What to do with the Minneapolis police? The question, which has arisen with unprecedented urgency since the death of George Floyd, is not new in this city with a past charged with police violence. For some, including in city council, the only way out was “dismantling,” given the failures of previous efforts to reform the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). But the inhabitants of the city decided otherwise.
→ REPORT. Minneapolis hasn’t forgotten George Floyd
Minneapolis says “no”
Before George Floyd, there was Philando Castile (2016), Jamar Clark (2015), David Smith (2010), Christopher Burns (2002)… All of them died after meeting MPD agents. Their deaths, in this city which votes for the Democratic Party, had given rise to initiatives to better train the police officers, to change their habits… In vain.
Hence the decision of the municipal council, in June 2020, to pave the way for the replacement of the MPD by an alternative structure, composed in particular of mental health professionals and unarmed social workers, deemed more competent to manage certain interventions. . “Decades of effort have proven that the Minneapolis police cannot be reformed and will never be held accountable for their actions, then explained the elected in a press release. We will initiate the dismantling of the police force and the creation of a new model of security for our city. “
It is on this project that voters were invited, Tuesday, November 2, to vote by referendum. Without ambiguity, they said “no”, over 56%.
Strategic mistakes
This result does not mean the rejection of all police reform. First because the dismantling was not unanimous in the Democratic camp: figures of the party committed to reform at the federal level, such as Senator Amy Klobuchar, candidate for the nomination of the party for the presidential election of 2020, had taken party for the “no”, unlike more radical personalities, like the deputy Ilhan Omar.
Then because the vote took place in a context of rising crime in the United States – at a level far removed from the records of the 1990s despite everything. A poor context for a project which envisaged, among other things, removing the minimum threshold for the number of police officers in Minneapolis, specified in the texts currently in force.
“In addition, it was a project still rather vague, which did not help to reassure the voters”, analysis Didier Combeau, specialist in police matters in the United States. In the same way as the expression “defund the police” (“Cut the funds of the police”), slogan which accompanied the demonstrations since the spring of 2020 and suggests that a future without means for the forces of the order is possible …
Impasse at federal level
Almost a year and a half after the death of George Floyd, the situation has hardly changed in the United States in terms of police violence. In the street first, where the statistics remain at the pre-2020 level: according to data compiled by the Washington Post, US police still kill nearly 1,000 people a year, and 2021 should be no exception (735 dead to date).
→ ANALYSIS. The impossible reform of the American police
Then to Congress. Despite the efforts of elected members of the Democratic Party and the commitment of President Joe Biden, bills proposing to reform the police force (there are 18,000 in the United States, which depend on cities or counties), remain in place. died at the Capitol. The “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act” was indeed approved in March 2021 in the House of Representatives, but it is deadlocked in the Senate, due to lack of support from elected representatives of the Republican Party.
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