Minneapolis voters soundly rejected an effort to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety, voting ‘No’ on a proposed charter amendment by a margin of 56 to 44 percent in Tuesday’s city election.
“Just because we took one ‘L’ today, and we call it a lesson, not a loss, let’s be clear,” said JaNaé Bates, director of communications for Yes 4 Minneapolis, the organization responsible for the petition campaign that landed the charter amendment on the ballot. “We took a lesson today that we need to knock even more doors, that we need to talk to even more neighbors, that we need to bust through the disinformation campaign and the big money that says ‘No’ when we say ‘Yes.’”
Bates gave her remarks during the Yes 4 Minneapolis’ election night event at the Gold Room Restaurant and Lounge in downtown Minneapolis.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Craig Lassig[/image_credit][image_caption]Max Graves, left, of Brooklyn Center watching election returns at the Election Night party in Minneapolis.[/image_caption]
The public safety charter amendment proposed removing the MPD — including ending the city’s charter-mandated requirements for a minimum number of police officers — and replacing it with a Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach.”
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Craig Lassig[/image_credit][image_caption]Brian Fullman, with the Barbershop and Black Congregation Cooperative, speaking to the Yes 4 Minneapolis crowd gathered on Tuesday night.[/image_caption]
In 2020, five members of the council attempted to put forward a charter amendment to replace the MPD with a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention, but the question didn’t make it to the ballot after being stalled, and ultimately rejected, by the city’s Charter Commission.
This year, it was Yes 4 Minneapolis that successfully organized a petition drive that forced the question onto the ballot. After a series of legal battles over an explanatory note being added to the question, the language was finalized on the last day for submitting ballot language.
In order for the charter amendment to pass, it needed 51 percent of the vote. Anything short of that — even by a decimal point — would mean the ballot question is rejected according to state law.
Frey leads in mayoral race
The defeat of Question 2 was also a win for Mayor Jacob Frey, who campaigned against the ballot measure and was once shouted down by activists for his refusal to endorse abolishing the police department.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]Mayor Jacob Frey[/image_caption]
‘Strong mayor’ amendment also passes
Another charter question, the “strong mayor” Executive-Mayor, Legislative-Council charter question, was approved by a vote of 52-47 percent.
With its approval, the amendment shifts more power to the mayor, consolidates administrative authority under that office and eliminates the city’s Executive Committee, which was made up of the mayor and four City Council members and shared responsibility for nominating department directors for council approval.
With the passing of the strong mayor question, that power will now rest solely with the mayor, who will function as the city’s chief executive.
Rent control powers for City Council passes
The third question, which proposed giving the City Council the ability to enact rent control, was approved by Minneapolis voters by a margin of 53-46 percent.
State law bans all cities from enacting rent control unless a charter city holds a vote asking residents if they want their city to be able to pass rent control policy. The vote in favor of the amendment satisfies the exception for the state law — which then allows the Minneapolis City Council to enact rent control policy.
So the Yes4 people’s post-election meme is amendment #2 lost because they didn’t knock on enough doors, and couldn’t defeat “big money?”
I wonder if they considered the possibility that the amendment lost because the citizens of Minneapolis didn’t want to embrace their ill-conceived notions about policing and public safety. The record turnout and overwhelming rejection argues for this pretty strongly and more doors wouldn’t have changed the result.
As to big money being what did them in, this is pretty funny in that the pro-amendment #2 campaign was very well funded, with almost all the money coming from outside of Minneapolis, including a half million or so from George Soros.
Yup, though I suspect some opponents of the measure will also misread the results as support for MPD.
I voted No, but am strongly in favor of police reform.
The spate of carjackings three days before the election probably didn’t help their cause either.
I’m sure not. But I’d like to point out that the crime spike in Minneapolis didn’t happen as a result of a change in the charter, but in the face of the status quo. Forgive me for having little patience for cops not doing their jobs. I don’t have empathy for cops who quit because “nobody likes them.” I’m not saying we should treat cops badly–in fact, we should pay them more and expect a level of professionality and restraint higher than we do now–but I am saying that maybe cops/cop unions need to start being open to reforms that make their jobs more focused, more accountable, and their mental health more supported. Good cops stop being good when they protect bad cops. So, what are we left with? If you are a cop who feels bad that “nobody likes you,” it’s time to step up to get rid of the bad cops. They all know who they are. And then maybe people will like you.
