WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020 A
NMINNEAPOLIS — Nearly two months
after four of its officers were charged with
killing George Floyd, the Minneapolis Po-
lice Department is reeling, with police offi-
cers leaving the job in large numbers, crime
surging and politicians planning an over-
haul of the force.
Veteran officers say that morale is lower
than they have ever experienced. Some of-
ficers are scaling back their policing efforts,
concerned that any contentious interac-
tions on the street could land them in trou-
ble. And many others are calling it quits al-
together.
“It’s almost like a nuclear bomb hit the
city, and the people who didn’t perish are
standing around,” Officer Rich Walker Sr., a
16-year Minneapolis police veteran and un-
ion official, said of the mood within the de-
partment. “I’m still surprised that we’ve
got cops showing up to work, to be honest.”
Many American police departments
have faced challenges in retention and re-
cruitment in recent years amid growing
criticism of police abuses. But the woes in
Minneapolis and elsewhere have only
grown since May, when Mr. Floyd was
killed while being detained.
Nearly 200 officers have applied to leave
the Minneapolis Police Department be-
cause of what they describe as post-trau-
matic stress, said Ronald F. Meuser Jr., a
lawyer representing the officers. The
prospect that a department of about 850
could lose about 20 percent of its force in the
coming months has prompted major con-
cern.
Already, about 65 officers have left the
department this year, surpassing the typi-
cal attrition rate of 45 a year, Chief Medaria
Arradondo told the City Council during a
meeting last week. Dozens of other officers
have taken temporary leave since Mr.
Floyd’s death, complicating the staffing pic-
ture.
Minneapolis’s police force has long had a
troubled relationship with the community.
Excessive force complaints have become
commonplace, especially by Black resi-
dents, who account for about 20 percent of
the city’s population but are more likely to
be pulled over, arrested and have force used
against them than white residents.
Cmdr. Scott Gerlicher, head of the Special
Operations and Intelligence Division,
wrote in an email to supervisors this month
that “due to significant staffing losses of
late,” the department was “looking at all op-
tions” for responding to calls, including
shift, schedule and organizational changes.
The email, a copy of which was obtained
by The New York Times, also said the de-
partment would not “be going back to busi-
ness as usual.” The guiding principle going
forward, Commander Gerlicher wrote,
would be to “do no harm,” and he high-
lighted potential reforms, including, “look-
ing for reasonable and safe alternatives to
police services in some areas.”
“Front-line supervisors play the most
critical role in making meaningful
changes,” he wrote. “Don’t take this lightly.”
With fewer officers, some of those patrol-
ling the streets find themselves stretched
thin and working longer hours. Complaints
about the lack of support from politicians,
community members and even department
commanders are part of the daily conversa-
tion in precincts and squad cars.
For years, police departments nation-
wide have faced a work force crisis, accord-
ing to a report published last year by the Po-
lice Executive Research Forum. In a survey
of more than 400 departments nationwide,
the forum found that 63 percent of them
saw a slight or significant decrease in the
number of applicants over the previous five
years, 41 percent had growing staff short-
ages and nearly half reported that officer
tenures were decreasing.
The current climate differs from six
years ago — when the police killing of Mi-
chael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., incited na-
tional unrest — in that the demands are not
just to reform police departments, but to
get rid of them, said Chuck Wexler, the ex-
ecutive director of the forum.
Many activists see an overdue re-evalua-
tion for an institution that they say has long
gotten away with brutalizing people of color
with impunity.
“Policing as an institution has largely
been untouchable, despite the many, many,
many failings that are cultural,” said Jere-
miah Ellison, a Minneapolis City Council
member who supports defunding the po-
lice. “Here we are in a moment where peo-
ple all over the country are saying, ‘No, no,
no, no, no, we are interested in real account-
ability.’ ”
Instead of embracing change, Mr. Ellison
added, the police are saying, “You’re pick-
ing on us, you don’t know how hard our job
is and we’re going home.”
Several officers in Minneapolis said they
felt as if they all were being stereotyped be-
cause of Derek Chauvin, the white former
officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck for
more than eight minutes before Mr. Floyd
died.
“If anything has the propensity to have a
violent interaction, we already know we’re
judged before they even hear the facts,”
said Officer Walker, whose stop of a motor-
ist 11 years ago led to a lawsuit that the city
settled for $235,000 after several respond-
ing officers punched and kicked the driver
in an episode captured on video.
