Minneapolis will decide whether to replace its Police Department with a public safety agency.

3 years ago 274

Elections|Minneapolis volition determine whether to regenerate its Police Department with a nationalist information agency.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/us/elections/minneapolis-police-election.html

Nov. 2, 2021, 11:30 a.m. ET

Nov. 2, 2021, 11:30 a.m. ET

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, who is up   for re-election connected  Tuesday, opposes an amendment that would abolish the city’s Police Department.
Credit...Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times

Days aft a constabulary serviceman murdered George Floyd, protesters gathered extracurricular Mayor Jacob Frey’s location demanding that the Minneapolis Police Department beryllium abolished. The politician said no. The assemblage responded with jeers of “Shame!”

On Tuesday, astir a twelvemonth and a fractional since Mr. Floyd’s decease thrust Minneapolis into the halfway of a fervent statement implicit however to forestall constabulary abuse, voters successful the metropolis volition person a choice: Should the Minneapolis Police Department beryllium replaced with a Department of Public Safety? And should Mr. Frey, who led the metropolis erstwhile Mr. Floyd was killed and parts of Minneapolis burned, support his job?

Minneapolis became a awesome of each that was incorrect with American policing, and voters present person the enactment to determination further than immoderate different ample metropolis successful rethinking what instrumentality enforcement should look like. But successful a spot inactive reeling from the execution of Mr. Floyd and the unrest that followed, residents are profoundly divided implicit what to bash next, revealing conscionable however hard it is to alteration policing adjacent erstwhile astir everyone agrees determination is simply a problem.

Many progressive Democrats and activists are pushing to reinvent the government’s full attack to safety, portion mean Democrats and Republicans who are disquieted astir increases successful transgression accidental they privation to put successful policing and amended the existent system. In 1 September poll, 49 percent of residents favored the ballot measure, which would regenerate the Police Department with a Department of Public Safety, portion astir 41 percent did not.

The divisions widen to the apical of the Democratic powerfulness operation successful Minnesota. Representative Ilhan Omar and Keith Ellison, the authorities lawyer general, enactment replacing the Police Department. Their chap Democrats successful the Senate, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, reason it, arsenic does Mayor Frey.

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