Organizers Praise Council's Push To Dismantle Minneapolis Police

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Organizers praised the Minneapolis City Council Friday after it took the first steps in dismantling the city's police department. The council unanimously advanced a measure that would amend the city charter to remove the requirement for a police department.

"Today we saw all twelve City Council members vote to cut the police department out of our City’s charter," said Miski Noor, of Black Visions, in a statement.

Black Visions, an organization founded in 2017, "believes in a future where all Black people have autonomy, safety is community-led, and we are in the right relationship within our ecosystems."

Minneapolis-based Reclaim the Block, which partners with Black Visions, is also supportive of the changes advanced Friday.

Instead of a police department, the amended charter would require that the city maintain "a department of community safety and violence prevention."

"The City Council must establish, maintain, adequately fund, and consistently engage the public about a department of community safety and violence prevention, which will have responsibility for public safety services prioritizing a holistic, public health-oriented approach," the proposed charter reads.

Voters would have to approve the changes on Election Day in order for the charter to be amended. If approved by voters, the changes would become effective May 1, 2021.

"Young Black and brown people in the streets made this happen," Noor continued. "Black organizers demanding abolition for generations made this happen. Now, on this new terrain, Minneapolis can start practicing a new vision of safety that defends Black lives. While the amendment that passed today wasn’t perfect, we are closer than any time in history, and anywhere else in the country, to a safe, thriving city without police."

However, organizers with Black Visions criticized the proposal in how it does not specifically exclude current and former law enforcement officers from leading the new department.

"We are very concerned that the Council didn’t ensure that the new department won’t be led by current or former law enforcement officers," said Kandace Montgomery of Black Visions.

"We know that police will be fighting hard to influence this process, and we need our city leaders to do everything they can to make sure they don’t hijack our new safety infrastructure from the beginning. We are exploring mechanisms like city ordinances to build on the step that the Council has taken today. We will fight until we see a new department that fully lives up to our expectations of a new path towards public safety, with a clear break from MPD’s ugly history.

The police department will be under close scrutiny during the city's upcoming budget negotiations. Black Visions and Reclaim the Block have called on Frey and the City Council to make major cuts to the police department's budget in order to make up for budget shortfalls caused by the coronavirus crisis.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference Friday afternoon that he opposes the proposed amendment to the charter, saying the new structure would be too bureaucratic and unaccountable.