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Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

• drunkpotato 6y ago
  Interesting and surprising if this happens. Note that they're just announcing their intent to disband, it's not an actual vote, but there's some pretty strong language here. The article also notes the mayor is opposed to disbanding. I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities than disbanding police altogether. But if it happens (a big if) perhaps Minneapolis will provide a rare natural experiment.
  • BrianHenryIE 6y ago
    > I would rather see police reforms and a rethinking of priorities Why? Surely any new policing entity will entail the philosophy of reform and keeping the rotten part around would be detrimental.
    • rightbyte 6y ago
      I would argue that it is hard to have a much less rotten police force than the city in general. It seems quite crime ridden from the statistics. Maybe if you draft the policemen from other areas or cities?
      • babygoat 6y ago
        Roughly 5% of the Minneapolis police actually live in Minneapolis. Maybe they should have hired from within the community instead.
    • drunkpotato 6y ago
      Perhaps it is just me being less pessimistic about human nature. I think as an institution policing needs reform, but it can happen in a more gradual way. Not everyone in a bad system is a bad person, and people are remarkably morally flexible under pressure to fit in. Improve the institution and I believe you can improve the people inside it. I admit that with the surprising, to me, deplorable recent behavior of the Buffalo PD, I am more sympathetic to the idea of total replacement. So I’m interested to see whether this goes anywhere in Minneapolis.
  • xendo 6y ago
    This experiment is indeed rare and very interesting. I hope they will gather data during and after the transformation so that other cities can make more informed decisions in the future.
• _bxg1 6y ago
  a) I'm incredibly happy to see that the masses still have a voice b) I'm not positive this is the right solution, but it could be, and it will be fascinating to see how it plays out and whether it's something that could work everywhere
  • javajosh 6y ago
    The masses have a voice in proportion to the degree to which they control where their taxes go. The power of the purse is remarkable, because you can destroy (almost) any instutition by simply defunding it (which is also why any attempt to circumvent that power, e.g. Executive re-purposing of funds, should set off huge blaring alarms.) And when it comes to "what congress can do" I'd argue that it's 90% about allocation of funds -- because it doesn't matter what the law is if there is no money to enforce it.
    • almost_usual 6y ago
      You could argue the US has a debt as large as it does because it has the strongest military on Earth. Who is going to enforce the debt collection? Using this logic and the destabilization of US military the natural answer is another highly militarized government. So where there is lawlessness there is opportunity for authoritarianism whether that’s a gang, police, US military, or foreign adversary. We need to be smart about change and boil the frog, not get into a fight we cannot win, otherwise society will descend into authoritarianism likely ran by the most experienced and powerful authoritarian.
      • jjeaff 6y ago
        The fact that the debt is deliniated in US controlled currency is what protects us. Now, our stability, partially due to our military allows that to happen. But it isn't necessary to avoid being collected on.
  • jsdevwork1 6y ago
    It will play out quite predictably: more crime, organized and otherwise.
• TrevorAustin 6y ago
  "Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camden-new-jersey-reformed-its-police-department https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...
  • jeffbee 6y ago
    Indeed, Americans need to realize that almost everything about our society is a bad first draft, in need of prompt replacement. People reflexively defend existing institutions, but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving. Police departments might be a good place to start, but most American cities also need to address structural deficit, disposable built environments, persistent segregation, absurd jurisprudence, and more.
    • chipperyman573 6y ago
      >but the more I've thought about it over the years, the more I've realized there's almost no aspect of American life worth preserving There is so much about America that is worth preserving. One easy example right off the top of my head is the law and culture that enables people to peacefully demonstrate like they are today. Even discussing the idea of doing this in many countries could get you killed - or worse! That's another amazing thing (again, just off the top of my head), in America the worst punishment we have is death, and even that is outlawed in many places. The idea of an internment camp[0][1] is not even considered. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps [1] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/17/20861427/india-assam-citizenship-muslim-detention-camps https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/17/20861427/india-...
      • grecy 6y ago
        Scores of videos in the last week show police brutally beating regular citizens who have assembled peacefully. Recent events are proving the First Amendment sounds great on paper, but is utterly worthless when people actually try to exercise that right.
• nkrisc 6y ago
  It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.
  • jimbob45 6y ago
    - Bodycams - Mandatory psych evals half-yearly - Anonymous corruption reporting - Reduce/eliminate drug penalties - Eliminate civil forfeiture - Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department - Expanded auditing of violent calls Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.
    • DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      > Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. Please elaborate.
    • babygoat 6y ago
      Good luck with that.
      • DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        Many PDs have bodycams as-standard already.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
        • catalogia 6y ago
          Good cops love bodycams because the video footage exonerates them when something happens. Bad cops hate them.