Thankfully the folks in the middle of the crime wave in Minneapolis voted to keep Mpls police department working. The ambiguous language of changing the police dept, should have scared everyone who voted. Unintended consequences will be interesting to watch as Mpls City Council get in the rent business. Many will be watching.
The rent control measure does not require that the City Council so much as consider rent control. Instead, it just allows it to do so.
Fun fact: No less a personage than Donald J. Trump (or, perhaps more accurately, the ghostwriter tasked with writing The Art of the Deal) said that he supported the concept of rent control, but he disliked the way it was implemented. In his view, rent control should be means tested, with the relief going to lower income tenants.
I wonder if Donald Trump even read his own (ghostwritten) book.
the answer, Pat, is a resounding No.
There’s a crime wave in Minneapolis….and nothing changed. I’m not sure why all the “vote no” people are crowing about the crime wave in Minneapolis. It’s happening under the status quo. It would seem that the police weren’t doing their job already. Don’t bother with the “but they’re short staffed” argument. Those cops quit because they couldn’t handle being questioned. No job should be unquestionable, but especially not a law enforcement job. The attitude by cops that they ARE the law is precisely the problem. Maybe they’ll hire only good cops this time? Sure. That’s what’ll happen.
The only disinformation was on the part of the “Yes” side, which pretended this vague ballot measure would result was going to do all kinds of great things. If you don’t want people thinking you are defunding the police, don’t stand in front of a sign that says “defund the police.”
Nice strawman, but I only remember the Yes campaign discussing what they wanted to move away from, not what they wanted to implement instead. It was a well-documented and a common attack against the Yes campaign that they actually weren’t putting forward a specific outline of a Department of Public Safety or weren’t talking about the, as you put it, “all kinds of great things” that would result from a new department. It’s not disinformation to say that you have to put one foot IN FRONT OF the other, that you have to change the language of the charter first before considering how to replace the Charter-required law enforcement authority with some other law enforcement authority, and that’s all the Yes campaign was advocating for: If true reform of law enforcement is to be considered, then the legal requirement of keeping the particular institution of the MPD must be removed first.
And I believe that is largely true: We cannot have MAJOR reform in how criminal law is enforced if we retain the same institutions that has been tasked for decades with enforcing it. People can say all the want: “I want police reform,” but if you’re voting to keep the particular institution of the MPD which: has its own independent discretion in how it enforces the law and is beholden only to a mayor who doesn’t use their office to make the significant change people demand; which uses its independent discretion to drive racial disparities in who is policed vs who is not; which uses its independent discretion to wield excessive and in some cases deadly force over citizens who have a Constitutional right to a trial by their peers rather than summary judgment by an arresting officer; whose officers are openly antagonistic towards any change to the status quo and abuse their legal authority by threatening proponents of reform with imprisonment, injury, and death, and holding over everyone else the myth that “we’re the thin blue line separating society from anarchy;” if people are voting to keep THAT particular institution, then I truly question if they really want “reform,” or if what they really want is to just to be able to blissfully ignore the longstanding injustices of the modern criminal justice system by making some technocratic tinkering around the edges of the same system that’ll hopefully shut up those obnoxious activists.
What complete nonsense. There was an absolute deluge of misinformation about the things that would happen if this passed. And nothing about passing or defeating the amendment would have any impact on police reform.
The people of Minneapolis saw through the nonsense.
I can understand why people voted against #2, but I wouldn’t see this as an endorsement for complacency. 44% is an awfully large vote for something that was supposed to be so ridiculous. If Frey et al don’t deliver the reform they’ve been promising, we’ll see fires in the streets again. I haven’t seen much evidence for it, but I hope all those folks who fought #2 have been working on the solutions they’re going to deploy now they’ve “won”.
The only people claiming that a no vote represented complacency were people in the yes campaign spreading disinformation.
