BREAKING NEWS: Minneapolis City Council announces its intention to ‘dismantle’ the police department and switch to a community policing model in the wake of George Floyd’s death and subsequent protests
Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intention to make radical changes in the city’s police department.
Nine of the council’s 12 members appeared at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon and vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it.
The council members ended up standing before hundreds of people on a grassy hill and pledged to begin the process of taking apart the Police Department in its current form.
Council Member Jeremiah Ellison promised that the council would ‘dismantle’ the department.
Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intention to make radical changes in the city’s police department. Pictured, Flowers, signs and balloons are left near a makeshift memorial to George Floyd near the spot where he died while in custody of the Minneapolis police.
Minneapolis was the center of both violent and peaceful protests following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.
‘It shouldn’t have taken so much death to get us here,’ said Kandace Montgomery, the director of Black Vision at the rally. ‘We’re safer without armed, unaccountable patrols supported by the state hunting black people.’
Floyd, a black man in handcuffs, died after a white officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck, ignoring Floyd’s ‘I can’t breathe’ cries and holding it there even after Floyd stopped moving.
Community activists have criticized the department for years for what they say is a racist and brutal culture that resists change and had been pushing for a new model.
The state of Minnesota launched a civil rights investigation of the department last week, and the first concrete changes came Friday when the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints.
A more complete remaking of the department is likely to unfold in coming months.
Derek Chauvin, 44, the officer filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck during his arrest was a 19-year veteran of the force. He faces murder charges in Floyd’s death
George Floyd was filmed two weeks ago on Monday begging the Minneapolis cop to stop and told him he could not breathe before he lost consciousness and later died