Mohamed Ibrahim is MinnPost’s environment and public safety reporter. He can be reached at mibrahim@minnpost.com.
The city where George Floyd was murdered has seen many calls for reform in the time since, from proposals to defund the city’s police department to bans on police practices like chokeholds, pretextual stops and no-knock warrants. Here are some that have come to fruition — and some that haven’t.
The House is expected to vote on the package on Monday, where the DFL majority has the votes to pass the spending bill and get it to Gov. Walz’s desk.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said 10 people were either arrested or cited for various offenses over the weekend — seven of the 10 were juveniles, and one of them was arrested on all three nights and remains in custody.
The monitor will be the eyes and ears of the public and will track the city’s progress in instituting changes outlined in the settlement agreement between the city and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
While incarcerated, individuals can take courses to get an Associates degree or certificate from Minneapolis College, and then decide to continue their studies and receive a bachelor’s degree from Metro State.
The Minneapolis and St. Paul Police Departments are preparing for the summertime uptick as they do every year, but in recent years, say they have shifted a focus on intervention over enforcement.
Members of Minnesota’s Muslim communities and advocates asked lawmakers to pass legislation that would expand reporting of bias-motivated crimes.
DFL lawmakers in both the House and Senate have been lukewarm about the coalition’s proposal as they tout spending proposals that are more specific in how money is used and by whom.
Joined by more than a dozen residents, Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero and Ward 10 Council Member Aisha Chughtai fielded questions Thursday night at a Bryant Square Park forum.
Moriarty has faced backlash for reaching a plea deal with two teenage defendants. She compared the move by Ellison and Walz to action state officials in Republican-led states have taken to target progressive prosecutors.
The agreement comes nearly a year after the state agency released a scathing 72-page report detailing a pattern and practice of discriminatory policing over the course of at least a decade.
A person found with 100 or more pills would be charged with first-degree possession, 50 or more would be a second-degree charge and 25 a third-degree charge.
Several residents shared their experiences and concerns at the Chicago Lake Transit Station, the Lake Street/Midtown Station and on the trains themselves. They recounted witnessing large groups of people doing drugs openly, unhoused people congregating at the stations and violence, like a shooting on a downtown light rail station.
Minnesota and its 775 fire departments statewide have the second highest proportion of volunteer and mostly volunteer firefighters in the nation, with more than 97% of firefighters in the state being volunteers, according to the U.S. Fire Administration’s National Fire Department Registry.
The POST Board has emerged as a potential avenue for reform and accountability following the murder of George Floyd by a then-Minneapolis Police officer in 2020, and as calls for robust police reform measures went unfulfilled by the divided Legislature.
The use of no-knock warrants by law enforcement steeply declined after Locke’s death. But despite dwindling use of the tactic, racial disparities in who was targeted in those raids persisted.
The bill, authored by DFL Rep. Cedrick Frazier of New Hope, would limit the use of cash bail by the courts for misdemeanor offenses, allowing an offender to be released pre-trial without having to pay.
Several police departments applied to take advantage of the program last year, but since the program began in 2017, fewer than 10 departments have applied for the funding each year.
Much of the discussion revolved around the community’s youth — concern over homicides, carjackings and other crimes, as well as how to prevent that violence through outreach and restorative measures.
The number of documented use of force cases on the city’s dashboard has risen significantly, starting in 2020, a year of unrest and tension in Minneapolis following the police murder of George Floyd. Explaining that increase isn’t so simple.
