Specifically in Minneapolis we’ve tried really hard but the current system is just so entrenched and FUD about proposed alternatives can easily be sewn in the communities that aren’t impacted by the MPDs awful practices. A critical first step was removing the MPDs guaranteed protections that are baked into the city charter. That can only be done through a ballot initiative which has to be approved by an unelected panel of people appointed by local judges. That panel refused to put the initiative that city council passed on the ballot, so what do we do? Pressure the panel, pressure the judges, wait for new elections to put in new judges, but most of them run unopposed, who’s going to become a full time judge just to appoint a panel member that their constituents want? This was just the first of many battles that are still ongoing, and as the wounds of the Minneapolis uprising heal (at least in the eyes communities unaffected by the MPD) the movement is losing stream. People just want to get back to their lives and are tired of all the politics and are not too concerned about police malpractice when it comes down to it. They don’t even care about the millions we spend in police settlements every year so long as they don’t have to get political.
Specifically in Minneapolis we’ve tried really hard but the current system is just so entrenched and FUD about proposed alternatives can easily be sewn in the communities that aren’t impacted by the MPDs awful practices. A critical first step was removing the MPDs guaranteed protections that are baked into the city charter. That can only be done through a ballot initiative which has to be approved by an unelected panel of people appointed by local judges. That panel refused to put the initiative that city council passed on the ballot, so what do we do? Pressure the panel, pressure the judges, wait for new elections to put in new judges, but most of them run unopposed, who’s going to become a full time judge just to appoint a panel member that their constituents want? This was just the first of many battles that are still ongoing, and as the wounds of the Minneapolis uprising heal (at least in the eyes communities unaffected by the MPD) the movement is losing stream. People just want to get back to their lives and are tired of all the politics and are not too concerned about police malpractice when it comes down to it. They don’t even care about the millions we spend in police settlements every year so long as they don’t have to get political.