Police Reform in the US: The Story of Two Cities in Minnesota | Black Lives Matter News

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA – Last month saw the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin condemned murder George Floyd, Black, shot a police officer from Kim Potter in Brooklyn Center a few miles from court Daunte Wright, black as well.

Potter, who in the 26th year mixed his weapons with Tasers, says he has a second-rate force murder allegations.

As events unfolded following Wright’s death, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott began work.

He began a week-long community engagement session through hearing sessions as a result of the introduction of a resolution that would review how to approach the city to the police. Elliott, a Liberian American who emigrated to the United States at the age of 11, filed a resolution on May 8, less than a month after Wright was shot. It was approved by the city council the following Saturday with a 4-1 vote.

The rapid change in police reform in the Minneapolis neighborhood is in stark contrast to the situation a few miles south, where Minneapolis has struggled to push public opinion in public relations to help the police department and its budget help form Mayor Jacob. Frey’s “both-and” police rhetoric.

Just two weeks after the assassination of George Floyd, a majority of Minneapolis City Council called the city police department. Since then the council has changed its stance from diverting police to overseeing the department from mayor to council.

Mayor Frey has criticized the proposals of the city council and other organizations designed to reform the police. Rising crime has seen year-to-year killings, shooting victims and self-inflicted shootings, several children killed or injured in the north of the city and shootings commemorating the anniversary of Floyd’s death on Tuesday. Speaking in the northern part of the city last week, Frey presented a plan to reform his department’s interior, in response.

But some local activists are skeptical.

“I don’t think Minneapolis City Council really wants that [police reform]. What they want is to lead the police, so it’s about gaining power, really, ”Michelle Gross, president of Police United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB), told Al Jazeera.

On the other hand, “what the mayor and council of the Brooklyn Center are doing is really a different model – a good model – for other communities to follow,” Gross said, calling it “impressive”. In the end, “they recognize that public safety doesn’t start and stop at the door of the police department,” he said.

Duty to stay away from police

Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler’s Security and Violence Prevention Resolutions – named after Wright and another 21-year-old man shot by Brooklyn Center police in 2019 – create several new departments in the city to limit the involvement of armed law. in situations that do not require officers.

“Relying on armed law enforcement officials who respond first to these situations has increased, can cause harm, and can lead to the loss of preventable lives for our neighbors, including the lives of Daunte Wright and Kobe Drimock-Heisler,” the resolution says. .

“Diversity of perspectives will improve overall public safety, better address the root causes of many problems, promote racial justice, better protect vulnerable members of our community, and channel public resources more effectively.”

The profound resolution calls for the creation of an unarmed Community Response Department to deal with medical, mental health or other social or behavioral incidents. Traffic violations that do not move will also target a new unarmed civilian group, the Department of Traffic Enforcement.

Among the changes are the restriction of police activity, the need to exhaust alternatives before the use of lethal force, and the prohibition of the use of lethal force in certain situations.

Meanwhile, as the new departments are enacted, the resolution also establishes a citywide “citations and summonses” policy that requires officials to provide citations only, prohibiting custody arrests or searches of people and vehicles in most non-criminal situations.

Elliott, who was elected in 2018 and is the city’s first black mayor, gives credit to the city’s police reform along with calls for his people to pass Wright’s mother and Dimock-Heisler’s parents.

“We told our community very loudly and clearly that they wanted more resources for mental health and that they wanted to enforce unarmed trafficking,” he told Al Jazeera. “We had the ability to start making those changes, so that’s why we moved forward and worked out the resolution.”

These changes, for Elliott, come a long way. “I’ve always known that we needed a transformation of public safety … to keep all members of our community safe,” he said.

“I believe that our community, in its diversity, has experienced elected leaders who have experienced what it means to enforce the law,” Elliott explained. He called the resolution “a sensible approach to public safety that can be put behind everyone.”

Jim Mortenson, executive director of the Law Enforcement Labor Services service for the entire Minnesota police union, hastily explained the resolution.

“It looks like the mayor came out on his own, wrote this resolution and didn’t really have a lot of discussions with those who are doing the work,” Mortenson told local news at CCX Media.

While Elliott said he was working to approve certain elements of the police reforms brought about by this resolution since Floyd was killed last year, it was Wright’s death that brought the problem closer to home and got him to the finish line along with City Hall.

“The key difference was that the community was mobilizing and demanding change,” Elliott said of Wright’s death and a few days of protests about the city.

“Statistically, police die every 18 months,” at the Brooklyn Center, Elliott said when he took office, he asked the police department for information.

“The time between Kobe’s death and Daunte’s death was 19 months and a week. We certainly want to put these systems in place so that we can prevent future deaths. “