Just hours after the guilty verdicts were read in the murder trial of a former Minneapolis police officer, Gov. Tim Walz said the jury’s decision in the case should be seen as a starting point rather than an ending one.
“It’s an important step towards justice for Minnesota,” Walz said early Tuesday evening. “The trial’s over. But here in Minnesota, I want to be very clear. We know our work just begins. This is the floor — not the ceiling — of where we need to get to.”
The verdict on all three counts against Derek Chauvin in the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd came as a relief to offiicials who had prepared for more unrest. But Walz said he didn’t want that relief to take pressure on the Legislature. “I don’t see how you could be sitting in Minnesota today and not see that something needs to change. I would argue we took one step back from the ledge today, but we’ll be right back on it again if we don’t do this.”
Walz said true justice for George Floyd isn’t Tuesday’s conviction but “through real systemic change to prevent this from ever happening again.”
The DFL governor said those changes must also include Black residents and other people of color having the same level of economic and educational attainment that white residents enjoy in the state.
Walz and DFL lawmakers have been pushing for additional legislation since a compromise package of police reforms was adopted last June. But none of the bills have been heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee this session, and no GOP votes have been cast for bills or amendments containing the proposed changes.
The April 11 shooting of Daunte Wright by a Brooklyn Center police officer during a traffic stop has led to a new push by the DFL, including suggestions by some that the state budget not be adopted without further reforms.
In a statement Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka didn’t touch on whether the Legislature should take up further police accountability measures. But the East Gull Lake Republican said: “Every American is entitled to justice through the legal system.”
“Though no verdict will bring George Floyd back, I pray the Floyd family today is in some way comforted knowing the judicial system has provided justice,” Gazelka said. “Today we have been reminded the determination of guilt is best decided by a jury of peers reviewing the facts.”
Last week, Gazelka said that his GOP caucus would be willing to hold two sets of hearings before the session ended — one of police accountability and criminal justice and another on the civil unrest that occurred in Brooklyn Center after the death of Daunte Wright.
But Gazelka made no promises of legislative action, saying finishing the budget before the regular session adjourns on May 17 was his top priority. Republicans have also continued to tout the police accountability measures passed in 2020, saying the changes were substantial and significant. Those reforms included restrictions on the use of chokeholds and neck restraints and changed the arbitration system police use to contest discipline.
DFLers in the House have included a batch of reforms in stand-alone bills and within the public safety finance and policy omnibus spending bill. Among them are new regulations on crowd control and no-knock warrants, the removal of officers who affiliate with or support white supremacist groups or ideologies and ending police stops for minor vehicle infractions. But when these and other provisions have come to a vote in the House and Senate they have attracted no GOP support.
In an interview with MPR Tuesday morning, Gazelka said he was open to talking about changes to vehicle stops for minor offenses, sometimes called pretextual stops because they can be used to pull over a motorist in search for more serious offenses. “I’m going to be part of the solution. I am listening,” Gazelka told the radio network.
House Speaker Melissa Hortman said in a statement Tuesday evening that “our work is far from done.
“Minnesotans deserve safe communities and a fair justice system – no matter what they look like or where they live – and we need to continue to improve accountability in our criminal justice system,” the Brooklyn Park DFLer said.
Walz Tuesday didn’t sound very sure that he could be successful in pushing for changes this session, though he spoke again about the message it could send to the United States if the only divided legislature in the country could agree on significant changes.
“The way democracy works is you put an incredible amount of pressure on people to move in the direction of where the public wants,” Walz said, wondering how anyone in Legislature could still think “you should be killed for minor traffic violations.”
Walz added that the pandemic has put a strain on his relations with GOP lawmakers. “I’m not gonna pretend this is easy,” he said. “But if we act like this is too hard and this is not our moment … if we don’t make these changes we’ll be right back again with another trial, another trial, another trial; it will be relentless.
