Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey doubled down on his stance against dismantling the city’s police department during an ABC News interview on Monday morning.
Somebody has to be the adult. Democrats can’t start behaving like impulsive Trumptards. The Police Force needs to be reformed, and it may be that the best way to get rid of die schwine is to start a police force from the ground up. But there must be some thinking to be done and some plans to draw. That’s what I liked about Obama, he was a conservative in the real sense of the word, and thought about things and weighted options before opening his mouth.
“Defund the police” is a slogan that might have been dreamed up in the Kremlin.
“Reform the police” is a description of what’s needed.
“Fire each and every one of the police and build a new system entirely from scratch” is, technically, a type of “Reform.”
Fuck the Police is more succinct.
Makes you wonder what happens when you have a defunded / dismantled Police Department, and the next mass school shooter comes along?
Reform the holy hell out of the Departments, but be careful what you wish for in defunding / dismantling.
I’m for dismantling. Decades of police reform have failed. The department is presently undergoing review by Human Rights commission. The fact that despite horrific misconduct these individuals can then return to their jobs with back pay via private arbitration is unconscionable . It also speaks to the power of police union over citizens rights to hold the police accountable …that such was considered as part of so called reform!
So the problems are intractable, endemic & systemic in the police department. The patterns of behavior are known the individuals involved are known including the head of police union being white supremacist. This is not a system amenable to change. It is rotten to the core.
Kroll said this when asked about shootings & abuse:
“They just paid a former Minnesota Viking $385,000 in an out-of-court settlement because he was tased when he wouldn’t leave a bar,” Kroll said, apparently not considering the possibility that the police could have declined to tase him. “The cops tased him,” Kroll said.
You’re giving away money left and right in lawsuits, and you want us to take a bath? So forget it,” Kroll said, adding that the settlement with the family of Terrance Franklin particularly bothered him. Franklin, a burglary suspect, unarmed and 173 pounds, was found hiding in a basement by five officers who unleashed a dog on him. His family’s attorneys say an officer’s semiautomatic weapon accidentally went off, hitting two officers in the legs, and police responded by shooting and killing Franklin in anger.
Police claimed that Franklin attacked an officer and took control of the gun, a charge the family’s attorneys said was absurd and contradicted by evidence. The city eventually agreed to a $795,000 settlement. Kroll said that a good friend of his had killed Franklin: “stepped up and shot him in the head at close range.”
The man was unarmed!
DISMANTLE the Minneapolis police system.
Just throwing this out there…
This is why you disband the forces:
After the Berkut, on orders, fired on protesters in Maidan Square in Kyev, the new government broke up the entire force. Many of them later joined Ukrainian military units fighting in the East.
Sometimes it takes that revolutionary change to actually make changes take root.
If anyone, for example, watches the chief of police in NYC and believes for a second that that brute would allow change to his beloved department…
It might be the only way to dissolve the current MPD police union(s).
Which, in turn, might be the only way to reassemble a new, unvarnished PD.
Out of which-- a new PD union can be formed.
With either disbanding or reforming, there are a lot of Minneapolis cops that need to be fired, starting with the union president. However, firing people without getting sued is tricky. If they fired Kroll, they would absolutely get sued and almost surely lose. One way to get around the problem is to eliminate a position–which requires not hiring a replacement. Disbanding and contracting with the county sheriff’s department may well be the best way to solve the problem even though it sounds egregiously rash and drastic.
Of course the elites, who created the whole system of policing we have precisely to keep black and poor people in line and under foot, would be immediately decrying any attempt at serious changes to it, and suggesting anything possible to undermine efforts to do so.
This slogan to “defund the police” was obviously not vetted by any kind of competent PR person. If you want to strengthen Trump’s argument for law and order, arguing to defund the police will do it; arguing to completely abolish the police, as was demanded of Mayor Frey, is even worse. In a nutshell, it’s a preposterously stupid idea to think that can happen.
There are huge systemic problems with policing in this country, across all municipalities. All of it needs to be realistically and forcefully addressed. Calling for defunding and/or abolishing the police will only encourage the right wing to capitalize on the politics around this issue.
it’s almost like we need gun control, god the conservatives in this place
username checks out
I agree with the Mayor.
The problem in the Minneapolis Police Dept. (and most others) is the POLICE UNION.
The Police Unions unrestricted power, along with the arbitration clauses that allow the Police Union to pick who the arbitrators will be AND force the City to abide by any decision the arbiters make, no matter how outrageous, have created a climate where the Police feel they are (and actually are) Above the Law.
If you shoot an unarmed, not-resisting, docile citizen dead, the Police Union will pay for your attorneys, get you released from jail, make sure you continue to BE PAID BY THE CITY during your trial, smear the victim in the press to poison the jury pool, and as we have seen in Minneapolis, actually use “Blue Flu” slowdowns to punish the city and communities for DARING to question their POWER and Superiority.
On the other hand, if you turn in a bad cop, the Union will DESTROY YOU and make sure you never work in Policing again.
The Minneapolis Police Union is run exactly like a MOB SYNDICATE. As long as you keep your mouth shut and go along, they will protect you and provide you with Mob Lawyers, Mob Money, and Full Support from the other Foot Soldiers. If you “Rat them out” they will DESTROY YOU.
The problem is; How do you break the power of a Municipal Employee Union without destroying it or opening the door for the Fascist Opportunists to destroy ALL Municipal Unions (like they did in Wisconsin.)
I don’t have an answer for it. I wish I did.
All I know is, you don’t burn down your own house to solve a rat problem.
Nobody is arguing that. They’re saying that the current force in place is so beyond reform that you need to disband it and start a new force.
When the leaders all come from the ranks, and are molded by decades in the system, it’s nearly impossible to make real changes.
And the next this is why you have to disband the police domestic terror organizations example:
Who will be left to break up domestic disputes and hand out parking tickets?
John Oliver covered this issue in great detail last night. If you have access to HBO, I highly recommend it. “Defunding” does not mean “abolishing.” It means lowering the amounts of money spent on law enforcement and instead using it for education, mental health professionals and other worthy causes. Unfortunately, some seem to think that we can survive without professional police officers. Not looking forward to that eventuality.
Lessfund the police department. But that could be misconstrued as well.