    • 6y ago
• macspoofing 6y ago
  I don't think it will work. Minneapolis has one of the highest crime rates in the country, just as Baltimore did, and that city saw crime rates rise even higher after protests led to tighter regulations on the Police ... but I don't live in Minneapolis and so I'm curious to see how it will turn out. I support this as a great social experiment.
  • notatoad 6y ago
    I don't believe the suggestion here is to disband the concept of having police entirely, just to disband the current police department.
    • macspoofing 6y ago
      Fair enough. The devil is in the details of course. But I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police.
      • claudeganon 6y ago
        > I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police. About that... >When New York police officers temporarily reduced their “proactive policing” efforts on low-level offenses, major-crime reports in the city actually fell, according to a study based on New York Police Department crime statistics. https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
      • moron4hire 6y ago
        An alternative interpretation is that crime rates are so high because police spending is the wrong way to deal with the problem. Money that could be spent on drug treatment programs is instead being spent 10x on a paramilitary organization that openly admits and jokes about its policy is to shoot first and ask questions later.
      • ravitation 6y ago
• sunseb 6y ago
  What could go wrong? Lunatics are running the asylum it seems. Authority is always here. Disband the police and you will get another arbitrary authority (being gangs, some kind of political repression, and so). There already are no-go zones in Europa where the police don't go anymore, believe me, you wouldn't want to live there. If you don't want the official police anymore, why not starting with your place, your home and your family?
  • BrianHenryIE 6y ago
    Do you have unspoken reasons why it would be worse than current?
    • sadsadsadsad 6y ago
      you think criminals will be scared of self-policed cities? the area already has a high crime rate. ah, you privileged HN folks.
  • scarface74 6y ago
    How is that any different than the lawless gangs that have the force of government behind them?
    • chrisco255 6y ago
      There exists a decent real world example of "a tale of two police strategies" in two demographically similar cities: Juarez and El Paso. Juarez and El Paso are situated across from each other along the U.S.-Mexico border. In some ways they are the same city, with many residents traveling across the border each day. Juarez is the second most deadly city in the world, at over 100 murders per 100K population [1]. El Paso has just 3.3 murders per 100K population [2]. The difference is that the police and legal system work better in the U.S. compared to Mexico. In many parts of Mexico, gangs run the streets, and officials are either in bed with gangs or often intimidated by gangs [3]. That's what fills the power vacuum in the absence of effective policing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate [2] https://www.areavibes.com/el+paso-tx/crime/ https://www.areavibes.com/el+paso-tx/crime/ [3] https://apnews.com/231aec4552f040e49095f77968e6345c https://apnews.com/231aec4552f040e49095f77968e6345c
• matwood 6y ago
  I mentioned this solution in a comment the other day. The NCAA gives sports programs the 'death penalty' when the 'loss of institutional control' [0] is so great the only fix is to disband and start over. Having it as an option is a good thing. The people in charge can't use an 'I didn't know' defense, because that itself is evidence of loss of institutional control. [0] https://www.ncaa.org/governance/institutional-control https://www.ncaa.org/governance/institutional-control
  • TrevorAustin 6y ago
    You'll see that sometimes too with Greek organizations at colleges. I argued at the time the the "corporate death penalty" was the only appropriate remedy for the Equifax breach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution
    • nullc 6y ago
      I also argued that about equifax. Corporate death penalty is extremely underutilized. Organizations die all the time due to missteps they inflict on themselves, it shouldn't be controversial to apply the same outcome when they inflict harm on others.
    • giancarlostoro 6y ago
      Or broken up and forced to sell to other orgs that can handle improving things from a security standpoint.
      • blackflame7000 6y ago
        Decentralizing data rarely makes it more secure.
        • giancarlostoro 6y ago
          Not so much the data probably, but some of the services. I was thinking more business / consumer sides split. Of course given what sort of data shows up in my credit report (annoyingly outdated) I'd be okay with them being shut down too.
• Throwaway8588 6y ago
  I see that everything in Minneapolis stores will soon be free. Shopping trip on the left wing dime anyone?
• maest 6y ago
  What are the chances this is a bluff?
• frosted-flakes 6y ago
  What, exactly, does it mean to disband a police department? Fire everyone and hand over policing responsibilities to the state? Permanently or temporarily?
  • guerrilla 6y ago
    No, that's not the goal of police abolitionists: [1] 1. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abolition-george-floyd/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abo... Some more references: 1. https://www.8toabolition.com/ https://www.8toabolition.com/ 2. https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268547515038806018 https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268547515038806018 3. https://twitter.com/TravelingNun/status/1268510966116954114 https://twitter.com/TravelingNun/status/1268510966116954114
    • DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      Before you edited your post to fix your typo I thought that was a clever pun.
