Minneapolis force ‘not reformable,’ to be abolished

WASHINGTON — Minneapolis councillors pledged to abolish its police force, as the biggest civil rights protests in more than 50 years demanded a transformation of U.S. criminal justice.

Demonstrations have swept a country slowly emerging from the coronavirus lockdown in the two weeks since George Floyd, an unarmed black man, 46, died after choking out the words “I can’t breathe” under the knee of a white cop.

Though there was violence in the early days, the protests have lately been overwhelmingly peaceful. They have deepened a political crisis for President Donald Trump, who repeatedly threatened to put active-duty troops on the streets.

Trump took to Twitter at about midnight to lash out at the boss of the National

Football League, who, in a sign of a cultural shift swung behind protesting players.

Huge weekend crowds gathered across the country and around the world. The high-spirited atmosphere was marred late Sunday when a man drove a car into a rally in Seattle and then shot and wounded a demonstrator.

Meanwhile, nine of the 13 Minneapolis councillors pledged Sunday to do away with the police department in favour of a community-led safety model, though they provided little detail.

“A veto-proof majority of the MPLS City Council just publicly agreed that the Minneapolis Police Department is not reformable and that we’re going to end the current policing system,” Alondra Cano said on Twitter.