Minneapolis voters reject policing overhaul ballot measure prompted by George Floyd's murder

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Minneapolis residents on Tuesday rejected  a ballot measure to overhaul policing  drafted amid the national fury over George Floyd's murder but that went to voters as concerns about rising gun violence drained energy from the protest movement that had launched it.

More than 56 percent of the 143,000 people voted on that question rejected the plan, which would have given the city council oversight of a new Department of Public Safety and done away with a requirement to employ a minimum number of police officers tied to the city's population.

The status quo-affirming result is a setback to both citywide and national efforts to fundamentally reduce or eliminate the role of police in America.

Talk of curbing police departments by cutting or limiting their resources has run into a countervailing wall of concern over public safety and waning support from early allies -- including leading Democrats who largely view "defund the police" messaging as political poison.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-voters-reject-policing-overhaul-ballot-measure-prompted-by-george-floyd-s-murder/ar-AAQhcrr

[Zeitghost]

1. Hennepin County

Hennepin County went 71-27 for Biden. Apparently it's not just "Defund the Police" being bad branding, people of all political leanings seem to be rejecting the concept altogether.

[liberalhistorian]

2. I live near Minneapolis, and I can say that one of the main problems

was the lack of an actual detailed plan as to how the new public safety replacement would actually work. Many people who were generally in favor of reforming and replacing the police were uncomfortable and wary because there were no real and detailed plans other than "we'll replace the police with public safety and social service plans." Rising murder and crime rates haven't helped, either, although I suspect that there are some MPD who are deliberately not responding to or fomenting such issues. It's a horrible Trump-loving department that nothing seems to change, not even the AA police chief who's been trying really hard, and I wouldn't put it past them at all.

[Ocelot II]

3. I live in Minneapolis, and I voted no. If there had been an actual plan, I almost certainly

would have voted for it, since the MPD has sucked for decades and really does need reforming. But the measure was so vague - despite several trips to the courthouse where the judge told the people behind it to make it more understandable - that it could have been interpreted to mean whatever the inept and confused city counsel felt like it meant at some undetermined time in the future. I don't think it was ever intended to actually "defund" the police, but the fuzzy wording could have been interpreted as allowing for it. A lot of Black voters were against it, too, because as sucky as the cops are now, the crime rate has worsened, with Black people being affected the most, and police protection is sorely needed. But what we need is not fewer officers but a significant number of good, responsible cops who don't take out their authoritarian impulses on Black people during traffic stops. If the contract with the police union, whose sole function seems to be to protect bad cops like Derek Chauvin from any form of discipline, can be renegotiated so bad cops can be removed or not hired in the first place, that would go a long way to improving the situation.

[sboatcar]

4. Same here

The wording was too vague, and there is basically zero trust in the city council right now. I think the MPD has been punishing the city ever since the rioting in 2020, staying in their stations, only coming out when called, all of that.
The department needs reform, but for any reform to happen, if the city is going to change its charter, there needs to be detail behind it. Just changing it like the ballot measure would have is much too nebulous and requires a lot of trust in people who aren't trusted by the public right now.