      • guerrilla 6y ago
        Just some tablet typing on the go :)
    • frosted-flakes 6y ago
      I can understand the sentiment of the people behind those writings, but it doesn't really answer my question. What will replace the Minneapolis police department if it's disbanded? Many (most?) of its current responsibilities and funding can be given to social workers, traffic wardens, and other people not armed with guns, but that doesn't obviate the need for officers of the government to enforce the law. Laws can change and become less strict, but we will always need some form of police.
      • fzeroracer 6y ago
        The answer is in the article itself. The goal of disbanding the police is so that you can rebuild it from the ground up. It does not mean 'no police ever', it means clearing out the weeds by the roots so that they don't choke the new trees you're trying to plant.
• iso947 6y ago
  Have you tried turning it off and on again?
• kryogen1c 6y ago
  im not sure how i feel about this. "fire everyone" is too large a scope, but "charge 1-4 officers with murder" is too small a scope. both measures are too extreme. firing everyone is only useful if you restructure the training pipeline and system of accountability, but if you do that you dont need to fire everyone. i suppose a nuanced approach is outside public reactionary purview so this is probably the better option. charging 1-4 officers with murder without changing the leadership accountability, culture, or anything really will have very negative impacts on policing.
  • elil17 6y ago
    Where are you getting the idea that they will fire everyone? That is how the nation of Georgia handled it but it doesn’t mean that’s how Minneapolis will. They said rebuild they system from the ground up, which means restructuring the system of accountability, not necessarily everyone loses their job.
• skissane 6y ago
  The US has lots of different police forces – city police, county police, state police. Many other countries have more centralised policing with fewer levels. I think, a smaller number of bigger police forces might promote more professionalism, more professional management, oversight by more experienced politicians (state political leaders tend to be more experienced and capable than local political leaders, especially when talking about smaller cities). That would suggest abolishing city-level police forces and merging them into the county-level police force, even abolishing county-level police forces and merging it all into state police.
  • sneak 6y ago
    The problem is that there is no organization that is incentivized to uncover or investigate police crimes. All other portions of government have cross-checks to stop people breaking the law. The police don't, and cover for one another. There needs to be an organization that has clear and direct incentive to prosecute abuses by the police, that doesn't have a century+ long tradition of violence, selective enforcement, racism, and murder.
    • skissane 6y ago
      The state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia has a Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) [1], which is a body legally separate from NSW's law enforcement agencies–NSW Police Force, which is the main state police force; NSW Crime Commission, which specialises in organised crime and other serious crime–and which is tasked with investigating law enforcement misconduct. (In Australia, there is no local law enforcement, only state/territorial/federal.) The LECC doesn't prosecute itself, but can investigate cases and refer them to state prosecutors for prosecution. It isn't perfect, but it is better than nothing. Maybe the US could copy the same idea? (Also, separately from the LECC, there is also an Inspector of the LECC, whose job is to investigate misconduct by the LECC themselves.) [1] https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au
      • samcodes 6y ago
        Part of me wants to ask “but who investigates the Inspector of the LECC?” But I’ve dealt with Elixir and I know that supervision trees rarely need to be very deep in practice
• WC3w6pXxgGd 6y ago
  Thank God I don't live in Minneapolis.
• at_a_remove 6y ago
  I doubt anyone will adopt a scientific approach, namely, before the experiment begins, figure out what it is you're going to measure, how you're going to measure it, and then announce a threshold for "this got us what we wanted" versus "this was a mistake."
• PaulWaldman 6y ago
  Is this equivalent to a software rewrite? Let's just throw the whole thing out and start over. Throwing out a system and starting afresh would likey introduce new bugs/systemic failures that aren't currently present. Is addressing and correcting each specific feature/SOP not an option?
  • morgante 6y ago
    That's been tried for years and clearly hasn't worked. Incremental reform has failed when you have corrupt unions and entrenched cultures. Yes, you should usually try to incrementally fix bugs in a codebase. But sometimes it's so mired in technical debt that you're better off throwing the whole thing out and starting from scratch.
    • rjkennedy98 6y ago
      > That's been tried for years and clearly hasn't worked. Are you implying there haven't been improvements at all? Seriously, if you say things like this, you should need to provide some statistics. I'm pretty sure we're at all time lows for police killing unarmed people (don't know where I saw the statistic but this is why I'm so skeptical of the above statement).
      • morgante 6y ago
        Looking at the police brutality over the past 2 weeks, including blatant attacks on journalists and peaceful protestors, makes it clear that they have not been "reformed."
