In a shocking twist: MN City Council Complains About Crime Spike After Voting To Abolish Police

Tsing Tao said:
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Bender speculated that officers may be refusing to respond to criminal complaints “because they don’t support council member, or in some cases, the mayor, or perhaps they think that they’re making the case for more resources for the department.”

“How do we get this under control?” she asked.

Bender was a leading proponent for dismantling the police department. She drew national attention in June when she said in an interview on CNN that calling the police during an emergency “comes from a place of privilege.”
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Tsing Tao said:
In the biggest WhoCouldaNode?? in a long time...

Minneapolis City Council Complains About Crime Spike Months After Voting To Abolish Police

  • Members of the Minneapolis city council who voted three months ago to dismantle the police department are now expressing concern over crime spikes in the city.
  • City council members asked the Minneapolis police chief during a business meeting Tuesday how to grapple with an uptick in carjackings, robberies and street racing.
  • One city councilman noted the drastic reversal on the part of his colleagues, saying he was “flabbergasted” that members who earlier wanted to abolish the police department are now claiming it is not doing enough to fight crime.
Three months after voting to dismantle the Minneapolis police department, city council members there spent much of a business meeting on Tuesday complaining about an uptick in violent crime across the city.


Several city council members told police chief Medaria Arradondo at the meeting that their constituents were concerned about increased criminal activity.

City council members Lisa Bender, Steve Fletcher and Andrew Johnson led off the two-hour meeting with questions about the crime wave.

All three of the council members voted on June 12 to abolish the police department in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. The trio also took part in a protest on June 7 in which they took a pledge to dismantle the police department.




“We are here today to begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department and creating [a] new transformative model for cultivating safety in Minneapolis,” the joint statement in June said, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Fletcher told Arradondo during the city council meeting Tuesday that constituents told him that rank-and-file police officers were “not doing anything to prevent robberies” in a neighborhood called Marcy Holmes. He also decried “a significant increase in extremely dangerous and reckless driving.” (RELATED: Minneapolis City Council Vows To ‘Dismantle’ The Police)

“I’d love to know a little more about what the robbery suppression work is and what are we doing what’s been sort of a pattern in Marcy over the past six weeks?” Fletcher asked Arradondo.

Fletcher wrote in an essay for TIME on June 5 that he was “publicly supporting the call to disband our police department and start fresh with a community-oriented, non-violent public safety and outreach capacity.”

Bender, the president of the city council, also told Arradondo Tuesday that constituents have said that police officers “are not enforcing crime.”

“This is not new, but it is very concerning in the current context,” she said, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

Bender speculated that officers may be refusing to respond to criminal complaints “because they don’t support council member, or in some cases, the mayor, or perhaps they think that they’re making the case for more resources for the department.”

“How do we get this under control?” she asked.

Bender was a leading proponent for dismantling the police department. She drew national attention in June when she said in an interview on CNN that calling the police during an emergency “comes from a place of privilege.”

Andrew Johnson asked Arradondo about an uptick in carjackings in his ward.

“I would appreciate some more information on how we’re addressing the carjackings. There have been a number of them in the community, and they’ve really terrorized residents,” said Johnson.

“How do we stop it?” he asked. “Because it seems like a huge problem and it’s something we absolutely want to stop and it also seems very difficult to stop.”

He lamented that the police department has a “no chase policy.”

“How we actually hold these individuals accountable, get them off the streets so they aren’t terrorizing the community?”

Though Johnson endorsed the pledge to abolish the police department in June, he told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Wednesday that he supports an armed law enforcement agency that “would continue to go after carjackers and violent criminals.”

He said that the controversial aspect of the debate in Minneapolis is whether to “remake or replace” the police department.

One city councilman, Phillipe Cunningham, noted the inconsistency between members’ complaints about police inaction and their earlier calls to abolish the department.

“What I am sort of flabbergasted by,” said Cunningham, “is colleagues who a very short time ago who were calling for abolition are now suggesting that we should be putting more funding and resources into MPD.”
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Minneapolis residents say crime is rising after funding shift
Complaints come after the city approved a plan in July to move $1.1M in funding from the police department
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/minneapolis-residents-crime-rising-after-funding-shift

Residents of Minneapolis' Southside on Thursday voiced their concerns about rising crime in the area and frustration with the city's response.

Complaints come after the city approved a plan on July 24 to move $1.1 million in funding from the police department to the Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention. Minneapolis protesters called for police reform or a complete defunding of the police department after George Floyd, a Black man, died in police custody on May 25.

"They got for this initiative — this violence prevention initiative. They got $1.1 million to prevent violence or whatever. Well, excuse me, but I haven't seen any prevention of violence," Central neighborhood resident Karen Forbes told KARE11 News.

The Minneapolis Public Health & Safety Committee on Thursday also released the beginning stages of a community safety plan that aims to find alternatives to police and policing activity through proposals such as mental health co-responder teams, domestic violence outreach and a violence prevention fund.

"We were hoping that they would listen to us," Forbes said in reference to a group of residents who reached out to the committee during the meeting to share their ideas for a plan to suppress crime in the area, but the discussion did not allow public comments.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1309311112668745730

Community members will have the opportunity to make public comments on Oct. 8, the Committee told KARE11 in a statement.

Forbes said a bullet recently went through her wall. Bill Rodriguez, who lives in the Bancroft neighborhood, told the outlet that he recently experienced a break-in. Other residents say they've noticed more frequent police sirens and gunshots in the area, KARE11 reported.

The Minneapolis City Council discussed residents' concerns with spikes in crime during a Sept. 16 meeting after voting to transfer funding.

Rodriguez said the Health & Safety Committee "didn't want to take public comments on public safety."

The Committee said in a statement to KARE11 that Thursday's discussion "did not include an open comment period. There was only one period during today’s meeting where the public could provide comments, and that was as part of a public hearing on a proposed food catering ordinance."

"The City has an obligation to ensure all of its public meetings comply with the law and that full and fair access is available to anyone interested in participating. State statute requires us to provide a minimum of three days public notice prior to a public comment period, and today’s staff presentation on transforming public safety did not include public comment," the statement added.

Rodriguez argued that the Committee "easily could've suspended the rules and said, 'OK, you're here, technicality, let's let you speak anyway.' They said, 'No way. Ain't going to happen.'"

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz deployed the state's National Guard in June and late August amid civil unrest in the city after several incidents of White officers shooting Black men and women in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kentucky and other states this summer.
 
Cry me a river. Unless they get out the vote to impeach or recall these clowns, the citizens are getting exactly what they demanded. Awful.
 
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