Minneapolis council members aim to 'dismantle' police department, 'rethink' public safety

Libor Janey
Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS — Several members of the Minneapolis City Council this week have expressed support for radical changes to how the city handles law enforcement, including a move to "dismantle" the police department and replace it with "a transformative new model for public safety."

Jeremiah Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and a representative of the city's Ward 5, explicitly led calls to "dramatically rethink" how the city keeps its people safe.

His call was echoed by Lisa Bender, the president of the city council.

"Yes," she said in response to Ellison. "We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety."

That was not the first time Bender had addressed calls to "dismantle" the city's police force this week, however. On Wednesday she posted a thread about how a "white person" should think about dismantling the police.

"I mean this quite sincerely & seriously," she continued, "just look at recent conversations about City-funded neighborhood organizations to understand how explicitly we would have to work to establish alternative systems that do not replicate the same problems. White ppl need to show up for this."

Bender on Tuesday also said "I support continued diversion of funds from law enforcement to other priorities," following calls from many to "defund the police."

Another council member to come out with calls for taking apart the city's police department is Alondra Cano, who tweeted that "[t]he Mpls Police Department is not reformable" and "[c]hange is coming."

Meanwhile, the president of the Minneapolis police union wrote a letter calling the riots in the city a "terrorist movement" and calling elected officials' efforts to find fault in the police department "despicable."

"Our chief requested 400 more officers and was flatly denied any," Bob Kroll said. "This is what led to this record-breaking riot."

He added: "I've worked with the four defense attorneys that are representing each of the four terminated individuals under criminal investigation, in addition with our labor attorneys to fight for their jobs. They were terminated without due process."

Steve Fletcher, also a member of the Minneapolis City Council, condemned Kroll and the police union in a long thread in which he said the city should "declare policing as we know it a thing of the past."

"After watching MPD officers escalate and provoke anger all week, he asserts that if they’d only been allowed to use more violence, they could have put a stop to demonstrations. This is nonsense. MPD officers chose him as their leader."

Fletcher continued: "I don’t know yet, though several of us on the council are working on finding out, what it would take to disband the MPD and start fresh with a community-oriented, non-violent public safety and outreach capacity."