In spite of the Mayor’s opposition, the Minneapolis City Counsel will vote to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and develop a new community based model for the city. The Minneapolis Appeal is reporting that it will be a veto-proof majority.
From The Appeal:
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.
Steve Fletcher, a Third Ward City Counsel member explained why the City Counsel is taking this step in an Op-ed for Time Magazine:
My assessment of what is now necessary is shaped by the failure of the reforms we’ve attempted, in the face of opposition from the department and the Police Federation. We have a talented, thoughtful police chief who has attempted some important steps. He has fired officers for significant abuses only to have his decisions overturned and those officers reinstated by arbitrators. Mayor Frey has met fierce resistance from the Federation to implement even minor policy changes.
There is another reason reform can be daunting, even scary. My reform advocacy, incremental though it has been, has prompted intense political attacks from police and their allies, who up to now have been confident that their support for police expansion was a mainstream point of view. And they do not limit their attacks to politics. Politicians who oppose the department’s wishes find slowdowns in their wards. After we cut money from the proposed police budget, I heard from constituents whose 9-1-1 calls took forever to get a response, and I heard about officers telling business owners to call their councilman about why it took so long. Since I’ve started talking publicly about this, elected officials from several cities and towns around the country have contacted me to tell me I am not alone in this experience.
Libertarians have been writing about the state of modern policing and calling for change for years and as James Reilly wrote “We should all agree, as we once had, Defund, Disband, Abolish.” and I would add, help create something better.