Sure Pat… now show us what you’re going to do or go home. Tic tock.
https://jacobfrey.org/safety
You actually thought forwarding campaign lit was gonna do the trick here? Yep, this is gonna go GREAT.
The question was what I would do. And the answer is what Frey (who won, got more power as mayor, and opposed the failed defund question) is planning. I am not sure why it being spelled out in campaign material is an issue. We are talking about political campaigns.
Because campaign literature is “aspirational” thinking at best. (If not outright bs, produced for the sole purpose of procuring votes).
You could say the same thing about the yes side’s literature. Frey is at least realistic about what the mayor and city government can do. The yes side was promoting a made-up fantasy.
No Pat, I’m talking about what Frey is actually going to do, what exactly is the plan?
It is a little rich to demand a plan when the main organizing principle of the Yes on 2 campaign was to explicitly say “we do not have a plan”
Maybe, but it’s no richer than running against no plan with no plan of your own.
Mr. Terry
Either you were for Question 2, or you are in favor of cops being allowed to shoot anyone at anytime.
Didn’t you know that?
That isn’t too far away from the argument they were making.
See comments, many are making that exact point
.
They want a council to build a completely new department when the council could barely write the Amendment itself. Magically they would become experts.
Mr Smith:
Either you were against Question 2, or you are in favor of criminals being allowed to shoot anyone at anytime.
Didn’t you know that?
If you plan to rely on the current standards of discipline, you kinda are? I don’t really see how you can say you aren’t going to so, as absent the amendment the police union is again all powerful in stopping any sort of change to discipline you’d like. I certainly don’t think all you “reformers”, given your apparent belief that the world and city is in a state of utter chaos, restrained only by minor deities in blue, would really look to foment a police strike, whether such an action is technically legal or not.
What is the point of that kind of hyperbole? People to the left of me here have explained their no votes in terms that didn’t in any way resemble that.
I don’t think explaining the actual position the city finds itself in is hyperbolic. There is quite literally no way to circumvent the police union in the current situation and the police union has shown no proclivity to acceed to any measure of reform, in fact actively working against it. It’s what I have said all along, there isn’t any means for the reforms that would actually DO anything to be enacted, even the weak “tweaks” you prefer are dead on arrival. The people opposing the amendment know this, knew it all along, it’s not like it’s some new revelation. That’s why I’ve questioned your motivations from the beginning.
Forget about me. Are the motivations of everyone who voted no suspect? Are the motivations of Nekima Levy Armstrong suspect?
Since they ALSO were privy to the same information, how can they not be?
Chaos?
Kids shot in their backyard
Violent carjacking, 6 a night
Road rage murders and crippling attacks.
Assaults at schoolboard meetings
An Assault on the nation’s capital.
Yah, that’s a normal day in Mayberry.
We’re you attempting to refute my point, or confirm it? How many of those bullet points do you suppose can be attributed to your fellow conservative travellers?
Paul, how about you let the police do their job. Arrest folks breaking the law and prosecute them. That is a solid plan the Mpls police should employ.
Chauvin was doing his job Joe. The riots happened for a reason. You can ignore those reasons if you want… but don’t expect everyone else to keep ignoring them.
Paul, Officer Chauvin wasn’t doing any job when he murdered George Floyd. His job description doesn’t include willfully killing people == all people, including Black people.
The call for social justice rings out loud and clear now. It is the right thing to do. With a new legislative model for council and mayor, beginning is happening. The messages sent through these elections results are important and long-ranging. We really can reform our police federation and the on-the-ground culture at our local precincts.
Sure, all that was needed to reform the police is Jacob Frey with marginally more power. I honestly can’t tell if you folks actually believe the utter tripe you’re troweling out, or if it’s just reflexive defensiveness. Fear not, you’ll have the cover of inattention, until the NEXT person is murdered by the police, at which point this whole farce will begin again.
Like the last few times, the next time a cop murders someone, they will be tried and put in prison.
Which of course does nothing for the dead person, or the next one, as the idea of deterrence is utterly absent in the minds of the thug cops who perpetrate these crimes. Thus making the idea of reactionary control utterly foolish.
Yeah Matt… as long as cops keep murdering people we’ll just keep putting them in prison, what’s wrong with that?
