‘We need the police’: Minneapolis voters reject measure to abolish police

By Thomas Catenacci

Minneapolis residents overwhelmingly rejected a measure to replace the city’s police department with a public safety force on Tuesday.

Voters rejected the measure by a margin of roughly 56% to 43%, according to the Minnesota state database. The measure proposed to alter the Minneapolis City Charter to completely eliminate the existing police department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety that would combine “public safety functions through a comprehensive public health approach.”

“I like the police. We need the police,” Minneapolis resident Wynn Wever, who only voted to oppose the measure, told the Star Tribune.

Wikimedia Commons/Tony Webster

Minneapolis residents overwhelmingly rejected a measure to replace the city’s police department with a public safety force on Tuesday.

Askari Lyons, another city resident, said defunding the police would be “unwise,” according to The Associated Press.

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison endorsed the amendment while Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey joined Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith in opposing it, The New York Times reported.

“The election next week in Minneapolis is no less than a fight of hope vs. fear, of maintaining a broken status quo that killed George Floyd or taking the path of reform,” Omar tweeted on Oct. 26.

“Let’s remember what got us here: the Minneapolis Police Department killed a man, George Floyd, in broad daylight,” she continued.

The attempt to replace the city’s police department was largely influenced by the death of George Floyd, who died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for about 10 minutes in May 2020. Following Floyd’s death, thousands of Americans held protests and riots, causing about $1 billion in damage, with many calling for local governments to defund their police departments.

The Minneapolis city council initially voted to dismantle its police department in June. The council also approved a measure to cut the police budget.

A jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree and third-degree murder earlier this year. Chauvin was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.

But violent crime has surged throughout the city over the last year, ABC affiliate KSTP-TV reported. In 2021, gun-related injuries have surged 26%, homicides have increased 16%, robberies have ticked up 5% and aggravated assaults spiked nearly 3% year-over-year.

“(Police) may have learned a lesson after George Floyd’s death and what happened to the cop that killed him,” Lyons told the AP.

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Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Chad Davis and Wikimedia Commons/Tony Webster

2 thoughts on “‘We need the police’: Minneapolis voters reject measure to abolish police

  1. We are in a bad situation with the police now in America.
    I firmly believe in Law and Order, we need safe, peaceful, well run communities to exercise our freedoms in, to work, raise families and age safely in..we need the police to make sure this happens.
    I have been a supporter of the police for all of my life and I don’t agree with defunding the police at all.
    BUT, I just watched Chris Sununu nod his head and unleash our NH State Police upon a crowd of peaceful people exercising their Rights. People that were not doing a damn thing wrong were arrested here in the Live Free or Die state and this was ordered by a governor supposedly on our own side.. (how many ways of BAD was that move by that dirtbag in the corner office in NH?)
    These kinds of moves have been going on all over the country by the out of control Tyrants that seem to think they own us all like we are livestock.
    So the Police have got to do some long and hard thinking about how they intend to continue on without the support of the taxpayers.
    I really doubt they’ll keep their jobs when people like me decide to go join the Defund The Police movement. I will not continue to pay the police to be misused as the private attack dogs of a tyrannical governor- and I daresay I am certainly not alone in my thinking.
    Have a look at this and do some long hard thinking about how you now feel about the Police today and what we are all going to do about this.. because this is very bad what just happened here in NH.
    https://granitegrok.com/mg_windham/2021/10/why-is-nh-governor-sununu-not-under-investigation

    • This article does not explain what it was about, But is sounds like the ‘wokes’ don’t like the same treatment they have been calling for with conservatives.

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