benjamin melançonJul 27, 2023

i totally missed this news from neighboring Golden Valley, #Minnesota — the racist police abolishing themselves.

https://portside.org/2023-07-05/half-police-force-quit-crime-dropped

Half the Police Force Quit. Crime Dropped.

In a staggering report last month, the Department of Justice documented pervasive abuse, illegal use of force, racial bias and systemic dysfunction in the Minneapolis Police Department. City police officers engaged in brutality or made racist comments, even as a department investigator rode along in a patrol car. Complaints about police abuse were often slow-walked or dismissed without investigation.

Portside
Show threadbenjamin melançonJul 27, 2023
That sort of personnel change, with the same results of cops quitting, is the *minimum* of what #Minneapolis parks would do if they were not much more committed to harassing Black people and brutalizing #unhoused people than even a wealthy white town.
Show threadbenjamin melançon
(I don't even mention MPD in this context because they are in their fiftieth round of phony reform, so symbolic changes would not have as large an effect— and the number of officers there are already down around 30%, and crime is down here too. Plus i strongly suspect that part of previous #Minneapolis police "reforms" was shunting the most racist and aggressive #police over to the #parks police department.)
Jul 27, 2023 at 4:38pmWeb