  • kart23 6y ago
    So you keep decades old code in production, trying to fix bugs in obsolete languages and architectures? I would start a new project in a modern language or framework that's relevant for the environment and make my job a lot easier. Sure there's gonna be bugs, but its easier to fix when I actually built the system and documented it well.
    • 6y ago
• MilnerRoute 6y ago
  More information on CNN: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-city-council-members-announce-intent-to-defund-and-dismantle-the-citys-police-department/ar-BB159oYB https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-city-council-m...
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Lazare 6y ago
  The headline is accurate, but perhaps a bit misleading. A synopsis: The Minneapolis Police Department has had a long string of scandals, and gradual reform doesn't seem to be working. A majority of the city council seem to have decided to rebuild/replace the department in its entirety. This seems pretty reasonable. It's not some wild eyed anarcho-libertarian plan to try and build a society without coercive force (perhaps sadly, if you lean that way...); it's just an announcement that a dysfunctional government department is going to be reorganised slightly more thoroughly than was previously planned.
• 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
  "...MPD announced last year the discovery of 1,700 untested rape kits spanning 30 years, which officials said had been misplaced." This leads me to think that there are some objective metrics by which a police department's performance can be measured. For a department to have 1,700 untested rape kits (vs. nearly 2500 rapes reported in 2019) seems outrageous, even if it represents a low percentage of total reported. Why wouldn't a police department ensure that every reported rape with evidence collected is properly followed up? They say many or all of these kits were misplaced, which simply leads to more questions about procedures, policies, and internal discipline. It seems that a standardized approach to department evaluation and oversight is needed. Corporations employ internal accounting personnel, external auditing personnel, and then submit to audits by the IRS. If there were a similar approach to oversight for police departments, with data made transparent as it is for public companies, perhaps most those 1,700 women would have justice.
  • Invictus0 6y ago
    Unfortunately, the rape kit problem is much worse than you think. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2019/07/nationwide-epidemic-of-untested-rape-kits-atlantic-daily/594046/ https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2019/07/nati...
  • thu2111 6y ago
    The rape thing is tricky though. Very unlikely they were really "misplaced". That answer sounds like an attempt to avoid the real, much harder discussions about the rape case pipeline. Go investigate this for yourself if you don't believe me, but there are good and difficult reasons why very few rape cases go to prosecution. It's not a US problem or a Minneapolis problem, the same things are found throughout the world. Core problem: a huge number of rape allegations are false compared to other crimes. It all starts from there. In anonymous interviews police will normally claim about 50% are false. There have been academic studies that reach similar numbers. There are also a lot of rather motivated studies that try to claim it's much lower, but when you dig into the methodology there are usually big problems and it's clear they've started with a pre-determined conclusion. So how can a PD end up with 1,700 untested rape kits? Easy. A woman walks in and claims she's been raped. The police administer a kit. They also do a bit of investigation, probe her testimony a bit. She changes her story and renounces the claim. This happens all the time, it's an extremely frequent way for these cases to end. There are even pie chart breakdowns in some of these studies for the top reasons for renouncing an allegation, for example, it's often a tactic used as part of a fight, when the couple make up she goes and admits it wasn't true. Or the claims fall apart under investigation and she admits she was lying. So the police shelve the kit. It's not worth sending it off to the lab when the claimant already did something that ensures no successful prosecution will ever occur. At the same time it's evidence so they don't destroy it. One day someone finds the big pile of untested rape kits and goes crazy. OMG evidence of institutional sexism at the police, how can this be justified. Some police manager looks at the data for the reasons and decides "the kits are untested because we think 1,700 women lied to us" isn't going to go down well and doesn't want to start that argument, because a whole lot of very angry people, wrongly and delusionally, believe women never lie about rape. So they come out with this nonsense about them being "misplaced" and hope it'll blow over. Low rape clearance rates are mentioned in the article as evidence of poor performance at this PD, but it's a bit vague as to what they mean. What you see though is that this particular crime has very low clearance and prosecution rates globally. When people drilled into loss rates at different parts of the case pipeline, they found there are no easy answers and no ways to change things beyond the obvious one of relaxing standards of proof to make it easier to put men in jail.
• jpxw 6y ago
  What are they proposing to replace the police force with, exactly?
  • randyrand 6y ago
    A better police force.
  • yardie 6y ago
    Probably a police force not represented by a racist union president.
  • downerending 6y ago
    Not sure about the plan, but in reality, a heavily armed, untrained populace ready to shoot on sight. Might be a win.
• siliconc0w 6y ago
  The problem is American gun culture and the probability that any call might turn into a violent one. Other countries don't have that problem so they can send unarmed social workers with higher confidence, over a life time of calls, they're going to see retirement. In America that isn't the case and responders need a gun because everyone has guns and you need to have sustainable system for keeping order that ensures, over the long tail, peace keepers stay alive. This is probably an unpopular opinion in a time of police abuses but it's orthogonal, it just means our police need to be extremely well trained and disciplined because we built a society that is inherently more dangerous (and this costs a lot of money which we're now defunding).
