My dental office in the Linden Hills neighborhood of southwest Minneapolis is boarding up their windows this afternoon. We are a long way from the protests, so let's be clear about what's going on here. We don't have a protest problem. We have a policing problem. A thread:
Minneapolis police do NOT appear to be under the command or control, of our mayor or our excellent police chief. So it seems like a lot of cops have apparently decided to stop doing their jobs until their notorious union chief, Bob Kroll, tells them to go back to work.
Ever since George Floyd was murdered, the police response to peaceful protests has been to:
1) wildly escalate the situation with tear gas and rubber bullets;
2) watch as looters---a very different group than the protesters- move in;
3) Vanish and let the chaos reigns.
Their strategy seems to be: "Either we get to kill Black men when we feel like it with no criticism from you people........or you don't get any law enforcement it all. Nice little city you got there, pity if something happens to it? Do you miss us yet?" For context, the Minneapolis police force is overwhelmingly white and male. Ninety-two percent of them live in the suburbs--often the far suburbs. Their union chief, Bob Kroll, is a huge Trump supporter and open white supremacist.
In short, a big subset of our police department looks (and acts) like they were recruited directly from a Trump rally. They literally seem to hate this progressive city and most of our residents. And they especially hate Black people.
We all live in our own little bubble. The police have been killing unarmed Black men in Minneapolis for years and getting away with it Their first account of George Floyd's death was to announce that he had a "medical" issue while being arrested and alas, died.
The police didn't mention the whole knee-on-neck thingy. So they seemed caught off-guard by the cell-phone video and then the public response to it. They were furious that the four officers involved with killing George Floyd were immediately fired because this rarely happens.
The police were furious that they were being directly criticized by the mayor and governor (both Democrats), which rarely happens. They've been furious at the protests. So the cops have sort of gone on strike here.
With the police openly refusing to do their jobs, they have basically invited the criminals to break into anything they want. It's a very cynical move to change the discussion away from police misconduct to the need for cops to come in and break heads and have law and order.
Hence, lots of businesses are putting up plywood. What else are they supposed to do? The Minneapolis police have basically invited criminals to "have at us."
It's really bad and a little scary. We're being policed by a force with cold contempt for the city and its people.
The arrest of the Derek Chauvin, the cop who kneeled on George Floyd's neck, is a good first step. But it's only a baby step. We need to fire a lot of police officers in order to create a policing model that actually works to protect the city residents.
Creating a truly effective and very different police force will be a long, hard slog of a task. Our local politicians are going to need a lot of support and wind at their sails if they attempt it. Let's begin.
