Minneapolis City Council passes resolution to replace police with 'community safety' model

The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to adopt a resolution officially committing to replace the city's police department with a to-be-developed "community safety" model.

What are the details?

Earlier in the week, a veto-proof majority of council members pledged to activists that the Minneapolis Police Department would be dismantled in response to protests over the death of George Floyd in MPD custody.

On Friday, the entire council voted in a favor of a resolution "declaring the intent to create a transformative new model for cultivating safety" in the city to replace its police force.

The resolution calls for the formation of a working group tasked with developing "a set of preliminary recommendations for engaging with specific cultural and stakeholder groups, the community at large and relevant experts that can partner with the City to help Minneapolis transition to a transformative new model for cultivating community safety."

It further declared that "the City Council will engage with every willing community member in Minneapolis, centering the voices of Black people, American Indian people, people of color, immigrants, victims of harm, and other stakeholders who have been historically marginalized or under-served by our present system."

The working group will spend a year developing the plan, including "the potential creation of a new City Department of Community Safety."

Anything else?

Reuters reported that "the movement to 'defund the police,' as some advocates have termed it, predates the current protests. It has won new support since a video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee to the neck of Floyd horrified viewers around the world."

The council's resolution notes, "George Floyd was not the first person killed by Minneapolis police, but joins a tragically long list of names including Tycel Nelson, Barbara Schneider, Fong Lee, David Cornelius Smith, Terrance Franklin, Jamar Clark, Justine Ruszczyk-Damond, Thurman Blevins, Travis Jordan, Chiasher Fong Vue, and others."