  • umvi 6y ago
    Would it help if murdering unarmed peace keepers or whatever had extreme punishment attached? Even criminals can be trained. Kill an unarmed peace keeper, your life is effectively over.
    • karlakush 6y ago
      There is already extreme punishment for peace officers. It doesn't stop criminals from doing it, though.
    • SamReidHughes 6y ago
      That would require a constitutional amendment, because right now that’s first degree murder, usually a capital crime, and making the punishment worse than that would violate the 8th amendment.
  • trfhuhg 6y ago
    The protests and the surprising violence from the PDs have actually shown the value of 2A. If anything, I'd vote for disarming police, except maybe a few special units, because most of them are emotionally unstable and can't be trusted with guns or any sort of power. If you think about who the most cops are, they are just a bunch of dudes that would normally be some retail workers, but with a few months of training they are given the license to kill. Obviously, most of them can't handle this level of responsibility.
• gerardnll 6y ago
  "Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis retreated on Saturday through a sea of protesters yelling, “Go home, Jacob, go home!” and “Shame! Shame!” after he refused to commit to defunding the Police Department." He says no to the abolition of the PD, not defunding.
  • Reedx 6y ago
    Shame mobs, bending the knee... it's like an episode of Game of Thrones.
• Consultant32452 6y ago
  I highly recommend Jane Coaston of Vox for a follow. Her recommendations are: 1. End qualified immunity 2. Curtail the power of police unions 3. We need fewer laws I don't think I could agree harder with this. It sounds like the "disband the police" movement is an elaborate implementation of #2. Now we just need #1 and #3. https://twitter.com/cjane87/status/1267898762845880321 https://twitter.com/cjane87/status/1267898762845880321
  • JackFr 6y ago
    Patrolmen shouldn’t carry guns. I know that wouldn’t have helped George Floyd, but we need to ratchet down societal acceptance of violence. If a situation warrants firearms, it should at least warrant a radio call to the station for armed backup.
    • d2v 6y ago
      I don't think taking weapons away is enough. Police aren't trained to provide long-term solutions to domestic violence, homelessness, mental illness, or drug addiction, which are often tasked with solving. The typical solution law enforcement offers to these situations is to jail someone. Rightly, people don't want to go to jail and the situation escalates. And as we're witnessing all over the US, the police are often responsible for this escalation, and that escalation leads to violence. I think we need people trained in non-violent intervention who can offer long-term solutions to the problems these people are experiencing. Why not just replace a patrolman with a social worker who can call the actual police should the situation escalate?
      • JackFr 6y ago
        I don’t necessarily disagree, but I think a lot of the situations you describe need a peace officer with legal authority to arrest. They mostly don’t need deadly force, and I think the walking threat of deadly force that gun carrying cops represent changes the situation often for the worse.
  • dntbnmpls 6y ago
• enitihas 6y ago
  Not an American, but seeing the current divide in the US makes me curious. What would happen if Trump wins again in 2020?
  • coronadisaster 6y ago
    it would probably ensure that all police departments get dissolved and restructured (because the situation would be too bad)
• pryce 6y ago
  I hope this happens, and that Minneapolis citizens can build an institution of their own that they can actually have faith in. My main concern around this is the array of outside systemic forces that would want to see this project fail: Make no mistake, if Minneapolis goes through with this, and if it succeeds, there are a massive numer of other police departments in other cities who will see this as an existential threat, and and will almost certainly act to see that it fails
• flyinglizard 6y ago
  That's actually great. All the power to them for willing to risk it, and a net benefit for everyone else watching how that experiment turns out. I share the sentiment that police doesn't eradicate crime; it's a way to manage chronic crime, but not a solution in itself. However, take the chronic management away without solving the problem at the core and you're in for a much bigger problem.
• droptablemain 6y ago
  As others have said, I think "burn it to the ground and start over" is highly underrated. My concern is that policing could be taken over by private entities, which I suspect would be decidedly worse.
  • pnako 6y ago
    What is pretty obviously going to happen is that police will simply move from areas that want to get rid of them to areas that support them. I don't think the Minneapolis PD cops will have to move to Australia to find a job. They'll just find work a few miles further away, whether it's public or private security.
