MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ANNOUNCE INTENT TO DISBAND THE POLICE DEPARTMENT, INVEST IN PROVEN

[swag]

Source: The Appeal

MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ANNOUNCE INTENT TO DISBAND THE POLICE DEPARTMENT, INVEST IN PROVEN COMMUNITY-LED PUBLIC SAFETY

Jay Willis

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.

Read more: https://theappeal.org/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-disband-the-police-department-invest-in-proven-community-led-public-safety/

[AllaN01Bear]

1. eggscllent first step.

[Mike 03]

2. Great, so I guess Bob Kroll is out of a job!!

Goodbye Asshole!

[totodeinhere]

4. Not yet. It will take time to implement this.

They cannot just abolish the police department without already having something else in place to take its place.

[oldsoftie]

10. Which is what? Nothing is mentioned

Just do away with the force? Or just call it something else?

[ProfessorGAC]

50. I Think He's The Reason

Per another DUer, good mayors & decent chiefs have tried only to be blocked by the union.
The city council members might have had enough and they thought this the best opportunity.

[totodeinhere]

3. Ok so far so good but this is what they should not do.

They should not disband the MPD and let the county sheriff's office take over policing in the city. I think under current law if the city police for whatever reason become unavailable the sheriff's department automatically takes over. And in one such case they turned around and rehired former police officers from the department that had been disbanded. We don't want that.

[Cozmo]

5. Hey Buffalo, listen up!

[pbmus]

6. Until this happens, I am certainly NOT holding my breath..

[Warpy]

7. That drive by pepper spray incident must have been the last straw.

They definitely need to disband the jokers in the riot control squad.

Those meatheads need to go.

[sarisataka]

19. Unlikely

Since that happened a week ago.

[Budi]

9. As long as Barr doesn't have anything to say about it.

He'll send his WH goon squad to replace Kroll's KKK squad

[Fiendish Thingy]

11. Good move, but know that Trump will use this as a "Law and Order" wedge issue in the fall

How successful it will be as a wedge issue depends on how the residents of Minneapolis respond to the new public safety model.

[Maxheader]

12. bullshit..

The need is for better trained cops...not to leave the city open to criminals..

[Scruffy1]

16. Bullshit II

I lived in Minneapolis for forty five years. Moved to El Paso last summer. The organization of the MPD is beyone redemption. We had a community policing plan ready to go for many years but could never get it done until now. Many good people have been working on it for a long time and it is well thought out. I have been hearing about better training, better selection, hiring more minorities and all that crap for way too long. It is the very nature of a centralized police force that is the problem. Make them responsible to the people that live there.
If police could make you safer there wouldn't be much crime, but the truth is they can only react. Having had to deal with these assholes for way to long I am jubilant. I've been jailed for no reason, beaten and given bogus traffic tickets for crimes like having a black person in my car.

[Maxheader]

25. I only lived there for a year...

at lake and minnehaha..1975...Though it was a cool, laid back town..worked in st paul..

I just don't see any community plan that can deal with the heavy weights of crime...That

have the muscle..the detective skills and the street savvy that a cop has...It sounds to me

like the twin cities needs to clean house on police management...my 2 centavos...

[liberalla]

13. OMG! This is BIG !!!

Moving forward!

[c-rational]

14. Good. Build a better system to actually protect and serve from the ground up. Enough lip service,

now the blue wall can listen to the sound of the dollar dropping - the silence will be deafening. The Police Departments backed by the Police Union and Police Benevolent Societies have long proclaimed their love of the rule of law, and yet they do not abide by the law - witness the many acts of aggression, violence, vandalism, etc. this week.

[marie999]

15. And when a woman is raped

or a store is robbed, who will they call. Yes, there have to be many changes made to the police department, but you can not leave the city unprotected. Develop a plan and go from there.

[mysteryowl]

18. They are developing a plan

There are response organizations already in place

[NutmegYankee]

20. I expect a new department will be built, but with better controls.

And any union agreements with the new department will leave out the neo-nazis and provide better accountability.

[VarryOn]

40. I'd seriously consider no union...

This maybe an instance where union-free makes sense.

[melm00se]

44. Right up until someone loses their job

because they disagreed politically with their supervisor, manager or boss.

The union is there to protect the rights of the individual vs the powers of the institution.

[VarryOn]

48. Understood, but I think that as a potential problem...

is worried about too much. I've worked 30 years in a job with no union protection and where my politics align with very few coworkers and management. I've never come close to losing my job, much less over politics.

My experience has been that most people who were fired were done so for not working well with others. Essentially, they were just assholes that no one liked working with. Most of us were glad to see them gone. I'd hate to see a union protecting people like them.

With the many police shootings over the years, it seems the union is the first to defend the cop, notwitstanding the circumstances.

[paleotn]

31. The city won't be left unprotected.

The headline is a bit misleading. It's a total cleaning out of dead wood through vetting of all personnel and a complete reorganization of operations, processes, procedures and policies. With luck, Minneapolis will set the example for other cities to follow. Isn't going to be easy, but it's got to be done.

As for rape, stats show the current MPD lets 4 out of 5 rapists walk as cases go unsolved.

[kiri]

33. who do you call when the perp wears a badge?

Cops do little to protect and serve. They do much to bully and intimidate.

[mysteryowl]

17. This is large city of 430,000

MPD - 1,100 staff
$179 million yearly budget

[ibegurpard]

21. Watching with interest

I'm not one to jump on the "disband the police" bandwagon but if they are able to put something into place that actually works for their community then i'd be supportive.