To Sasha Cotton, the director of the Office
of Violence Prevention in Minneapolis,
there is a cruel irony to officers saying they
feel stereotyped. Her office regularly works
with Black men and boys to try to keep
them away from violence.
“Our officers are experiencing what so
often our young men and boys, who we
service through the program, say they feel,”
she said. “They feel like they are being
judged based on the behavior of some of
their peers.”
Minneapolis officers say that much of
their frustration is rooted in an uncertainty
over what comes next. A majority of City
Council members have pledged to defund
the Police Department, and they are cur-
rently in the process of trying to replace the
agency with a new public safety depart-
ment.
Many officers say they feel like city lead-
ers and some residents have turned their
backs on them, making them less inclined
to go “above and beyond what they need to
do,” Officer Walker, the union official, said.
“Cops have not been to the work level of
before, but it’s not a slowdown,” he added.
“They’re just not being as proactive be-
cause they know they’re not supported in
case something bad happens.”
Officers said they were also concerned
about their job security.
Sgt. Anna Hedberg, a 14-year Minneapo-
lis police veteran and board member of the
Minneapolis Police Federation, the union
representing officers, said a colleague re-cently told her he had another job opportu-
nity. He has been on the force for six years,
but it takes 10 years to be fully vested in his
pension, so he was unsure whether he
should leave.
“I told him to leave because he’s not
happy,” Sergeant Hedberg said.
The tensions between the city and its Po-
lice Department come as crime is on the
rise. There have been 16 homicides since
June 1, more than twice as many as during
the same period last year. Violent crime is
up by 20 percent compared with the same
stretch a year ago. Experts say there are
many reasons for the spike, not just police
staffing levels.
Alondra Cano, a City Council member
who supports defunding the police, said
that any change to the department would
take time and that officers would not lose
their jobs overnight. It would be better for
everyone — officers included — if they
worked together toward a transition, she
said.
“I would prefer that people don’t resort to
those extreme decisions of quitting or col-
lecting a paycheck but not responding to
calls,” she said.
For one senior officer on leave because of
PTSD symptoms, the problems started
when he could not sleep after long nights of
work during the unrest following Mr.
Floyd’s death. Eventually he got head-
aches, he said, and lost his appetite and de-
sire to do anything.
“We were stepchildren. We were aban-
doned,” said the officer, who asked that his
name be withheld because he was not au-
thorized to speak to the media.
He saw a therapist, who told him he
should take time off. He is torn about
whether he will return.
“I’m coming back to chaos,” he said. “I’m
coming back to no leadership. I’m coming
back to an administration that doesn’t care
about the officers. I’m coming back to a City
Council that doesn’t want us here. I’m com-
ing back to a family, or a community, that
doesn’t want me here. Why do I want to
come back to that?”
Many officers are on edge in part be-
cause they believe that Chief Arradondo
and other senior department leaders have
not provided clear direction to the rank and
file, Sergeant Hedberg said.
“They’re waking up the next day: ‘Is it
going to be the day I get transferred? Is it
the day my unit’s going to be dissolved?’ ”
she said. “People are concerned about it.”
John Elder, a spokesman for the depart-
ment, said in an email: “We have not heard
those complaints; in fact I have received
compliments from staff about the support
from the front office.”
While many officers express anxiety
about the future, Officer Charles Adams III
said he supported the efforts of Chief Ar-
radondo, the first Black officer to lead the
force.
Although Officer Adams has felt unsup-
ported by the community and demoralized
at times — especially after he was removed
from his job as a school resource officer
when the school district ended its contract
with the Police Department — he said
thoughts of leaving the force never crossed
his mind.
“Now is not the time for us to run away,”
said Officer Adams, a 19-year veteran and
native of the city’s predominantly Black
North Side.
“I’m a Black face. I can be out there,” he
added. “I wear blue, but let’s talk: ‘What do
you want to see done? How can I help you?’
I think it’s my opportunity to give people
what they’ve been asking for.”Unrest on One Side, and Uncertainty on the Other
‘It’s almost like a nuclear bomb hit the city, and the
people who didn’t perish are standing around.’
