Some U.S. activists doubt disbanding police would work
MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd’s death was the breaking point for some Minneapolis civic leaders, who now say the only way to fix the city’s embattled police department is to take it apart. But it’s not clear how they would do that, and groups that have spent years shining a light on police brutality aren’t even sure it’s the answer.
“We’re dismantling our police department,” council member Jeremiah Ellison tweeted on Sunday, the same day he and a majority of the council proclaimed support to disband the force to cheering protesters at a Minneapolis park. “And we won’t be silent. We’ll be loud. We’ll fight. We’ll win.”
But dismantling an entire department is exceedingly rare. It was done in Camden, New Jersey, and was talked about — though ultimately discarded — in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown. Such a move comes with legal issues, including a city charter that stipulates a police force, plus a union-protected workforce.
“Saying that they’re going to defund the police or that they’re going to ban the police or whatever they’re talking about, that was optics, guys,” said Michelle Gross, president of the Minneapolis chapter of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “Just plain optics.”
Sam Martinez, an activist with Justice for Jamar, a group formed after the 2015 death of Jamar Clark in a confrontation with police, said just getting rid of a police department doesn’t solve the problem.
“If they attempted to defund the police or reduce the police force, we know they can’t do it, and what comes after that? Will they turn over the power to the [Hennepin County] sheriff … who has had no accountability either?” Martinez said.
Community activists have criticized the Minneapolis department for years for what they say is a racist and brutal culture that resists change. The state of Minnesota launched a civil rights investigation of the department last week, and the first concrete changes came Friday in a stipulated agreement in which the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints.
Steve Cramer, a former city council member who now serves as president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, called rhetoric about ending policing as the city knows it “exhilarating to some but terrifying to others.”
“Until we really understand how this kind of evaluation and planning process is going to move forward, there’s this vacuum that people are going to fill with their own thoughts,” he said. “I think that’s just a hard place that some of our elected officials have put our community in at a very vulnerable time.”
Protesters across the U.S. are demanding police reforms, and calls to “defund the police” over the death of Floyd and other black Americans killed by law enforcement have become a rallying cry. Supporters say the movement isn’t about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all of their money. Instead, they say it is time for the country to address systemic problems in policing in America and spend more on what communities across the U.S. need, such as housing and education.
Gross’ group, along with others including Minnesota’s Council on American-Islamic Relations and two Black Lives Matter chapters, presented their own 40 recommendations for police reform on Monday. They gathered at the remnants of the Third Precinct station, which was set ablaze by protesters at the height of violence following Floyd’s death.
Among the recommendations, officers would be required to carry their own professional liability insurance, an idea that aims to hike out-of-pocket insurance rates for officers who engage in high-risk conduct. Some of the worst offenders would become uninsurable and forbidden from working as a police officer.
The groups also are seeking an independent agency to investigate and prosecute critical incidents involving police; mandatory psychological testing for officers; and community participation in negotiating police union contracts. They would end so-called “warrior” training for officers and the use of no-knock warrants.
In Ferguson, where the 2014 shooting death of Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, galvanized the fledgling Black Lives Matter movement, the city and U.S. Justice Department entered a consent agreement that required reforms overseen by a court-appointed monitor. Among the results are a department with significantly more black officers, a police useof-force policy and progress in use of body-worn and in-car cameras.