The Economist October 30th 2021 United States 53Policeandpolitics(1):MinneapolisA question of safety
Y
oucannotavoid his faceanywhere
you go. More than a year after the mur
der of George Floyd, and a few months after
the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the po
lice officer who knelt on his neck, the
memory of Floyd remains almost haunt
ingly imposed upon Minneapolis. The
street where he was killed is demarcated by
two enormous constructions of black fists
raised in the air; the site of his death is a
makeshift memorial with fresh flowers in
spite of the stiff October chill; murals of
him and of protests envelop the city.
Despite the upheaval that his death and
its ensuing protests caused in the city and
the country, precious little about policing
in America seems to have changed. Cities
that hastily cut police budgets are now re
versing course in the face of resurgent vio
lence. After months of negotiation, a
vaunted bipartisan policereform deal in
Congress has collapsed.
On November 2nd, however, voters in
Minneapolis will have the chance to do
something drastic. As well as passing judg
ment on Jacob Frey, the incumbent mayor
seeking reelection, they are also voting on
whether to replace the Minneapolis Police
Department with a new Department of
Public Safety that “employs a comprehen
sive publichealth approach”, and to elimi
nate a mandatory minimum of police offi
cers established in the city’s charter.
In a city where there were as many asnineBidenvotersforeveryTrumpsuppor
ter in the last presidential election, such a
referendum would pass easily if Demo
crats were united. They are not. Mr Frey is
running against the measure. The state’s
governor and senators, all Democrats, are
opposed to the idea of repealing and re
placing the police department. But Keith
Ellison, the state attorneygeneral who
won a murder trial against Mr Chauvin, is
for it. “If we don’t make changes to the cir
cumstances that brought us to George
Floyd and the aftermath, we’re going to get
more of it...And I want to do something dif
ferent,” he says.Rhetoric and reality
The critical division is over whether or not
the plan is a pretext to “defund the police”.
Opponents insist it is sloganeering mas
querading as policy. “I have never support
ed defunding or abolishing the police,”
wrote Mr Freywhen defending his stance.
Shortly after Floyd’s murder, a majority of
the city council appeared at a rally at
Powderhorn Park on a stage in front of
which “DEFUND POLICE” appeared in gi
gantic block letters.
Advocates for reform have adjusted
their language. As with the civilrights
movement, “those farthest on the left are
what pushed the movement...we shifted
the narrative from reform to defund,” says
Sheila Nezhad, a community organiserrunning for mayor who is posing a stiff
challenge to Mr Frey. Having contributed
to a report on policing that argued that “ab
olition is the only way forward”, Ms Nez
had now avoids such rhetoric on the cam
paign trail, preferring words like “rein
vest”. Kate Knuth, another candidate for
mayor who supports the reform, says: “My
vision of a department of public safety ab
solutely includes police,” funded at the
same levels as today.
Reform campaigners in Minneapolis
favour a less provocative slogan, “Expand
public safety”, for their yard signs. The es
tablished minimum size of the force—17
officers per 10,000 residents—is not partic
ularly high for a large city, though it is un
usual in being so explicit. The argument
for abolishing it is that it is an impediment
to reform. “It’s not revolutionary or radical,
it is literally a commonsense step to keep
ing people safe, and quite frankly benefits
police officers”, who are overstretched, ar
gues JaNaé Bates, a church minister and
leading campaigner. Lawenforcement of
ficers would remain, she says, but some
funding would be reallocated towards oth
er means of emergency response, such as
mentalhealth professionals.
Advocates hope that the proposed re
branding and the rerouting of funding to
wards unarmed social services will restore
trust among minority communities, with
out risking a backlash among white resi
dents. Such an approach is necessary to
win. Public opinion in favour of “defund
ing” police departments was never high.
The increase in violent crime has made it
even less so.
In June 2020, 41% of Democrats told
surveytakers for the Pew Research Centre
that they wished to reduce local police
budgets. By September 2021 that had
shrunk to 25%. Among the general public,
support declined from 25% to 15%. Official
data recorded a 30% jump in homicides na
tionwide between 2019 and 2020, the larg
est singleyear rise on record. The prelimi
nary evidence for 2021 suggests that the
rate may continue to grow. Minneapolis is
on pace to have 88 murders this year—the
most in the city in the past 25 years.
The energy for police reform is often in
versely related to crime. That puts reform
ers in a difficult position. In August 2020
the city council in Austin, Texas, voted to
trim its annual policing budget by one
third. Its most recent budget reversed that
entirely. There is now a referendum in that
city to institute a minimum staffing re
quirement for policing—exactly the kind
that Minneapolis is currently trying to un
do. Other Democratled cities, like Atlanta
and New York, have had to reverse earlier
pronouncements on reduced police fund
ing in the faceofincreased crime. If Min
neapolis votesdifferently, it would buck an
emerging trend.nM INNEAPOLIS
George Floyd’s city prepares to vote on the future of its police department