“I will convene the question. I will burn my political capital on this. I have tried to not bring the partisan side of this in. But if there are legislators who choose not to make these changes, I will use the platform that I have to let Minnesotans know who is holding up progress.”
Walz said he was not ready to demand police reforms be adopted before the state budget is approved. But such linkages are likely to be made privately. In the closing weeks of the session, action turns to conference committees — the panels of lawmakers from both parties and both houses who work out differences between the House and Senate omnibus budget bills. Those differences are numerous, starting with the bottom line: the current budget proposals spend significantly different amounts of money.
In 2019, Walz and legislative leaders Gazelka and House Speaker Melissa Hortman met in private to agree to the dollar amounts and then passed judgment on the pieces that filled out the hundreds of pages of legislation. It’s likely in that non-public process that agreements on whether DFL-favored public safety measures end up in the large bills, often in exchange for items Republicans want.
While the constitutional end of the regular session is May 17, the governor could convene a special session to finish the work after that date. Two years ago, lawmakers worked after the regular session, with a one-day special session where the various bills were approved.
The state fiscal year ends June 30 and without a new two-year budget by that evening, much of state government would have to shut down.
I’m betting that here will only be an increase in the number of people resisting arrest and the recent increase in violent crime will be permanent. Now that the criminals know cops will be put in jail if they don’t handle them with kid gloves there is absolutely no reason for them to comply to an arresting officers commands.
Go ahead and censor this response, go ahead and pontificate on your theory why I am wrong, it won’t change the reality.
Thanks for covering this story, Gov. Walz’s speech, and Sen. Gazelka’s response. It is past time for the Minnesota Republicans to get on board with systemic change to target racism in our state. There must be liberty and justice for ALL, not just for those with white privilege.
Merrick Garland is coming to the rescue. The United States Attorney General can handle this better than Walz. Then his findings can be used in other states police murders and investigations with a good set of facts already known.
https://youtu.be/MsTxl6_9xmk
I applaud Governor Walz’s intent to pursue reform for policing in MN. However, due to the opposition party’s incalcitrant nature, I expect we’ll only get reform that comes out of the DOJ investigation of the MPD.
The video of George Floyd was horrific. I have seen too many but will keep watching because I think it is my civic duty to do so. Many people think guilty was a win. Chauvin was guilty. What I am not hearing is there tear gas, tasers or guns should not be used for traffic stops or many other police activities. I have heard that the police training should not be combat.
Some police in general just do not know how to treat people with respect. Constantly asking the question, “do you know why I stopped you, is insulting. Yes or no. I have been afraid to answer especially if I don’t know. The rule should be immediately tell the person why you are being stopped. I was stopped by a policeman on a bridge and did not feel safe stopping there both for me and the cop. I drove slowly about 100 yards to a very lighted parking area. While I was doing that he back his car off and put on a different sounding warning and drove his car fast up against mine. I thought he was going to crash my car. When I rolled my window down he starting yelling at me for not stopping and that MN did not have the law Maryland did that you could pull off in a safe place. That I should have pulled over for an emergency vehicle. After what seemed to me five minutes of scolding me, I finally said, “you are scaring me”. When he asked me why, I thought twice about saying, because you have a gun and you seem angry. I took a breath and quietly said, “why did you stop me?”
He finally told me my tail light was out. While I understand that they have not idea who they are stopping, they are trained, I thought to come up and stay behind the open window.
Training needs to change and the rules when you use tear gas, tasers or a gun. No shooting a person in the back unless you know for certain that the suspect is a serial murderer.
On the other hand, I feel sad at the thought of people going to jail. What happens in jail is they get hardened and more angry at the system. They come out of prison not improved and not supported to remake their life. We need to look at European countries and how they rehabilitate perpetrators. Chauvin and other should have been sent to a rehabilitation center.
I hope you do an article on how people like myself have reacted to MN policing system.
It seems you did the right thing. When detained by police you should never guess as to why they have detained you, they are often trained to ask leading or entrapping questions which may serve as a pretext to expand the scope of the initial stop.
