City vows to abolish police force
Minneapolis eyes community-led alternative
WASHINGTON • The Minneapolis City Council has pledged to abolish the city’s police department, as thousands of protesters across the U.S. demand radical reforms to the country’s law enforcement.
Minneapolis has been at the centre of nationwide protests since the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was pinned to the ground by a white police officer on May 25.
In response, nine members of the 13-person city council voted on Sunday to dismantle the police department and replace it with a community-led alternative, a move that would have seemed unthinkable just two weeks ago.
U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted in response Monday: “This year has seen the lowest crime numbers in our Country’s recorded history, and now the Radical Left Democrats want to Defund and Abandon our Police. Sorry, I want LAW & ORDER!”
But as the slogan “defund the police” becomes a rallying cry among the thousands taking to the streets to demand immediate action on policing, several other U.S. cities, including Los Angeles and New York, have announced measures to scale back and reform their police departments.
Lisa Bender, the Minneapolis City Council president, said the vote was a recognition that the current policing system had failed despite repeated attempts at reform. “Our commitment is to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe,” she said. The Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, has opposed moves to abolish the force, but the city council’s nine- member vote gives the measure a veto-proof majority which Frey cannot override. The council has not yet detailed what the police force would be replaced with, but has suggested it could take the form of a broader public safety department.
Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who pinned Floyd to the ground, made his first court appearance Monday after being charged with the 46-yearold’s murder. Dressed in an orange prison suit, Chauvin, 44, appeared by video from the Minnesota state prison. A judge set his bail at US$1 million with conditions or US$1.25 million without conditions.
Meanwhile Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled sweeping legislation Monday to combat police violence and racial injustice. The 134-page bill would allow victims of misconduct to sue for police damages, ban chokeholds and require the use of body cameras by federal law enforcement officers, restrict the use of deadly force, and instigate independent investigations for police departments with patterns of misconduct.