And you believe that done nebulous amendment will magically solve a difficult problem?
I believe that opening an opportunity that will not an cannot exist under the current legalities is the ONLY way such a solution can be attained. Operating under the current realities is to guarantee failure.
And there is no other mechanism possible than a poorly devised amendment giving the power to devise this new department to the same incompetents who wrote the amendment.
You really cannot see the problem there?
There is no other mechanism than a ballot measure to remove the power of the police department, no. The city finds itself hostage to their whims at present, and with the failure of the amendment has no legal mechanism to extract itself from that situation. Perhaps you have some insight into which magic spell should be used to alter what is a virtually set in stone predicament?
Ms. Stroeve, you must not have been paying attention to the trial, Chauvin’s defense was that he WAS doing his job, this is always the defense. Clearly the problem with just letting cops do their jobs is that they get confused as to what the job actually is.
We haven’t been able to incarcerate our way to safety for the history of our nation, why exactly do you expect that to change now? I get it, makes certain folks feel “tough on crime” when they punch down on the poor, but you get that we all understand that’s all you really want to do right?
So if you live in Minneapolis, are you safer today than 3 years ago? Of course you are not! Violent crime has risen and the folks just voted for more police. I guess the citizens of Minneapolis are not aware that more policing doesn’t help crime.
The vote was not “for more police.” The vote was against a mysterious plan that could result in fewer police.
RB, Minneapolis has lost 30% of its police force the past 2 years. The people who live in Mpls see the devastation of lack of policing first hand. They want more policing not less. For events in Mpls, the police force is trying to get police from surrounding communities to work. Very few are.
Joe, I live in Minneapolis. I assure you that the “no” votes I’ve talked to are all in favor of police reform. My personal feeling is that it’s good riddance to the cops who left.
Defeat of the measure was not Stenvig nostalgia.
Yes, with any luck most of those who’ve left or otherwise not shown up for work have been those who couldn’t abide the expectation of accountability and responsible policing.
I’m not local, so I won’t claim special knowledge of Minneapolis. But the language of Measure 2 seemed designed to raise uncertainty and doubt. The measure said that the City may have police officers. Yet many of the Measure’s supporters called for defunding or abolition of the police. Even a pro-reform voter might be forgiven for thinking that Measure could be a stealth abolition proposal. Perhaps if the drafters of the Measure could have brought themselves to accept that there would be police (even without a numerical limit), swing pro-reform voters might have felt more comfortable supporting it.
You pretty much got it right.
“We’ll tell you what we actually want to do later after you vote for it” is not a compelling vision.
Correction: the Yes campaign wasn’t saying, “we’re going to do what WE want to do,” but rather: “we’re giving city residents the opportunity, via their elected representatives on the Council, to be able decide what they want to do different”
The Yes campaign wasn’t united on any particular vision and so didn’t seem to impose any. They simply wanted to remove the specific language of the charter which was preventing any real change.
That so many people bought into the idea that changing some words on a piece of paper would immediately cause significant practical change isn’t because the Yes campaign advocated for specific, practical change, which they smartly did not want to box themselves into on the front-end. It’s because the No campaign implied that specific practical change would be immediately forthcoming, without any real evidence that the practical status quo would not be maintained for sometime, while a new department was established via Council deliberation and citizen input
I saw someone compare the policing amendment to a line from Animal House:
“This situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”
“The Yes campaign wasn’t united on any particular vision”
We agree on this. That’s why they lost.
It is right and appropriate after the past 17 months of stressful living in Minneapolis that emotion should be high following an election like this, with intense feelings about the amendment and the candidates. Emotion was high when nine city council members stood up in the park and declared, in various manners of speech, “Defund the police!” It is fitting after last night’s election that emotions run high, whether with frustration or some form of relief, depending on your politics. Maybe some of both. Emotion has its place.
But at some point we need to move beyond the intense emotion and formulate a plan. Forty-four percent of voters thought they had devised a good plan to fix the problem of police abuse while fifty-six percent did not think the plan was good enough. So here we are.