Officers must have a reason to stop you and must (eventually) articulate that reason during the stop. Because stopping a motor vehicle or preventing a vehicle from moving constitutes a “seizure”, the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures requires that an investigative stop be supported by reasonable suspicion of misconduct or driving infraction that can be seen as a possible danger.
Part of the problem in our state, Minnesota, is the attitude in rural and outstate cities where many residents have an attitude that the police are typically within their right to use whatever force is needed on subjects who come into their presence.
I spoke at length with a woman who is originally from Minneapolis, and who both lives in an outstate city, and who has parents in another outstate city in northern Minnesota. She spoke of her surprise and shame to hear locals talking about the police as though all of them are gods and have the right to act as they please.
Hence, this is not just a “police problem.” This is also an attitude and intelligence issue on the part of many Minnesotans who legislative representatives will not act in a manner counter to what their constituents want. The concern for losing their places in the house and senate is too great for them to act with courage and decency. I am cautious, but I believe that many legislators from outstate Minnesota may also have attitudes which permit them to continue to believe that all officers are sanctified by their badge.
As I have written in earlier posts, I am the nephew of a retired police sergeant. I grew up in the presence my dad’s friend and former housemate, who was a U.S. Marshal who later represented the U.S. Marshal’s agency at INTERPOL headquarters in France, and who was responsible for the mission to apprehend the now deceased former Panamanian dictator and drug lord, Manuel Noriega. My dad was a city prosecutor in Columbia Heights, Fridley, and Anoka for many years. As such, I desire to be objective and interested in the lives of all parties in a complaint.
For many years, I had an active friendship or warm acquaintance in a retired attorney and FBI Special Agent who became a superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and later became both Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety under Minnesota Governor Arne Helge Carlson, and the University of Minnesota Associate Vice President of Health and Public Safety. We met after I experienced difficulty with bigoted officers at UMPD who refused to help me put an end to a two-year rein of terror which I experienced with two University of Minnesota students stalking, harassing, and beating me at various places on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus because they believed that someone with depression and anxiety was worthy of their violent attention. A UMPD captain refused to assist me, stating that because I was “mentally ill,” (with similar diagnosis as that which Prince Harry and former First Lady Michelle Obama experience), I brought on my own problems and, hence, UMPD would “…neither investigate nor arrest anyone…” on my behalf. The associate vice president helped restore a semblance of decency and professionalism at UMPD, and we soon found another chief to instill higher morale and consideration for people with histories of even minor mental illnesses.
This said, I also try to be objective of police officer conduct. I do not revile the entire industry, but look at officers on a case by case instance. I consider the height of another kind of bigotry condemning all officer for the crimes of a relative few. According to one authoritative source, https://nleomf.org/facts-figures/law-enforcement-facts, there are now over 800,000 officers serving in the United States, On average, one officer dies every fifty-six hours. A reading of the material in the link provides concise information.
In another report, I found that 1,127 suspects were killed by police officers in 2020. Often enough, they were non-violent subjects. Please see: https://policeviolencereport.org/.
Clearly, there is a problem with many police officers. I have called on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Ward 6 City Council Member Jamal Osman to bring to the City Council and MPD Administration an idea to improve the background checks on all cadets and officers desiring a transfer from other departments into Minneapolis Police Department. I have asked both of them to engage with appropriate personnel to have developed a psychological profile exam which will be nearly impossible to beat, in an effort to determine attitudes about people who are different from them, likelihood of using force when none is logically required, and attitude about pain and fear, and also their abilities to control their impulses. I am supportive of the proposal which U.S. President Joe Biden and others have made to develop a registry to capture the names and violent offenses of officers in the United States, for review around the nation by human resources and other administrative personnel in the vetting of officer applicants.
