Vote Yes to Question 2 on Restructuring the Minneapolis Police Department

 The City of Minneapolis is rapidly approaching perhaps the most important election in its history.  Voters will not only be choosing who will be the City’s next Mayor and lead us at a time when we are facing challenges like no other since the “greatest generation”, but also deciding several important referendum issues that will have lasting effect on the day to day lives of ordinary citizens.  

The stakes could not be higher.  The question is whether  we, as citizens,  are going to submit to the manufactured fear that is being peddled by the perpetrators (bad actor cops) in the hope that change, if it comes, will be negligible and leads to the same safe and overly cautious approaches and with it the same predictable, if not obvious, results?

In a Bloomberg article dated June 4, 2020 and entitled "How Cities Offload the Cost of Police Brutality:  Cities spend tens of millions of dollars on lawsuits over police violence and killings. But municipalities are effectively using residents to mortgage the cost".

Said Bloomberg CityLab article reported:  

"In Minneapolis, a metro that has been plagued by several other prominent police brutality incidents in recent years, there are actions the city could have taken but weren’t. The Minneapolis police union blocked the city from incorporating new reforms for the police department — including new rules for the deployment of neck restraints, as was used to kill Floyd.

Instead, cities like Minneapolis make taxpayers pay for police violence on the back end, after a police officer has already injured or killed a civilian, and after he’s been tried or the case has been settled. This is true for most large cities, where the legal costs for defending police are usually paid out of the city’s own general funds, or through issuing bonds, either way paid with taxpayer funds. Cities are effectively using their residents to mortgage police violence — a proposition that may grow less and less palatable as families’ finances are depleted by other circulating disasters." Id.

Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE 11 recently reported that the citizens of Minneapolis have shelled out $70 Million Dollars in financial settlements as a result of police misconduct and abuse over the last two decades while the officers themselves enjoy qualified immunity from financial responsibility and experience little negative employment consequences for their actions. Jon Collins of Minnesota Public Radio reported in a July 9, 2020 article that "Half of fired Minnesota police officers get their jobs back through arbitration".

As the election nears (early voting is already underway), city residents’ mailboxes are being inundated with slick advertisements containing false choices and half-truths created by the best advertising agencies and public relations firms that money can buy.  The theme of the “No to Question 2” proponents and against the creation of a new Department of Public Safety boils down to fear and false choices. Nothing drives public opinion like fear and the friend of the status quo is fear of change.  

The combination of fear and the inertia of the status quo can create strange bedfellows.  It is not surprising that the Police Union and rank and file police officers, who know they have a rigged game with little accountability and are so used to acting with impunity, are vehemently opposed to restructuring.  Instead of discussing reform and practical solutions, they are stoking the fears of residents and engaging in work slow downs creating the conditions that encourage a rising crime rate.  They are hoping that by creating the problem and exacerbating it, they will get their desired result of the status quo and its hollow promise of reform.  But now they are being joined by a group of centrist Democrats who have apparently caved into fear and are falling for the union's and rank and file's promise to reform.  The citizens demonstrated in the wake of George Floyd's murder that the time of unfulfilled promises to reform are over and demand action now,

False Choice number one perpetuated by the “No to Question 2” supporters is that an armed police presence will disappear upon passage of vote yes.  The fact is under a restructuring involving the creation of the Minneapolis Department of Public Safety an armed police presence would still be its largest component.  The opponents to reform have cynically adopted the goals of the reformers e.g. changes in police recruitment, training accountability and discipline and integration of mental health and violence prevention experts, but virtually insure that said reforms will never happen by opposing a structural overhaul.

The only way to implement the changes and reforms stated above is to cut out the cancer which created the abuses and that is the corrosive police culture and its union that pits officers against citizens and promotes a subculture based upon paranoia and a warrior ideology.  We need to get out from the one-sided collective bargaining agreement negotiated by a union out of touch with the citizenry.  In order to implement the reforms both sides agree on, this change in structure is required.

Sadly, the well funded and organized campaign of the police union and politicizing what should be a non-partisan issue like public safety, is showing signs it is  getting its desired result.  But this is not a conservative or liberal issue  yet the opponents to reform have the public believing crime is out of control when in fact the police are deliberately creating this false impression and encouraging crime with their work slow down and public threats to resign should the reforms be adopted.  To those who feel that way I say “we understand and accept your resignation”. 

 Those who joined law enforcement for the right reasons, to protect and to serve, should have no problem with a system that requires the accountability the current culture has resisted up and until the George Floyd case.  If you doubt the accuracy of this sentiment just look at the lack of reform the last 16 months since the murder of George Floyd and the history of reform opposition in the MPD the last 50 years.  

Don't believe the police are deliberately engaged in a slowdown to quash attempts at reform?  Reuters recently released a special report entitled "Hands Off Patrol:  After Floyd's Killing, Minneapolis Police Retreated, Data Shows".  In the Reuters article it quotes various unidentified police personnel as follows:

“It’s self-preservation,” said one officer who retired after Floyd’s death, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He said the force’s commanders didn’t order a slowdown, but also did nothing to stop it. “The supervisor was like, ‘I don’t blame you at all if you don’t want to do anything. Hang out in the station.’ That’s what they’re saying.”

If that anecdotal evidence does not persuade you that the MPD needs restructuring how about the plain statistics:

The Reuters article goes on to quote "A police spokesman, John Elder,..." who said ..."short-staffing meant 'we were running from call to call and didn’t have time for anything else.' He did not respond to additional questions."

Nevertheless, Reuters found, "...the drop in police-initiated interactions was steeper and more sudden than the drop in the number of officers. By July 2020, the number of encounters begun by officers had dropped 70% from the year before; the number of stops fell 76%."

False choice number two being promoted by the "Just Say No to Question Two" proponents, is by voting yes to Question No. 2 you will getting rid of Chief Arredondo, a beacon for reform.  I personally agree with sentiments expressed by the chief in his testimony in the George Floyd case and would greatly encourage the city to hire him to lead the new Public Safety Department.  The problem with leaving things with the status quo with only a hope for reform is the current rank and file and police union perceive Chief Arredondo the same way they perceived and treated Chief Bouza, and that is, if not with utter disdain, then they ignore him.

That was to be predicted and is a playbook that dates back to the police administration of Tony Bouza.  For those too young to remember, Tony Bouza, who famously battled bad police culture and corruption as portrayed in the movie “Ft. Apache the Bronx”, was brought in by Mayor Don Fraser in 1980 to reform a department mired in the same abuses we have now.  Bouza served as Chief of the MPD until 1988 with a mandate to reform the abuses that culminated tragically with the death of George Floyd.  But if the great reformer Tony Bouza failed why should we go down the same path of reform now?  The answer is that the Minneapolis Police Union and some rank and file officers fought the reforms tooth and nail and knew that they could out last a reformer who served at the pleasure of elected officials.  “Well,…” one would say, “…that is democracy and how accountability works”.  

The problem is the police have no such accountability.  We have known for generations what works to get police abuses under control and they are citizen review boards, changes in the qualified immunity law, require officers carry insurance and changing the rules of engagement for the use of deadly force and police chases.  These are the only things that will actually make a difference but as long as the abuses were affecting minorities and the poor, all we got was lip service and half-hearted attempts at reform that were never supported.  This is why structural reform is so important.

Have the courage to make the reforms necessary to insure equal protection and safety of all Minneapolitans, Vote Yes to Question 2.  Early voting begins September 17, 2021 and election day is November 2, 2021