When I look at the intensity of that 44% on one side and that 56% on the other I am hopeful. I see civic-minded people who care deeply about their community. I see people who turned out to make a difference in their community by campaigning for a cause they feel strongly about and knocking on doors and showing up to try to do their part to “pray with their feet,” as John Lewis put it. They turned out because they love their city.
So let’s stop hurling the insults at the “other.” The other is US. We must stop accusing each other of not caring. We must not reduce the “other” to being clueless or okay with the status quo or just stupid.
To those who lost the amendment 2 vote: recognize that the “no” voters want police change, too. They want safety, too. They just could not see how the amendment as proposed was going to move us forward.
To those who prevailed against the amendment: extend a hand to the “yes” voters and thank them for working so hard to make something good happen for Minneapolis. That kind of passion and commitment and long haul effort is what makes a democracy strong. Be impressed with their zeal.
Now is the time, friends, to accept the election. Now is the time for the yes and no to see their brothers and sisters of a different opinion on the other side, but see that we ALL want a better city. NOW we hold the mayor’s feet to the fire with demands for real police reform. NOW we demand the city council come up with something clear that we can unite around.
And if they don’t, we take to the streets.
I wish you well in your desire for a coming together, but will only point out that if taking to the streets was all that was needed to force the implacable to action, this vote would never have need occurred. Make no mistake, justice lost, and will continue to lose, because to do nothing, to retreat into the familiar, will ALWAYS be the preferred option for too large a portion of the population, no matter what flowery language or proffered desires for “reform” they express. Nothing ever changes, and they have no cache of good faith to put forth as evidence for their claims.
Well Matt, those people will always be with us. But my sense is really that the majority of people recognize that there needs to be a change in police relations with brown-skinned people. I just don’t think that we sever the police force to do it, and many people agree.
The rejection of the recent effort, in my eyes, was just a rejection of the means or the route. Many people felt this proposal was too empty or unspecific, and therefore possibly dangerous. Many of us were genuinely torn about how to vote up until the day before the election. I felt like a pendulum, and I read all the pros and cons and talked to people and lost sleep even. This was many people’s experience with this issue. To me that speaks a lot about wide-spread caring about this issue. Yes, there will be the stick-in-the-mud folks but the rest of us need to keep speaking. We do not like the status quo, but it remains to be seen who will have the courage to keep the momentum going. Minneapolis is profoundly lacking in the leadership department.
But you (Minneapolis that is) also voted, more or less, to keep that leadership in place. In fact to give a portion of that leadership MORE power. That seems a bit contradictory to your statement that “most people want reform”. If most wanted reform, why would they keep the leadership that has continually failed to enact reform, and the system that has continually resisted reform, in place. I’m not attempting to paint you with the same brush, but to me it speaks to the desire for reform as being so much lip service, a sop to the conflicted conscience of those people I mentioned.
This afternoon brought the news that Jacob Frey won re-election, with just less than a 50% vote after the voting system went through its layered hoops. Good! Now we can see what he’s learned and how he governs as a mayor with some authority–hooray for ballot Question #1!
Incidentally: Nobody seems to be making a big deal out of what is, for our city, a Big Deal: a strong mayor! Everybody with policy smarts since about 1922 has been trying to change our 19th-century rules on how power was divvied up in the city’s government. I am sure that especially Hubert Humphrey and Don Fraser are clapping their hands with satisfaction at our finally getting into the Sane Lane. Bravo, Minneapolis voters who paid attention to the least sexy of the three ballot questions, that nevertheless has the best potential for positive change.
Let’s not forget that new Strong Mayor won’t have anyone to hide behind… he may be stronger but he or she had better lead effectively and deliver the results the promise.
Regardless, at least when they get the blame for whatever nonsense happens in Minneapolis, they might actually at least partially deserve it from now on. I never understood the concept of a figurehead mayor, let alone the blame voters place on them for things they can’t control.
Minneapolis voters have always blamed the Mayor. It doesn’t matter that they had minimal power.
If the Question had passed, I would be implemented by council members who defeated the incumbents who developed and the amendment.
I have to say I’m little disappointed to see Mnnpost writers embrace a specious election narrative.