Officer Rich Walker Sr., a 16-year veteran.Minneapolis Police Force
Is Reeling, and Facing
A Surge of Departures
By JOHN ELIGONOfficer Charles Adams III, a 19-
year veteran, said he embraces be-
ing a Black face on the force.Sgt. Anna Hedberg, a 14-year vet-
eran, said many fellow officers
were living in a sort of limbo state.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREA ELLEN REED FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESIn a Republican Party that
prizes total loyalty to President
Trump, Representative Liz Che-
ney of Wyoming, the party’s third-
ranking House leader, has man-
aged a tricky balancing act, re-
peatedly breaking with Mr. Trump
without drawing the ire of the
right.
But on Tuesday, Ms. Cheney, a
staunch conservative, found her-
self facing the backlash she has
long avoided — at the hands of her
own colleagues.
In an extraordinary closed-door
meeting of House Republicans in
an auditorium beneath the Capi-
tol, a group of more than a half-
dozen of Mr. Trump’s most loyal
supporters took aim squarely at
Ms. Cheney.
What began with a complaint
from Representative Matt Gaetz
of Florida about Ms. Cheney’s re-
cent support for a primary chal-
lenger to a sitting House Republi-
can exploded into full-blown pile-
on that included charges that Ms.
Cheney was personally hurting
Republicans’ chances of retaking
the House with her defense of Dr.
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top
infectious disease expert; her
criticism of Mr. Trump’s policies in
the Middle East; and other con-
trarian stances.
At least one lawmaker, Mr.
Gaetz, called for her to step down
as the chairwoman of the House
Republican Conference, the posi-
tion that has made Ms. Cheney the
highest-ranking Republican wom-
an in Washington. And Represent-
ative Jim Jordan of Ohio flatly said
that Republicans would be better
served by a leader who was help-
ing Mr. Trump instead of going af-
ter him.
Ms. Cheney, whose own com-
bative partisanship has turned
heads in the past, punched back
and departed with the apparent
support of her fellow Republican
leaders. She later defended Dr.
Fauci and said she had to do what
she thought was right, including
helping to re-elect Mr. Trump.
But the ugly familial showdown,
which was described by four peo-
ple in the room and was first re-
ported by Politico, reflected a sim-
mering power struggle and sour
mood among Republicans. They
are watching their electoral
prospects sag ahead of Novem-
ber’s elections and pondering
their future in the minority, poten-
tially without Mr. Trump in the
White House to define their party.
With their hopes of reclaiming the
House all but dashed, Republicans
are now fighting to avoid shrink-
ing their numbers in that chamber
and losing the White House, their
majority in the Senate or both —
and looking for people to blame.
The fight also highlighted
deeper divides within the Republi-
can Party three years into Mr.
Trump’s presidency, particularly
over foreign policy and the role of
money in politics, that have left
Ms. Cheney on uneasy ground
with the party’s base. To members
of the ultraconservative Freedom
Caucus, Ms. Cheney is the ulti-
mate avatar for the old Republi-
can establishment: the daughter
of a political dynasty who sup-
ports an aggressive role for the
American military abroad, rubs
elbows in the world of big donorsand has vocally supported the
kind of career nonpartisan gov-
ernment officials leading the coro-
navirus response that they view
as undermining Mr. Trump.
At one point, Representative
Ralph Norman of South Carolina
tied Ms. Cheney to George W.
Bush and his family, who have
cold relations with Mr. Trump.
“I’m not a Bush, and I think you
know that,” Ms. Cheney snapped
back. Her father, Dick Cheney,
served as vice president to Mr.
Bush.
And many of those who went af-
ter Ms. Cheney on Tuesday be-
lieve that the 53-year-old scion is
trying to position herself as a
leader of the Republican Party if
Mr. Trump goes down in Novem-
ber.
A former lawyer and State De-
partment official, Ms. Cheney was
elected to Congress in 2016, along-
side Mr. Trump. Sharp-tongued
and unafraid to get into a fight,
Ms. Cheney wasted little time in
establishing herself as one of Re-
publicans’ most combative brawl-
ers. After her party lost the House
majority in 2018, she leapfrogged
up the leadership ladder.
Ms. Cheney’s allies brush aside
speculation about her future
within the party as “palace in-
trigue” and say her choice to
speak in a fashion at times con-
trary to the president is a matter
of “conscience.” Her aides point
out that she is still working fer-
vently to re-elect Mr. Trump and
retake the House, hosting fund-
raisers and serving in a volunteer
role on his campaign.