[SergeStorms]

22. It's a shame good peace officers are being lumped into...

the squalid mess of right-wing bullies so prevalent in the MPD. However, that's the way the cookie crumbles (a respected legal term used very infrequently). It's better to start from scratch and perhaps the good officers can be rehired after diligent screening. It's quite apparent there are a plethora of right-wing assholes within the MPD.

[onetexan]

23. The apple is rotten to the core so sifting the few good from the bad is too difficult to achieve.

They will need to rescreen and reinterview each existing officer. Those with multiple records of brutality or racial profiling & bigotry, are or were involved in past white supremacy groups need to be weeded out.

[Miguelito Loveless]

24. Here's a little vetting suggestion on picking people who should not be cops

If they have the Punisher's death head (from Marvel Comics) patch or tatyoo, or anything that is indicative of Nazi, White Supremacist, or anti-government sympathies, FIRE them.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

26. Wish every city and town was doing this all

over America.

Scrap it all and start over.
Make it better make it based on better values. Make it safe.

[bucolic_frolic]

30. And stop throwing money at it

Give taxpayers a break.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

37. Yes.

The defunding must start asap.

[Polybius]

39. What would happen if we get robbed?

We'd be on our own?

[Humanist_Activist]

42. Most of the time you are already on your own, but frankly having a smaller force of detectives...

to investigate and arrest criminals, with college degrees and years rather than weeks of training may lead to better closure rates.

[Jedi Guy]

46. Color me skeptical on this one, particularly for larger cities.

Existing detectives are generally already overloaded with cases. Many go unsolved because the detectives simply don't have the time to work on them, so they focus only on the most important ones, giving short shrift to the rest. Further reducing the number of detectives isn't going to help matters.

[Locrian]

45. pretty much

but they don't really care too much about you or your stuff

They don't make any money solving it - they DO make money on arrests etc of minor offenses so they can charge fees, fines ,etc.

[paleotn]

27. Wow! That seems to be what it's going to take nationwide....

On the federal level, a similar process is needed for ICE. Clean it out to the framing and rebuild.

[erronis]

32. Why stop with ICE? Get rid of racists from the bottom (trump) to the top (FBI).

Barr is #2 (in multiple ways).

[paleotn]

34. ICE seems to be the most egregious...

but it wouldn't be a bad thing to go top to bottom. Donnie will be removed one way or another on Jan 20, 2021 at noon.

[bucolic_frolic]

28. Citizen protests are forcing this consideration in many cities because

citizens suddenly realize the last thing you want to do is call the police. And if there's no demand for their services, and they are not trusted, they're not performing much in the way of the public good.

Why are we having such problems? Can we demilitarize?

[roamer65]

29. Kiss your job goodbye, Bob Kroll.

And fuck you, you degenerate.

[iluvtennis]

35. Love this goal - can't wait to see the detailed plan. nt

[SeattleVet]

36. They can use Camden, NJ as a model. They disbanded and restructured in 2012, to great results.

Here's info about the results, and an older article with more of the methodology and resoning they used.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/protests/stopping-systemic-racism-in-police-departments-protests/65-c8f377a4-c2d4-4659-86e0-3fd13ec3dbc2

Went from more than 60 excessive force complaints to 3; lowest crime rate in 50 years.

Here's an article from 2 years after they made the switch, describing what was done, and why:

https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-camden-disbands-police-force-for-new-department.html

[malthaussen]

47. Yes and no. Also maybe.

Camden's a definite success story. But it is also a city of only about 75,000 population. The restructuring increased the size of the police force (the "new" one) by about three times. Can a larger city, with a much larger police force, find the funds to emulate this kind of reorganization?

-- Mal

[JudyM]

38. Extra bonus: killer cop will lose any remaining social status he had among his peeps on the force.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

41. The message this event sends will echo around the world.

* This is a bold move by the Council. Police departments throughout the U.S. will be shaken to their core.
* Minneapolis will not go without protection. This will take perhaps years to fully implement and do it safely.
* I hope citizens fully participate in the process and in fact, lead the process.
* Right-wing heads will explode, their press will lie, distort and deceive and RW politicians will harrumph for months.
* This will go down as George Floyd's legacy.

Local and worldwide coverage:

Most of Minneapolis City Council pledges to 'begin the process of ending' police department
By Liz Navratil Star Tribune
June 7, 2020

Link: https://www.startribune.com/mpls-council-majority-backs-dismantling-police-department/571088302/

-------------
Voice of America:

Minneapolis City Council Backs Dismantling Police Department
By VOA News
June 07, 2020 09:36 PM

Link: https://www.voanews.com/usa/nation-turmoil-george-floyd-protests/minneapolis-city-council-backs-dismantling-police

-------------
From the UK (rolling coverage):

Minneapolis city council pledges to dismantle police department in wake of George Floyd's killing – live

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/jun/07/george-floyd-protests-anti-racism-demonstrations-donald-trump-black-lives-matter-live-updates

-------------
From Asia (posting AP):

Minneapolis police to be dismantled: City council

Link: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/george-floyd-protests-minneapolis-police-dismantle-12814388

---------------
Australia:

Minneapolis City Council members pledge to disband police force in wake of George Floyd death

Link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-08/minneapolis-councillors-pledge-to-disband-police-george-floyd/12331788

---------------

This news had not yet hit much of the world due to the late timing. Monday should be a real buzz.

KY......

[BrightKnight]

49. The language being used for this is troubling.

I keep seeing “defund” and “disband.” I don’t believe any sane person person wants the actually eliminate law enforcement.

If the intent is to do a ground up rebuilding of the organization then they should just say that. There will be law enforcement and the people doing it will be paid. Defunding is meaningless alarming BS.

Also, don’t step out of your canoe if don’t have another boat to step into. The need work out the details of any transition first.