• wbharding 6y ago
  This has sufficient public momentum to prove that a plurality believes the current system does the public more harm than good. Of course, removing cops will reduce harm done by cops to the public. But it will also reduce harm done by cops to law breakers. Intuitively, I would expect the law breakers to benefit disproportionately, since the cops stated mission was to prevent law breaking and all. Statistics I've read suggest that US cities have been getting progressively safer over the past generation. It's interesting to wonder if our generation of safety has allowed us to forget that "order" and "justice" are not intrinsic qualities of humanity (nor any other animal group). Looking forward to seeing how Minneapolis will go about delivering consistent justice with no bad actors enforcing it. Will also be interesting to see which types of law breakers emerge as the winner from decimation of their traditional adversary.
  • fastball 6y ago
    "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times." – G. Michael Hopf
    • nojvek 6y ago
      What are you trying to imply by Hard times create strong men. Hard times also create broken men. Weak is not always bad. I don’t want “supposedly strong men” being so trigger happy , their happy dropping nukes on civilian because they couldn’t let go of their “strong” ego.
      • fastball 6y ago
        My comment was intended to be an agreement with GC’s second paragraph, which postulated that maybe these problems are partially caused by what is effectively complacency. I did not come up with the phrasing of the quote. That being said, I'm fairly certain you are taking "weak" and "strong" more literally than the quotee intended.
  • elil17 6y ago
    I think the point is that we need to go easier on “law breakers,” at least the kind of law breakers who most often get the police called on them. For instance, there is no reason for someone who committed petty theft to spend years in jail or, worse, to be treated violently by the police.
• bawana 6y ago
  It will be interesting to see what crime does in response? Or more significantly, how other societal functions affected by police ( like traffic, MVA management,etc) change.
• daodedickinson 6y ago
  Happened in Baltimore after Freddie Gary and the result is over 100 more murders of black men per year than before, just not by police.
• slickrick216 6y ago
  A model for this is the PSNI in Northern Ireland. Irish catholic’s faced arguably worse racist violence from the Royal Ulster constabulary. Faith and trust was lost on both sides within the community. Seems to be working given that there’s been 19 years of peace over there.
  • randompwd 6y ago
    To attribute the RUC->PSNI change(2001) as the reason for peace is wrong. That change was on the back of a much larger, much broader set of changes brought in as a result of Good Friday Agreement in 98: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement > Issues relating to sovereignty, civil and cultural rights, decommissioning of weapons, demilitarisation, justice and policing were central to the agreement.
    • slickrick216 6y ago
      Didn’t suggest it was one thing. I just didn’t think in the context of this thread that the background was relevant. Can it not be a combination of things.? The good Friday agreement started the ball rolling the change to PSNI was one of the measures.
      • randompwd 6y ago
        You implied it by omission > A model for this is the PSNI in Northern Ireland > Seems to be working given that there’s been 19 years of peace over there.
• aasasd 6y ago
  Not really comparable, but related still: > In 2005 Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili fired "the entire traffic police force" of the Georgian National Police due to corruption, numbering around 30,000 police officers. A new force was built around new recruits. The United States State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law-Enforcement Affairs has provided assistance to the training efforts. Haven't heard any reports of traffic mayhem in those months. Afaik after that traffic police went from post-Soviet bandits and bureaucrats to polite workforce and their DMV started handling routine procedures in ten minutes instead of ‘file your request, go home and wait for a response’.
• ufmace 6y ago
  I don't live in Minneapolis, and I don't know if this is the right solution or not. But what bothers me about what I've read so far, is they seem to have remarkably little details about exactly what they want to replace the department with. Exactly what does "community-led public safety" mean?
  • Trumpi 6y ago
    It sounds like a euphemism for vigilantes, though I certainly hope that this is not what they intend.
    • 3131s 6y ago
      Don't worry, private security contractors will step in and fill the void! I'm from Minneapolis. This was necessary because the MPD has been out of control for a long time, but I too am curious what the actual plans for replacement are, or if this is just a restructuring.
  • CivBase 6y ago
    I agree. I'm worried they don't have any real plans yet. If they do, I think they need to be very public about them. It sounds like a lack of transparency was a core issue with the old PD. I'm particularly worried that if this was voted on prematurely - before they were ready to deploy their new solution - that there might be some retaliation from the existing PD until the decision takes effect. I'm also worried that "comminity-lead" implies a more political law enforcement organization. After all, sometimes what is "right" is not what is "popular" and I would hope that an officer is more concerned with the former.
  • pickpuck 6y ago
    My understanding, based mostly on what I’ve seen on Twitter: 911 call -> Dispatch unarmed City employee, typically a social worker, who specializes in the relevant situation, population or neighborhood. Goal is to assist the individuals involved, to be compassionate instead of punitive, to get to the root cause of the issue. There is still some kind of armed security backup for the social worker’s protection in situations that do escalate.
