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Minneapolis City Council majority announces plan to disband police department

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June 7 (UPI) -- A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council announced a plan to defund the city's police department on Sunday.

Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender and Council Vice President Andre Jenkins were joined by other council members and activists from Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block as they announced the plan to disband the Minneapolis Police Department through the funding process at a rally following the police-involved killing of George Floyd by an MPD officer.

"It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe," said Bender. "Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period."

Council Members Alondra Cano, Jeremiah Ellison, Steve Fletcher, Cam Gordon and Jeremy Schroder also attended the rally as they formed a nine-member veto-proof supermajority pledging their support to disband the police department and replace it with community-based public safety.

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"Our commitment is to end our city's toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it and to re-create systems of public safety that actually keep us safe," said Bender.

The announcement came after the city council on Friday voted to approve a measure banning police from using choke holds and other neck restraints and requiring MPD officers to immediately report any instances of unauthorized use of force by fellow officers and attempt to intervene.

On Wednesday, Minnesota authorities escalated the charge against MPD officer Derek Chauvin, the officer seen on video kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as he gasped for air, from third-degree murder to second-degree murder.

They also arrested the other three officers present at the scene and charged them with aiding and abetting murder in the second-degree.

All four officers had been fired after Floyd was killed while they arrested him outside a Cup Foods store on May 25 when a clerk reported that he used a counterfeit $20 bill.

Global protests erupted following news of Floyd's death calling for police reforms and en end to systemic racism.

 

Minneapolis leaders vote in favor of police reforms; ban choke holds

City Council President Lisa Bender has promised to "dismantle" the Minneapolis police force.

By Don Jacobson & Danielle Haynes
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Activists rally during a demonstration Thursday against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo

June 5 (UPI) -- The Minneapolis City Council voted Friday on a measure that bans police from using choke holds and other neck restraints in response to the death of George Floyd and national civil unrest.

The changes were the result of an emergency session of the city council and Minnesota Department of Civil Rights, which is conducting an investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Under the new order, MPD officers must immediately report any instances of unauthorized use of force by fellow officers and attempt to intervene. Certain crowd control weapons, including chemical agents, rubber bullets and marking rounds, can only be used with approval by the police chief. Use of such weapons must also include documentation.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey immediately signed the agreement, which must also be approved by a judge.

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"This is a moment in time where we can totally change the way our police department operates," Frey said during the meeting, which was live streamed. "We can quite literally lead the way in our nation enacting more police reform than any other city in the entire country and we cannot fail."

Minnesota Department of Civil Rights began a comprehensive investigation of the MPD this week on orders from Gov. Tim Walz.

"We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety," Council President Lisa Bender tweeted before Friday's meeting.

State authorities on Wednesday upgraded a third-degree murder charge against former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin to murder in the second degree, and levied charges against the other three officers involved in Floyd's May 25 arrest.

The other former officers, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. Chauvin's first court appearance is scheduled for Monday.

Anger toward the MPD has come from local activists and politicians since Floyd's death. Some have proposed reforms to defund the department and others say community members should be allowed to participate in collective bargaining negotiations with the police union.
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A protester waves a Black Lives Matter flag near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on June 6. Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo


Minneapolis council majority backs disbanding police force today
 
In this Sept. 8, 2017, file photo, newly appointed Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo takes the oath of office as his daughter Nyasia looks on during a public swearing-in ceremony, in Minneapolis. George Floyd’s death and the protests it ignited nationwide over racial injustice and police brutality have raised questions about whether Arradondo — or any chief — can fix a department that's now facing a civil rights investigation. (Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune via AP, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council said Sunday they support disbanding the city’s police department, an aggressive stance that comes just as the state has launched a civil rights investigation after George Floyd’s death.

Nine of the council’s 12 members appeared with activists at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon and vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it. Council member Jeremiah Ellison promised that the council would “dismantle” the department.

“It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” Lisa Bender, the council president, said. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.”

Bender went on to say she and the eight other council members that joined the rally are committed to ending the city’s relationship with the police force and “to end policing as we know it and recreate systems that actually keep us safe.”

Floyd, a handcuffed black man, died May 25 after a white officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck, ignoring his “I can’t breathe” cries and holding it there even after Floyd stopped moving. His death sparked protests — some violent, many peaceful — that spread nationwide.

Community activists have criticized the Minneapolis department for years for what they say is a racist and brutal culture that resists change. The state of Minnesota launched a civil rights investigation of the department last week, and the first concrete changes came Friday in a stipulated agreement in which the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints.

A more complete remaking of the department is likely to unfold in coming months.

Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.

It was a step that then-Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department was considering for Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown. The city eventually reached an agreement short of that but one that required massive reforms overseen by a court-appointed mediator.

The move to defund or abolish the Minneapolis department is far from assured, with the civil rights investigation likely to unfold over the next several months.

On Saturday, activists for defunding the department staged a protest outside Mayor Jacob Frey’s home. Frey came out to talk with them.

“I have been coming to grips with my own responsibility, my own failure in this,” Frey said. When pressed on whether he supported their demands, Frey said: “I do not support the full abolition of the police department.”

He left to booing.

At another march Saturday during which leaders called for defunding the department, Verbena Dempster said she supported the idea.

“I think, honestly, we’re too far past” the chance for reform, Dempster told Minnesota Public Radio. “We just have to take down the whole system.”

 In this May 28, 2020, file photo, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, center, listens as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey becomes emotional during a news conference in Minneapolis, Minn. George Floyd’s death and the protests it ignited nationwide over racial injustice and police brutality have raised questions about whether Arradondo — or any chief — can fix a department that's now facing a civil rights investigation. (Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via AP, File)