We’ve got a real “tale of two cities” situation with Brooklyn Center and Mpls. Both cities’ police departments wrongfully killed a Black man, both faced widespread protest that got national attention. Where Mpls has struggled, BC has made significant strides. Why?
The best way to understand the disparity is as a reflection of the two mayors’ very different responses.
In Brooklyn Center, Mike Elliott has led the fight, alongside his colleagues on the Council, to make transformative change, and to do it quickly.
In Mpls, the progressive Council majority’s work to make the SAME EXACT kinds of transformative change have been fought and hampered by the mayor, in ways subtle and overt. He has aligned himself with reactionaries like Operation Safety Now, against these kinds of changes.
Example 1: Brooklyn Center has created a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. That’s not just the same idea that the Council tried to put on the ballot last year, it’s literally the exact same words.
We WILL have a vote on creating this kind of Department of Public Safety this fall, due to both a push from progressive Council members and a petition drive by the people. I am hopeful that it will pass, despite our mayor’s active opposition.
And the Council in Mpls has started the work to flesh out what the new Department of Public Safety will look like, in advance of the Charter amendment passing this fall.
Example 2: Brooklyn Center created a Community Response Department to handle 911 calls involving mental health & behavioral issues. In Mpls, we created a similar division last year, as part of the Council-created Safety for All budget amendment.
In Brooklyn Center, the mayor brought this change forward.
In Minneapolis, the mayor not only didn't bring this change forward, he threatened to veto the budget after the Council amended his budget to create it.
Example 4: Brooklyn Center acted to stop the use of "less lethal" weapons against crowds. In Mpls, the Council took the action it could take, and the mayor (and Chief) immediately and publicly rebuked it.
The people of Mpls, like the people of Brooklyn Center, want to see transformational change in our approach to public safety. I hear it every time I knock on doors.
We are unified in our desire for real, substantive change to the status quo on policing.
Imagine how different Minneapolis's story would have been if Jacob Frey had taken the approach Mike Elliott has taken: to actually forge unity for making big, necessary changes, rather than hiding behind that word in defense of the status quo.
We don't just have to imagine. We have to summon the courage to reject the politics of division and reaction, reelect the Council Members who have been leading this work (Gordon, Fletcher, Cunningham, Ellison, Schroeder), and elect a new mayor who will partner with them.
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I listened to this press conference, and heard a lot of calls from the mayor and his allies for "unity." It rings *very* hollow to call for unity at a presser you didn't invite people to attend, or even tell them about.
I can confirm: no one who was part of planning this presser/campaign stunt invited Cam, or let us know it was happening.
But to not include or even inform the two Black Council Members who represent the area where the presser was held? Yikes.
They did manage to invite and give time to one of the people actively suing the City right now, to try to use the minimum staffing provision in the Charter (led by the police union in the '60s) to force the City to hire more police. Wonder if they ran that by the City Attorney?
This thread is a subtweet to a City Council Member from another city and a former candidate for Mpls City Council. It’s about the difference between healthy skepticism and unhealthy cynicism. 1/11
I think there’s a spectrum of trust for elected leaders. Like many spectra, when you get to one extreme or the other, it starts getting more toxic and destructive, and the extremes kind of reinforce each other. 2/11
On the one extreme, I don’t think hero worship is a healthy attitude towards elected leaders: they’re the best people, they’re going to make the best decisions, they have better judgment than the rest of us, we just need to back them up, no matter what. 3/11
I want to talk about the last time the police came to my house, because I think it can help illuminate what dismantling the police and replacing them with a more constructive way of providing public safety means, at least to me. 1/21
In April, my friend Jesse was leaving my house after a game of tennis. At this moment, a guy neither of us knew started coming into my house. He seemed quite out of it. 2/21
We stopped him from coming inside, and got him to sit on my front steps instead. I got him a glass of water, and then another. I’ll call him “L.” We asked him where he was staying, who we could call for him, what his last name was. He couldn’t tell us. 3/21
Taking the menthol restriction ordinance as just one example, there was a large coalition that came together to pressure the Council to take this action. Formal support (and opposition, because showing one's work is important) is here: lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/File/….
My problems with the Strib are usually with their center-right editorial stances. Most of the hard news reporting over the years has been pretty good. This story, not so much.
How is it appropriate to erase the people who demanded that the City take these actions?