• antoncohen 6y ago
  This is what needs to happen to all police departments. Slow reform won't work. What police in America do is wrong at its core. We don't need thousands of armed people roaming the streets looking for crime. Only 5% of arrests involve violence. Being a cop isn't a dangerous job, it isn't even in the top 10 deadliest jobs in America. Even when only looking at death by violence, cops aren't the most likely to die on the job (taxi/limo drivers are). We need people solving actual problems, not people trained to fear the public while also being armed armed with guns. Some examples of why police departments should be dissolved and something new created: Ever day when I walk to work (pre-COVID) I pass the same two police officers. They walk along the same stretch of sidewalk waking up homeless people. Ever day the walk up the same homeless people, while being armed with firearms and wearing bulletproof vests. They aren't solving a problem. The people they wake up are still homeless the next day. If instead San Francisco had a dedicated homeless department that solved end-to-end problems, they could actually solve problems. They could wake up the homeless people and talk to them, understand the root problems, and work to come up with solutions to the underlying causes of homelessness. While also finding compassionate short term help for them. Another example is from couple days ago, when the Alameda police arrested a man, throw him to the ground and handcuffing him -- for dancing in the street outside his home[1]. Someone called called the police because they thought he might be drunk or have mental problems. But because it was police that responded, instead of community focused mental health professionals, they arrested him and used excessive force. That is when police do. This morning I saw and recorded[2] a white women sitting on the ground have two AR-15 style rifles, two handguns, and a shotgun pointed at her. That is routine level excessive force used by cops in America. It is the type of force that escalates to killings when the white women is replaced with a black man. At the same time the police don't investigate actual crimes. Every year tens of thousand of cars are broken into in San Francisco, and the police do nothing about it. Here is what I want: - No armed police officers on the street. - Dedicated non-police departments to solve common problems, having end-to-end responsibility, with real solutions. Homeless, mental health, whatever is a big enough problem to have a dedicated departments. - Investigators that investigate and solve crimes that impact people. They don't go looking for crime. They don't carry guns. They don't roam the streets. - Armed response teams at stations and sub-stations. Like fire departments don't roam the street looking for fires, instead they respond from their stations. Armed police can do the same. They will only response to calls involving firearms or other imminent threats to human life. They will be highly trained, and unlike current police they will not be trained to fear the public[3]. They will be trained to stay calm, deescalate, and not use force unless truly required to save another life. - Community liaisons. This will be like current police, but they will not be unarmed and maybe not be sworn officers (i.e., maybe not have arrest powers). Their job is to walk around and talk to the community, get to know them, understand their problems, and be a face for the government. [1] https://abc7news.com/society/exclusive-unarmed-black-man-handcuffed-by-alameda-police-for-dancing-in-the-street/6234241/ https://abc7news.com/society/exclusive-unarmed-black-man-han... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NnvPJnRAl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NnvPJnRAl0 [3] https://medium.com/s/story/fearing-for-our-lives-82ad7eb7d75f https://medium.com/s/story/fearing-for-our-lives-82ad7eb7d75...
• coronadisaster 6y ago
  wow... if they change the power structure for the better, that is great news
• vvpan 6y ago
  Another example of a relatively successful go at this but for a whole country - Georgia. https://www.u4.no/publications/police-reform-in-georgia-cracks-in-an-anti-corruption-success-story/ https://www.u4.no/publications/police-reform-in-georgia-crac...
• FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  I like how all you “big brained” people think all of this is happening organically. You all deserve to be flayed alive.
• Melting_Harps 6y ago
  Congratulations to all who have fought against Police brutality, I hope this sets a new precedent. I'm not for abject destruction of people's property that we saw from a minority during these protests, but I'm in full support of People exercising their fundamental Human Right to protest. > But if you want to say "No more of that. Now we're doing this" then a rebuild isn't a bad idea. I just hope they have the foresight to put concrete measures that will deter Police from going back to the way things were, Andrew Yang proposed a bonus that departments gets pulled on the entire department if they get complaints of police abuse, therefore giving other officers the incentive to not put up with the 'blue shield' BS narrative that leads to corruption and violence. I don't think its over until thus applies to the entire US police departments. I have not participated in these demonstrations, but I will play my part, too.
