Minneapolis Public Schools Expel Cops After George Floyd Killing

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Police have no place in Minneapolis Public Schools. That was the message sent by school board on Tuesday after a unanimously vote to terminate the district's contract with the Minneapolis Police Department over its officers' treatment of George Floyd.

The vote followed a resolution submitted by school board member Josh Pauly to end the contract with the department to supply school resource officers.

"We cannot partner with organizations that do not see the humanity in our students," Pauly wrote in a May 29 tweet, four days after Floyd, an unarmed black man suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, lost consciousness beneath the knee of former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin.

This does nothing to reduce the pain and loss that our community is enduring. Hopefully this can be a small step towards the dramatic changes that are needed in our city and beyond.
— Josh Pauly (@JoshPauly) May 29, 2020

During the meeting, board member Kimberly Caprini indicated that officers should never have been in schools in the first place, stating, "I firmly believe that it is completely unnatural to have police in schools," the Star Tribune reported.

Chauvin and three other officers have been fired in the wake of Floyd's death, and Chauvin himself is now facing criminal charges for third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. For Minneapolis schools, the school board is faced with the task of finding a new source of resource officers by its August 18 meeting.

It's not just Minneapolis public schools that are rethinking their relationship to Minneapolis police. Last week, in a letter sent the students, faculty and staff of the University of Minnesota, the college's president announced the institution was limiting its ties with the Minneapolis Police Department, which had previously provided officers for large events and "specialized services" including bomb detection. Those services have been terminated.

"We have a responsibility to uphold our values and a duty to honor them," university president Joan Gabel wrote in the May 27 letter.

Going forward, Gabel added, the university "will limit our collaboration with MPD to joint patrols and investigations with the MPD that directly enhance the safety of our community."