing homicide investigations when...

[jcmaine72]

a city dismantles their police department, as Minneapolis is on the cusp of doing now?

I mentioned in another thread that I had recently seen a documentary about the brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl that remained unsolved for years. The detective assigned to the case worked tirelessly for years to find this poor child's murderer and rapist. He finally got a break in the case and caught the creep responsible for this unspeakable atrocity.

Will these "Community-led Public Safety" groups that the Minneapolis city council envision replacing the MPD have the personnel with the experience and expertise the aforementioned detective did in order to solve such cases?

What about any ongoing homicide investigations the MPD is currently engaged in? A murder investigation can be a very fragile thing under the best of circumstances. Evidence must be handled and processed very carefully to build a strong case and ensure it isn't dismissed in court due to mishandling of evidence. Even when one trained detective replaces another midway through an ongoing investigation there's a good chance something might get mucked up.

So what happens when all the police in Minneapolis are terminated and these cases are handed over in various states of investigation to "Community-led Public safety" personnel? Will they have the ability and expertise needed to successfully complete these investigations so that they can be properly prosecuted in a court of law?

Although systemic racism certainly exists and is a serious problem that must be addressed, it is equally true that not everyone the police arrest are innocent victims. There are some genuinely sick, evil, and dangerous people in this world that the police have to deal with every day. While no one wants to see a repeat of the George Floyd murder, I'm sure most of us also don't want to see murderers and rapists set free as a result of a hastily conceived plan either.

Police reform and stringent oversight are musts, but complete abolishment of the police is going too far and has the potential to be utterly disastrous for the safety of our communities. In the end, I fear, it will result in the very thing people of good conscience are trying to eradicated: More draconian policing.

[RandySF]

1. Who will answer the call when someone smashes a street-lelvel apartment window at 3:00 a.m.?

And you don't know who the people are laughing outside and you have a two-month old baby? A social worker?

[ecstatic]

2. It's not the detectives who are going around killing, maiming and abusing folks

It's the regular street cops who are a problem right now. I assume that's being factored in to the calculations and changes being made.

[jcmaine72]

5. Are you certain of that?

Some of the rhetoric being used by members of the Minneapolis city council seems to contradict that assumption.

Here's a direct quote from Jeremiah Ellison on Twitter:

<a href="

Link to tweet

?

Sounds to me like the entire department, with all of it's personnel, will be eliminated. So again I ask: Who will continue all ongoing homicide investigations, both current and cold?

[Sgent]

3. You don't eliminate every position

you end the force as a whole and move to a different type of system. I haven't read it, but many of the ideas come from the book "The End of Policing" which is (luckily) free at https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing (click ebook).

[tulipsandroses]

4. Taking minor crimes out of their wheelhouse - gives them more time to work on more serious cri

There is a back log of rape cases, and unsolved murders everywhere in this country. Instead of focusing on minor crimes. They can shift their focus to where its most needed.

As far as I can tell, they are still working out the details on what this would look like. I highly doubt the plan would be to not investigate serious crimes. I doubt that the public wants murderers and rapists to go free and for victims of these serious crimes to be denied justice.

[Squinch]

6. We will always need cops to respond to violent crimes. The municipality that does the

experiment of doing away with them altogether will devolve into "Lord of the Flies."

But they can be significantly reduced, non violent responses can be siphoned off into other departments, they can be demilitarized and trained in a completely different way. Their administration can be held accountable for the acts of unwarranted aggression against citizens, which will crack down on those acts quickly.

I see a lot of people saying the way to go about this is through the unions. Those people don't seem to understand how unions work. The union IS the cops. It defends them when they are accused of violating the rules. And yes they have gotten out of hand, but that is because the rules are out of hand.

The police administrations need to be the ones who drastically change the rules. The police administrations are responsible for the change.

[Iggo]

7. I had this boss once upon a time...

...who laid off a worker, eliminated the position, assigned the duties of the eliminated position to others, waited a while, created a new position that folded back many of those duties into it, then hired someone else.

We didn’t have a union, though. Also, though, the whole country wasn’t mad at us for killing unarmed black people in the streets.

[MineralMan]

8. The Minneapolis City Council Is Made up of Really Smart People

They understand what you're saying, and will structure their plans to answer all of your questions. Planning a new public safety system has not begun yet. All of the factors you mention will be part of their planning process.

Most likely, many current police officers will become part of whatever new system is designed. However, other police officers will not be hired into the new system.

Please give the City Council some time to come up with a plan before insisting that their idea cannot work. They're smart folks. They'll figure it out.