• igammarays 6y ago
  A lot of commenters are questioning this in disbelief, wondering if a city could actually live without a police department. However, few are noticing that the council's decision is now largely irrelevant, as police departments in America are quickly falling apart on the inside, regardless of what the city council does. A few days ago 57 Buffalo police officers quit the force in protest[1]. If you think about it, of course they would, as they are now unable to do their job (in their usual manner) without the risk of either getting taken to court, or attacked by the public in ambushes and personal attacks[2]. In such an environment, it's no wonder that police officers themselves are refusing to show up to work. And just a few minutes ago during NYC Mayor Blasio's announcement to cut funding to the NYPD [3], a staunch police supporter, I couldn't help thinking: "what sort of collapse must Blasio be seeing, on the inside of the NYPD, in terms of morale." I can only imagine that individual police officers are now genuinely fearing for their lives and their career. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/buffalo-police-suspension-shoving-man-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/buffalo-police-suspension-... [2] https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-ambush-leaves-1-deputy-dead-2-officers-hurt https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-ambush-leaves-1-deputy... [3] https://www.foxnews.com/us/de-blasio-nyc-to-cut-nypd-funding-shift-it-to-social-services https://www.foxnews.com/us/de-blasio-nyc-to-cut-nypd-funding...
  • NotSammyHagar 6y ago
    They quit a special task force (around riots) but still have their normal police jobs.
• ARandomerDude 6y ago
  > For rapes, the police department’s solve rate is abysmally low. In 2018, their clearance rate for rape was just 22 percent. Getting rid of the police will ensure it goes to zero.
• wayupthere 6y ago
  Georgia (country) did this with great success in 2003. https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-moment-rebuilding-georgias-police/ https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/siezing-mom...
• csense 6y ago
  Wait a minute. If you're not gonna have police, how will you handle things like murders, rapes, robberies, or kidnappings? Do criminals just get to do their thing without fear of the law? Maybe we're supposed to form a citizens' posse to hunt 'em down like they did back in the Wild West?
• stuzenz 6y ago
  I can't help but wonder if the aggressive nature of U.S. police officers are out of fear that people might have guns - and that it just starts a cycle of escalation along with citizen rights being ignored. It is a real contrast to NZ where officers are smiling, friendly and disarming when they approach you - this would be the norm here even if you are a patched gang member. We do have issues, here in NZ (racial profiling being one of them) but I am glad we don't have any additional issues brought about by the police having an overriding default concern that citizens could be armed. I may be over simplifying it - but it is the biggest difference I can see. To try to add some perspective for myself I compared some stats last week between NZ and the US. You are __97x__ more likely to be killed by U.S police than you are by NZ police. I came to this conclusion through looking at 5 years of NZ data and 6 years of U.S data. As a side note it seems to be agreed that the U.S deaths by police is under-reported due to there being no National database and processes in place to collect the data. On the flip side, keep in mind that NZ only had a sample of one police caused death over 5 years, so the NZ stats would change drastically with any increase in deaths. I really hope the conversation can move to gun control - assuming the U.S. police professional standards to the public would more easily change if guns were off your streets. The stats were derived from this following links: Sources https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/tactical-options-research-reports https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publication/tactical-opt... https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ I also wonder if that the high number of ex-military in the U.S. police force also plays into the military-mindset of 'us versus them' approach towards the community.
  • blastonico 6y ago
    Don't think it's fair to compare US to NZ. The New York -> City <- is more populated and complex than New Zealand.
    • anewdirection 6y ago
      And guns are nearly banned in NYC as well.
    • stuzenz 6y ago
      Does population size really matter? We are talking about interactions at most of a few people to a few people. Whether it be Auckland with a population of circa a million or NY with their population - I don't think it matters when you are talking about the interactions of a few people. I am a kiwi, but have lived in Japan for two decades as well. You could just about swap out my mentions of NZ for Japan as a second example, but I can see some comparison there not being considered fair either I think it is fair to look for comparisons in other countries - my main point is that racial profiling happens in other countries too - but the acceptable professional standards for police engagement with the community are vastly different to what seems to be the norm in the States. For where most of my life experience lies, whether it be Japan, Australia or New Zealand, people are not afraid or nervous of interacting with the police. Some root cause analysis to shine the light on where the issues are would be helpful I think. I think racial issues are a partial-cause - but there are racial issues in NZ, Japan and Australia where you don't have anything like the same aggressive nature of police interaction. It just feels like the U.S. discourse on the subject is on the side effects versus the root cause. I could be wrong - but would love to see it discussed.
• nojvek 6y ago
  Wow. This is what I call action from those who hold office. Thank you. I hope the new iteration of MPD is more effective at keeping everyone safe and preserving order that in a manner that is fair to everyone regardless of race.
• f137 6y ago
  Great. This will be a very instructive experiment. I hope it would teach those people a good lesson, and not too many innocent people would die for it.
• JohnClark1337 6y ago
  Cool. I'm just going to chill a thousand miles away and watch the fire.
• michaelbuddy 6y ago
  The idea that a city council can make a rash decision that will drastically impact the safety of citizens, I'm sorry requires a vote. This is virtue signalling based on terrible statistics and it's also an invitiation to harm citizens and businesses. Every council person's competience is called into question at this point.