Police around the U.S. took a less aggressive stance and even sometimes joined protesters demanding a reckoning with institutional racism, as leaders in the city at the center of the latest call for police reforms pushed Sunday to dismantle its department.
Two weeks after George Floyd, a black unemployed bouncer, died in Minneapolis after a white officer pressed a knee on his neck for several minutes, a majority of the City Council vowed to dismantle the 800-member agency.
“It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” said Lisa Bender, the council president. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.”
It’s not the first time an American city has wrestled with how to deal with a police department accused of being overly aggressive or having bias in its ranks. In Ferguson, Missouri — where a white officer in 2014 fatally shot Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old — then-Attorney General Eric Holder said federal authorities were considering dismantling that police department. The city eventually reached an agreement short of that but one that required massive reforms.
The state of Minnesota has launched a civil rights investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department, and the first concrete changes came when the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints.
On Sunday, nine of the City Council’s 12 members vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told protesters outside his house that he doesn’t support the “full abolition” of the police department. Protesters shouted back: “Shame! Shame!” and said they would remember that during next year’s mayoral election.
Protesters nationwide are calling for police reforms in response to Floyd’s death, and calls to “defund the police” have become rallying cries for many. A heavy-handed response to demonstrations in many places has underscored what critics have maintained: Law enforcement is militarized and too often uses excessive force.
Cities imposed curfews as several protests last week were marred by spasms of arson, assaults and smash-and-grab raids on businesses.
More than 10,000 people have been arrested around the country since protests began, according to reports tracked by The Associated Press. Videos have surfaced of officers in riot gear using tear gas or physical force against even peaceful demonstrators.