The most striking feature of Jacob Frey’s victory is that he walks back into his office having had fewer people vote FOR him than someone else… yet you’d think the guy won by huge margins and now has a dominant mandate of some kind and wide popular appeal and support. The guy won the election, but he’s really just squeaking into office without a majority of votes. The idea that the ONLY thing that matters is how many more votes he got than the others is more than a little specious.
I think Frey is actually in a very precarious situation. Not only is he a Mayor elected without a simply majority, but NOW as a “strong” Mayor he has nowhere to hide if he fails to deliver on his promises. We can see conservative status quo Democrats frantically shaking their etch-a-sketch’s but if you think Frey’s 49% is an endorsement of complacency and inaction you may just burn the city down in the near future.
As for question #2, Frey el al may have spooked enough voters into voting against it, ( it was a spooky idea in some ways) but the only “plan” more vague and ill defined than public safety was Frey’s promises of “reform”. Get rid of bad apples… blah blah blah. Sanctity of life…blah blah blah. Restore confidence… blah blah blah. Whatever. The fact is no one can really touch police reform without a new labor contract that actually establishes civilian oversight and discipline, and neither Frey or Arradondo have blah blah blah’d about THAT. So whatever… we have to wish them luck but it looks to me like they’ve been doubling down on a law and order regime that created the crises in the first place, and the “solutions” they offer are the same ones we saw after watching Rodney King beaten back in the 90’s. I hope I’m wrong but if you think voters in MPLS will forget promises were made just because they voted down #2 you may be in for a rude awakening.
The other striking feature of the MPLS election that media like Mnnpost seem to be tunnel visioning out of their analysis is the fact that no Democratic candidate in a town run by Democrats could win simple majority and endorsement from the voters. This doesn’t bode well for promises of “unity” blah blah blah. In fact what we’re seeing here may be deepening intra party rivalry and polarization. You can brag about the conservatives that defeated some “progressives” on the city council if you want, but you should know that the net effect of that may be crippling polarization. You might end up with a microcosm of the US Senate. If voters end up with a paralyzed city government albeit with a stronger Mayor… it’s just a matter of time before they decide they may as well give someone else a shot. When you vote for Democrats and get Republicans it’s not difficult to imagine who that someone else might be. Not to mention the fact that frustrated and dissatisfied voters tend to hit the streets these days.
If I were the media trying to analyze this election, I’d be focusing on the voters who didn’t vote for Frey (i.e. the majority) and trying to find out what they expect now? As far as question #2 goes, instead of mapping out where the votes were (an analysis of dubious value notwithstanding the pretty maps), I’d be talking to “no” voters to find out what they thought they were voting FOR rather against. If a significant number those voters were simply spooked by the public safety plan but still expect meaningful results… Frey has some stormy weather on the horizon.
Frey actually increased his share of the vote from 4 years ago. Its really hard to get a majority under RCV in Minneapolis. None of the three RCV mayoral elections have produced one.
Looks to me like his “share” dropped from 57% in 2017 to 49% this year. He won a majority in 2017.
No, that’s completely wrong.
Frey got 44.7 percent of the vote in 2017. The 57 percent was the his share of the vote of the two finalists. Using that measure, Frey got 56 percent this year. But he didn’t get majority of the vote either year because a lot of people voted for neither Frey or Knuth this year or Frey or Dehn in 2017.
The confusion comes from a deliberate attempt to mislead voters by RCV advocates. Claiming false majorities by not counting valid votes that went to the “wrong” people.
Thanks for clarifying.
Speaking as a Minneapolis resident who wants dramatic change and voted “No”:
MPD is a deeply problematic institution. A culture of thumpers predominates over a culture of “protect and serve.” (Note that in the year and a half since George Floyd was murdered, we have not heard a word from the “protect and serve” elements within the MPD offering their support for and engagement in reform efforts, which indicates where the power lies.)
The community response to George Floyd’s murder – the demand for thoroughgoing reform – prompted retaliation from the MPD in the form of the “Blue Flu” and associated tactics that are not unrelated to the increase in lawlessness within the city. This has been documented. Question 2, if passed, would have been received by the MPD as a declaration of war by the community on the MPD, and profoundly “heightened the contradictions” between the MPD and the community during any period of transition to a new set of public safety institutions.
