The city council of Minneapolis Sunday announced that the city's police department would implement a new model after the killing of George Floyd.
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“In Minneapolis and cities across the U.S., it is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” Minneapolis city council president Lisa Bender said.
Minneapolis councilmembers pledged to build a community-led police model, as an alternative to violent body involved in George Floyd’s murder. The administrative decision was a response to the nationwide calls for justice. Nine councilmembers out of twelve supported the pronouncement.
“Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period. Our commitment is to do what is necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth: that the Minneapolis police are not doing that. Our commitment is to end policing as we know it and to recreate systems of public safety that keep us safe,” Bender expressed in a community rally.
According to local news media, Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, did not comment on the police disbandment intention. Furthermore, Minneapolis Police union leader Bob Kroll, a Trump supporter, described Floyd as a violent criminal and declared on Derek Chauvin’s behalf.
“This is a moment that’s going to go down in history as a landmark in the police and prison abolition movement. There is a groundswell of support for this. People are grounded in the history of policing in a way that has never happened before. It’s visible that police are not able to create safety for communities,” a Minneapolis civil rights activist Tony Williams said.
Protests erupted in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s assassination on May 25. Demonstrations started as pacific sits-in but derived in violent confrontations and lootings in US major cities.
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, San Francisco, and other cities’ local policymakers also have expressed support for some alternatives to traditional based police forces’ model.