The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to pass a resolution on Friday to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a supposed “community-led public safety system” following the death of George Floyd.
“The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color,” five of the council members wrote in a resolution.
“Minneapolis voters would decide in November whether to eliminate the City Charter’s requirement for police staffing and replace it with a new department ‘to provide for community safety and violence prevention,’ under a proposal floated Friday by five City Council members,” The Star Tribune reported. “The announcement comes at a time when council members are facing pressure to explain their plan to ‘begin the process of ending’ the Minneapolis Police Department.”
The resolution states that members would “commence a year long process of community engagement, research, and structural change to create a transformative new model for cultivating safety in our city,” and will focus on using “healers.”
The resolution continues:
Be It Further Resolved that the City Council will engage with every willing community member in Minneapolis, centering the voices of Black people, American Indian people, people of color, immigrants, victims of harm, and other stakeholders who have been historically marginalized or under-served by our present system. Together, we will identify what safety looks like for everyone.
Be It Further Resolved that the process will center the role of healing and reconciliation. The process will require healers, elders, youth, artists, and organizers to lead deep community engagement on race and public safety. We will work with local and national leaders on transformative justice in partnerships informed by the needs of every block in our city.
The announcement comes after the Minneapolis City Council, led by Council President Lisa Bender, voted on Sunday to disband the police department.
“Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department,” Bender said. “It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe. Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.”
Bender followed the statement with a series of interviews on CNN where she repeatedly struggled to answer basic questions from the left-wing network.
During one interview, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked: “Do you understand that the word, dismantle, or police-free also makes some people nervous, for instance? What if in the middle of night, my home is broken into? Who do I call?”
“Yes, I mean, hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors,” Bender responded. “And I know — and myself, too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege. Because for those of us for whom the system is working, I think we need to step back and imagine what it would feel like to already live in that reality where calling the police may mean more harm is done.”
Later in the day, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Bender about what would happen if there was a killer running loose and an armed police officer was needed.
Bender struggled to respond before conceding, “we don’t have all the answers.”
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