Therefore, the following must be elements of a reform strategy: (a) give centrality to recruitment, training and culture; (b) develop the elements and details of the reform as much as possible in advance of the announcement that the dismantling of the public safety framework is to begin, to minimize the time of transition; and (c) reach out, visibly, rhetorically, and pursuant to a considered tactical plan, to engage the “protect and serve” element within MPD (whether or not it exists) and to retain the good faith of the MPD as much as possible thru the transition period. Instead, the city council did nothing for a year and a half, and then offered us a leap into the void, with no evidence, based on experience, that it would make any effective progress on the substance.
On the basis of this reasoning, I concluded to vote No. My vote was not because I support the MPD (as constituted), but precisely because I do not support it, fear what it might do, and feel the community would be greatly at risk for an indefinite period if Question 2 were to have passed and we moved on to a couple of years of “listening sessions.” And I’m angry at the city council, both because of the “moment of opportunity” it squandered by doing nothing for a year and a half, and because it put us in the position of having to cast a vote that would be interpreted for the opposite of what it means. And one of the real and long-lasting harms of this misinterpretation will be the conclusion that among the highest priorities is expanding the force quickly, without any recruitment, training and culture strategy in place, thus only cementing further the thumper ethos of the institution.
Though it is anecdotal, I had many conversations with neighbors and other acquaintances who live in Minneapolis; the vast majority of these folks reasoned similarly to the above and indicated they, reluctantly, would be voting No. I’m guessing it would be very wrong to read the outcome as reflecting opposition to reform, or even a preference for incremental reform. It was simply opposition to being told to jump out of the plane and then listen for instructions on how to open the parachute.
But the end result is the same. Perhaps it’s scary to jump out of the plane it’s true, but to continue the analogy, its impossible to sky dive if the plane never leaves the ground, which is what attempting reform without completely excising the “thumpers” constitutes. You and your neighbors might feel you’ve been mis-interpreted, but as a practical matter, it doesn’t really matter what your true desires are, your decision to vote no removed your voices from the equation, and placed all the power back with the MPD, exactly where it resided before.
Exactly. If thought you were going to get years of “listening” sessions before I hope your prepared for many more years now. The practical effect of the “no” vote is in fact to endorse MPD as is. The odds of reform are now just a slim as ever. Well, maybe not… but I hope guys Holtman don’t thin they can just vote “no” and walk away now… now it’s on YOU. If you don’t fight for change it won’t happen. And I’m afraid I don’t really anything but consultant jargon in your essential features… how about a concrete example what changes you make to recruiting and training for instance?
I mean look, I get it, I can see why people voted “no” but we knew the practical effect long before the vote.
I should refine my analogy: We were being told to jump out of the plane while they had a look at a parachute and tried to figure out how it opens. The alternative isn’t for the plane to stay on the ground, it’s just to figure out the parachute before you take off.
You’re absolutely right, we’re at the starting point on reform. But we were given a binary choice, and I (and, I suggest, many others: enough to account for the failure of the vote) judged the starting point to be the less-worse choice. In June 2020, the city, under council leadership, should have got right to work forming task forces of public officials, representatives of activists, those in the law enforcement community and other knowledgeable and credible folks to generate a slate of reforms and very concrete implementation steps. Then they could identify the charter changes needed, and we could all look at the program and move forward. It seems to me that is what needs to happen now; it’s just that a year and a half has been wasted, and the retrograde elements of our world have been given the opportunity to regroup so that the effort will now be even more challenging than it needs to have been.
The alternative isn’t for the plane to stay on the ground, it’s just to figure out the parachute before you take off.
My only quibble is that this statement really seems to underestimate the difficulty of the situation. I cannot see a path to entice, much less enforce compliance in a police force wholly devoted to resisting reform. The police chief can say what he wants, the open secret is that he doesn’t really have the power to do what HE says either. People can accuse me of mudslinging, cynicism or whatever you like, why can they not understand what to me is blatanty obvious? As it stands, the city is wholly hostage to the whims of it antagonistic police force, and nothing the city government does, given the current legal and legislative realities, can change that situation.