It was not clear whether the at-
tacks on Ms. Cheney were coordi-nated, but when she opened Re-
publicans’ weekly closed-door
meeting for questions, her leader-
ship quickly became the primary
topic.
Mr. Gaetz rose first. Was it still
Republican policy, he asked, not to
campaign against sitting col-
leagues or back their primary
challengers? If not, he suggested
he would relish the chance to cam-
paign against
certain col-
leagues.
Mr. Gaetz
was referring to
Ms. Cheney’s
decision this
year to back a
primary chal-
lenger to Rep-
resentative
Thomas Massie
of Kentucky, a contrarian law-
maker whose libertarian leanings
and intense criticisms of Congress
have long been loathed by Repub-
lican leaders. (Ms. Cheney with-
drew her support for the chal-
lenger after racist writings came
to light, and he lost badly to Mr.
Massie in a primary last month.)
Ms. Cheney tried to dismiss the
topic but could not help tossing a
barb back at Mr. Gaetz, telling him
she looked forward to seeing his
HBO documentary — a reference
to a documentary featuring Mr.
Gaetz, Mr. Massie and other mem-
bers of Congress focused on the
influence of corporate money on
American political institutions.
Mr. Massie was not satisfied
and pressed Ms. Cheney himself.
Ms. Cheney said his had been a
“special case” rather than some
change in policy, and tried to turnthe subject to what she said
should be Republicans’ main ob-
jective: beating Democrats. But
Mr. Massie warned colleagues
they could be next, saying that
their chairwoman believed the
rank and file served her, not the
other way around.
The attacks piled on from there.
Representative Chip Roy of
Texas, who is battling to hold his
seat between San Antonio and
Austin, took issue with Ms. Che-
ney’s vocal support of Dr. Fauci.
He noted that his Democratic op-
ponent, Wendy Davis, had shared
a tweet that Ms. Cheney sent call-
ing Dr. Fauci “one of the finest
public servants we have ever
had.”
Republicans were also annoyed
that Ms. Cheney had tweeted a
picture of her father donning a
blue medical mask with the cap-
tion “Dick Cheney says WEAR A
MASK” — an apparent dig at Mr.
Trump’s refusal at the time to
wear a mask in public. As if her
shot at Mr. Trump was not clear
enough, she appended the hash-
tag “#realmenwearmasks.”
Ms. Cheney told Mr. Roy that
the country’s top focus should be
defeating the virus, not attacking
doctors and scientists who have
the best interests of the country in
mind.
Representative Andy Biggs of
Arizona, the chairman of the Free-
dom Caucus, stood up and went
further, accusing Ms. Cheney of
undermining Republicans’
chances of winning back control of
the House. If you don’t have any-
thing nice to say about Mr. Trump,
he urged, don’t say anything at all.
Mr. Jordan thanked Ms. Cheneyfor her defense of Mr. Trump dur-
ing the House impeachment pro-
ceedings, but then unloaded about
her defense of Dr. Fauci, her
broadsides against Mr. Trump’s
policy on Afghanistan and Ger-
many, and her skepticism about
the administration’s response to
intelligence about a possible Rus-
sian bounty scheme.
Ms. Cheney did not flinch, say-
ing she looked forward to hearing
Mr. Jordan lecture about being a
team player when Republicans re-
claim the majority. As a Freedom
Caucus leader, Mr. Jordan was fa-
mously a thorn in the side of suc-
cessive Republican speakers,
marshaling conservative law-
makers against them on issues
like spending and immigration.
Ms. Cheney, through a spokes-
man, declined an interview re-
quest.
But at a news conference Tues-
day afternoon, she tried to down-
play the confrontation as a
“healthy exchange of views” and
redirect attention to Republicans’
shared objectives.
“There is absolutely no ques-
tion what is at stake in this elec-
tion and how much worse off this
country would be under a Biden-
Schumer-Pelosi regime,” Ms. Che-
ney said.
She said that she had spoken at
length with Mr. Massie to try to
smooth things over and that she
always sought to live up to “the
oath I swore to the Constitution.”
“The debates and the discus-
sions that we have reflect how
high the stakes are and how grave
the issues are,” she said.G.O.P. Lawmakers Question Cheney on Her Leadership and Loyalty to Trump
By NICHOLAS FANDOSLiz Cheney