With regard to the proposal to ban officers from affiliating with White supremacist groups: I am hesitant on this proposal, as affiliation allows officers to engage in intelligence gathering on subjects who may be a interested in violating state and federal laws. Moreover, the ban would violate the First Amendment. In another regard, Saint Paul, who wrote much of what we read in the new testament, was a rancorous and violent man who overcame his vile tendencies and ended up being a leader in the Christian community for both Catholics and Protestants. Looking deeply into history and psychology is, then, important in determining best practices in our state and nation.
How does the Governor suggest that blacks gain the same amount of attainment in education and economics as others? Public tax funded Government schools are available to everyone, the problem is they are not educating our children. Without an education and viable skill trades, who will hire you? I’ve heard this thrown out for years now and nothing ever changes, poor kids (of all skin colors) get a poor education…. Governor Walz can try to fix this or just throw out more liberal lip service. I’d bet on the latter.
Joe,
Your comment is so pessimistic and saddening. What the kids need to know is that they are part of a community which is open to them. The negative comments from people in our community, and among those influencing the children, are disheartening, lead to low morale, and to further difficulty in learning. Many kids have emotional and psychological concerns which are not always addressed. Some become bullies and criminals, while others fade. Others, yet, who have support from their families, thrive.
I have worked with kids from Africa for nearly twenty years. I see that when they are inspired and not brought down by attitudes which say “You are just a Black kid. You will never amount to anything,” they can become doctors, engineers, attorneys, teachers, apt gardeners and farmers, union members, executives, business owners, theologians, public speakers, astronauts, generals, diplomats, statesmen and women, Members of Congress, and much more. They can become writers, singers, artists, and actors and actresses. They can become world-class athletes if they have the skill, motivation to work hard, the talent, and the personality to win and move against the odds which we all face when coming from newborn, to mediocrity, to excellence. They can become newscasters, comedians, talk show hosts, and multibillionaires.
Optimism and encouragement, and faith in children, are the keys to get them learning. Parents who read to their children, talk to them, and sing to them (regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity), can nourish their minds and souls and provide the stimulation and interest they need to move ahead — to even greater heights of success and comfort than their parents or other family members.
A great friend of mine, the late John B. Davis, Jr., M. Education, D. Education (Harvard), was superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools who executed the order to begin inner-city busing in an effort to de-racialize the attitudes our children and to stimulate better education for all kids. Part of the problems we have seen is the racism which has been present in parents of kids from all racial groups. We should be aware of this, not hide from it, and speak directly and honestly about it.
While I came from a “snowy-White” background in suburban Ramsey County, and then to the posh Lowry Hill Neighborhood in Minneapolis, where the only Black family I knew of was that of The Honorable Alan Page and his family, who lived two blocks west of us, and one block north of my family, I have lived among Africans and African Americans for nearly thirty years in an apartment complex near the West Bank of University of Minnesota: Riverside Plaza. I have seen how kids of any race and ethnic and religious background respond to kindness, interest in them, and encouragement. The kids in the apartment complex where I live, owned by businessman and marathon runner George Sherman, are jewel mines and lush and rich fields of intelligence and character. They are interested in their studies, and often are young geniuses.
I will add here, in a note about my comment about the intelligence of people in outstate and rural Minnesota: This was not meant to be a derogatory comment, but a statement of the capacity to understand things based on social norms of conversation and attitudes around which people have been taught.
I grew up among the most stringent and challenging of intellectuals who constantly tested my ability to understand life, and to not take life or my inherent abilities for granted — or the inherent worth, dignity, and abilities of others for granted.
I have been accused of some of the most horrific things by people of weak minds and hearts, and by those who have told lies in retaliation of my honesty and desire to see justice accomplished for women and men around this planet we call Earth. Yet, I continue to love myself and others, and continue to grow, as I am encouraging others to grow.
Please put aside your pessimism. Act and speak in high regard and honesty for the well-being of others, instead of playing one group off the other and having a stultifying rigid attitude about others. Once you accomplish these things, you will begin to see beauty and genius in others.