I can understand your position. Not that I would have necessarily come to the same position, I very much appreciate your thoughts on this. You’re the first person, besides myself, that I’ve seen point out that the current crime wave in Minneapolis, which has been ongoing for over a year, is a version of the Blue Flu. They were proving to Minneapolis that “protection” is needed. Yeah, like the mob bosses who demanded fealty or other compensation/appreciation, in order to prevent “something bad” from happening to the protected. It was a “see, OUR version of crime ain’t so bad” is it play. And it worked. I can understand being afraid that nothing will change, but being even more afraid that things will get intentionally worse.
I’d like to point out that crime is spiking in the ‘burbs, too. Areas that aren’t seeing a drop in police numbers and aren’t facing the sort of criticism that MPD is. I strongly suspect that it’s a play to make sure that we suburbanites don’t get any fancy ideas. It might not be entirely that, but I’m sure that’s a part of it. The other part is, I think, that there’s been an antisocial shift in the last 4-5 years. There’s less social pressure against acting like a sociopath, and so there’s more sociopathic behavior, ranging from being intentionally obnoxious (e.g., loud cars, loud music, aggressive driving) to being homicidal. On top of that, there is a surprising number of people who simply are not attached to reality. The level of paranoia leading to fearful and aggressive behavior online, and even in person, is astounding. It was bubbling up even before the pandemic, but the pandemic has probably put some people over the edge. We, as a country, are in a dangerous, political- and isolation-induced mental health crisis. I predict more unarmed people meeting their end in the face of police who don’t know how to deal with mental breaks.
At the risk of teetering on the conspiracy abyss, I would posit the changes you mention in society are a feature, not a bug. Facilitated by those with a preference for, and a desire to grease the skids of, the sort of authoritarianism that would just LOVE to make “cleaning up the streets” and being “tough on crime” the central theme of it’s totalitarian manuverings.
I don’t think it’s an unreasonable risk, Matt. Break down social order and you increase acceptance of totalitarianism. It’s just ironic that those whose arms are most open to authoritarianism are also the most likely to have the “Don’t tread on me” signs on their trucks.
In response to this, it is worth noting that Minneapolis’s black neighborhoods voted against the amendment because they are the ones facing the bulk of the violence. Its their children getting shot.
Talking about breaking down the order is white privilege at its purest.
You might want to brush up on what “white privilege” means. And maybe “pure,” too. I’ll point out that, contrary to your assumptions, you have no idea who voted for what. The pattern is “white neighborhoods” and “black neighborhoods,” but that doesn’t mean that it reflects the views of individuals of any given race. There are white people who live in “black neighborhoods” and vice versa. If the turnout was high, then I might be able to give you a little (though not much, given your cut-and-dried approach) credit. But turnout was NOT high in some neighborhoods (guess which neighborhoods), so the vote was probably only representative of the fact that lots of people either didn’t have access to the polls, didn’t really know how they felt about this issue, or didn’t care enough. People who show up generally have better access and feel more entitled to their opinion. Those people are more white than the average American. I would posit that, even in so-called “black neighborhoods,” the voters that showed up for an odd-year election were, on average, paler than the overall makeup of the neighborhood. Regardless, a vote of “no” in this instance doesn’t mean that your favorite (and failed) approach of reforming the police department is necessarily what voters want. They simply voted against this particular ballot question in this particular form at this particular time.
Would Q2 been better received if it was framed in…Reorganize the police department under a Dept of public safety, with the addition and inclusion of mental health professionals…..
Instead, it was law enforcement, if needed., along wroth Defund the police.
Did you really want a tone deaf and inept council in charge of public safety?
Msp said no.
As opposed to a belligerent and recalcitrant police department currently engaged in taking the entire city hostage to their disgruntled desire to carry on as if nothing has changed? You tell me.
Tone def and inept? You’re assuming the new council which ran on doing nothing will be more in-tune and capable… given the fact that it was just such city councils that created the crises in the first place, that’s a weird assumption.
As much as I am not a Frey fan, him having more power than the City Council is a good thing. Five also voted out – maybe there is some common sense still left.