Let’s talk about the future of policing and community safety.
First, to dispel any misinformation or misunderstanding right up front: No, the City Council did not vote to abolish the police department. No, there have not been any decisions made on budget cuts. No, we cannot have lawlessness or anarchy. And yes, there are still emergency calls which will require armed law enforcement to respond.
Two weeks ago, the world watched in horror, disgust, and anger as George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis. For nearly nine minutes he was slowly asphyxiated while he and citizens around him pleaded for officers to stop. We know George Floyd’s murder was not an anomaly. There is a pattern across our nation tracing back 400 years to when Africans were kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and forced into labor through violence. Subjugation didn’t end with slavery. And the disparities we see today in our city run unbroken from the actions and decisions from this past to our present.
When I first ran for office, I had a perspective of our police department that many of you have had. I figured there were some bad officers that shouldn’t be in their jobs (much like any other profession), but otherwise the institution was mostly a public good that could use some reforms here and there. Once elected I learned a lot more and realized it wasn’t so simple.
I witnessed more than one Mayor and Police Chief work hard to implement reforms. They improved and expanded training, tightened up use of force policies, implemented body-worn cameras, and pushed cultural change that was centered around values we all share. Yet despite these efforts, and the decades worth of efforts that came before them, we were still seeing many problems. Over the past six years I have voted to pay tens of millions of our precious tax dollars to victims of police violence in settlements that would have likely cost taxpayers far more if they proceeded to trial. I watched many videos of this violence and heard time and again about officers with lengthy histories of complaints and payouts against them who were somehow, inexplicably, still on duty and interacting with the public.
When Mayor Frey and I moved to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, we later found out that
police continued to make arrests and 46 of 47 (97.8%) arrested were black people.
Reports continued to come out of
big racial disparities in policing. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights just last week
opened an investigation into MPD for patterns of racial discrimination and civil rights violations. I have also listened to many residents in our community who are black, indigenous, or people of color who have said that they do not feel safe around today's MPD and shared with me painful personal experiences.
There are many more examples of problems. We
read about the 3rd Precinct (our precinct) being a “playground for renegade cops” (even after different leaders at the helm were tasked with fixing it). And I have heard from many of you about your disgust with the police union (whose role it is to speak for rank and file officers) smearing the reputation of a murder victim and continuing to show contempt for civilian oversight of law enforcement (a basic tenant in our republic). Ironically, despite all of this, Minneapolis has often been
praised as a model for police reform.
I believe it’s fair to say that these experiences and observations point to a larger problem than just a few bad apples.
It paints the institution of MPD as broken. It is important to reconcile this with the truth that there are many officers who truly do serve with compassion and care. Viewing the institution as broken is not an attack on those individuals who swore an oath to protect and serve.
I take responsibility for my part in underestimating the extent of dysfunction within the institution. As a Council Member I have also been frustrated and stymied trying to push for reforms over the years. The City Charter gives the authority over police operations and policymaking to the Mayor. Given our limited authority, the Council has three primary tools available to us: budget approval (top-line numbers), an up/down vote on the appointment of the Chief, and an up/down vote on the police union contract. We used these in ways we felt we could and pushed in many other ways for change.
We made investments in groundbreaking violence intervention work to disrupt the cycle of violence in communities. We funded many of the reforms sought by the Mayor and Chief. We eliminated some laws that, upon analysis, were used to inappropriately target residents while not actually reducing or aiding in the reduction of crime. I led the effort to establish a workgroup that analyzed what calls currently handled by police officers could be better addressed by other trained professionals (and free up time for officers to focus on calls where they were needed). Heck, we even tried to put a City Charter amendment on the ballot for voters to decide if the Council should have some authority in police policymaking so that we could better help with reform efforts (but that never made it onto the ballot due to opposition from some council members).
It is with this history, the experiences and voices of community members, and the shortcomings of past reforms that we must ask what to do next.
Some may think that the path forward is to keep trying more reforms as has been done for decades. That maybe this time it will somehow be different, and we will get the changes in results we would like to see. I personally don’t think that will be enough.
We have seen black leaders and youth rally in this moment and lead the call for change. They have made the request that we join a community-led effort to re-imagine public safety and an alternative to MPD as it exists today. I support their call and stand in solidarity of bringing community together in this work over the next year.
The language some use around this makes me uncomfortable, and I know it makes some of you uncomfortable or scared: disband, defund, dismantle, abolish. Some in the media seized on those terms to sensationalize or even mischaracterize the effort.
To be clear: no one has been advocating that we simply end MPD without an alternative public safety department to replace it. We cannot have a vacuum where there is no law enforcement, and we know that there will still be a need for armed law enforcement for some emergency calls. We cannot allow anarchy or a wild west situation. Many of you are also exhausted from having to be on high-alert in the aftermath of recent civil unrest and feel that law enforcement is needed more than ever.
We also know that there are many calls currently being handled by police that can be handled in a better way. For instance, the crimes that touch our ward the most are property crimes. Right now, rather than having two armed officers come fill out a report after a theft has happened, what if we had someone come out to not only fill out a report but also to proactively: offer a home security audit and connect homeowners with resources? Determine if your block has a leader and if not help establish one? Provide communication to neighbors about this crime and recommend actions they could take? Help gather community impact statements for consideration by judges? Better utilize restorative justice to help break the cycle of crime? (Effectively an expansion of the Crime Prevention Specialist role). These are just some ideas, and I know you all have many more on the ways we can achieve better outcomes that make our community safer.
The commitment yesterday to start the process of engaging with community over the next year in re-imagining what a new public safety department could look like is an effort to bring us all together and put every idea on the table. We will need to develop a sound and thoughtful plan if it is to be implemented. We will need community buy-in. We will likely need it to go on the ballot in November 2021, as well as some changes in state laws. And importantly, we will need to be confident that it will result in greater safety for all residents. It’s a bold and challenging undertaking, but if this is not the time to try and consider what we as a community want public safety to look like, then when is?
This effort should not hamper immediate actions to implement change to MPD, some of which have already been taken (such as the
further tightening of the use of force policy last Friday), and some of which will soon come. I believe it will be important to collaborate with the Mayor and Police Chief in this work, both of whom see the problems and are genuinely committed to change. I also believe we can make some changes in the upcoming budget (no decisions have been made yet) to better invest in proven violence prevention efforts and other community-based strategies for safety. And not lost in all of this are the inequities and instabilities in our communities that result in many of the crimes that occur and must be addressed as well.
Some of you are likely skeptical or concerned about this effort to re-imagine public safety and an alternative to MPD as it exists today. I get it. You want to feel safe in our community and maybe believe this is pie in the sky thinking that is unrealistic. But I ask that you keep an open-mind and participate once community engagement efforts are launched. Let’s work together over the next year in this community-led effort to see if we can put together a plan that makes sense, is thoughtful, and will result in a safer community for all.
More to come.
