In this post:
- Minneapolis City Council tries to resurrect moribund ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ Process
- Report: Financial impacts of MPD’s Consent Decree with the MN Department of Human Rights
- MPD creates two new bureaus: Internal Affairs and Constitutional Policing
- ACLU-Colorado sues FBI for infiltrating, subverting state’s racial justice movement
Minneapolis City Council tries to resurrect moribund ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ process
In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, the Minneapolis City Council passed a resolution committing to a Truth and Reconciliation program, with both the African American and Native American communities.
The 2020 resolution created a Working Group and set a goal of getting an initial report by January, 2021 “on the proposed truth and reconciliation process and commission framework.”
Nothing happened. Since then, the city has taken more steps backwards than forwards, and lost credibility along the way.
To its credit, in November the city purchased the People’s Way, a former gas station across the street from Cup Foods where George Floyd was murdered. “The City will own and manage the site in the short term, and we will engage the community to figure out who should own the property in the long term,” a city news release said. Long term goals include creating space for “Racial healing and justice,” and “A national racial justice healing center.”
Other city initiatives have fallen well short of the promises made.
The city established a Division of Race and Equity within the city Coordinator’s Office. From summer, 2020 to Fall, 2021, all but one of its staff resigned, due to frustration over what they called an “anti-Black work culture.”
In the months following Floyd’s death, a fair number of people blocked the intersection of 38th and Chicago — named it George Floyd Square — and wanted it to stay closed to vehicle traffic.
At a Feb. 12, 2021 news conference, the city leaders discussed their plans to reopen George Floyd Square after the Derek Chauvin trial, and their commitment of $10.5 million for “racial healing.”
The $10.5 million was a hollow, insincere gesture.
A 12th Ward constituent wanted to know how the money would be spent, and this is what he learned. Of that $10.5 million, $4.75 million (45 percent) was to reconstruct the 38th and Chicago intersection for planned Bus Rapid Transit improvements. (This was in the works before Floyd’s murder, not “new” money.) Another $5.5 million (52 percent) was for Commercial Property Redevelopment Fund near George Floyd Square, important work but not racial healing.
That left $300,000 (3 percent) to work on “reconciliation, economic inclusion, and transformational racial healing.” That money was split ($150,000 each) between the neighborhood near George Floyd Square and the neighborhood near the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD’s) old Third Precinct building that was burned during the uprising.
In the spring of 2022, the city hired Tyeastia Green, the city’s first director of the Racial Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Department. A year later she was out amid a swirl of controversy.
For years, the city fought the East Phillips Neighborhood’s efforts to redevelop an empty warehouse at the Roof Depot site into a community asset, with affordable housing, an urban garden, a large solar array and more.
East Phillips is a diverse, low-income neighborhood with disproportionately high air pollution.
The city wanted to tear the warehouse down and expand its public works yard there, bringing in more traffic and vehicle exhaust. It violated the spirit of the city’s Green Zone commitment to neighborhoods like East Phillips. (The Green Zone’s tagline is “We’re reducing pollution to make our neighborhoods greener and healthier.”) The East Phillips proposal was the epitome of the Green Zone project.
It took hard organizing, the state legislature, and money to get the city to change plans, which it did, begrudgingly.
City Council member Robin Wonsley (2nd Ward) gave an update on the Truth and Reconciliation process in a recent constituent email.
“I worked with Council Member [Jason] Chavez and Council President [Andrea] Jenkins to allocate $265,000 of the Race, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Department’s existing budget towards Truth and Reconciliation work,” it said.
The Council also approved a legislative directive for the Truth and Reconciliation program, setting new deadlines and requesting a work plan “so that Council and the public can understand the goals and metrics of success for the process.”
The legislative directive asks for the following by Sept. 19:
- An updated Truth and Reconciliation proposal, including success metrics.
- A detailed 12-month and 24-month plan for program operations.
- An assessment of staff, funds, and other resources needed for full program operations in 2024.
Stay tuned.
MPD creates two new deputy chiefs and bureaus: Internal Affairs and Constitutional Policing
Again, an update from Council member Wonsley:
In an effort to comply with the Consent Decree, the Minneapolis City Council voted to create two new bureaus — Internal Affairs and Constitutional Policing — led by two new deputy chiefs.
Wonsley called it a cost-neutral change, because the funding would come from cost savings on unfilled positions for sworn officers.
MPD hasn’t been able to recruit and retain enough officers to meet the 900 officer minimum, leaving millions of unspent dollars, she said.
Report: Financial impacts of MPD’s Consent Decree with the MN Department of Human Rights
City Auditor’s staff reviewed the experiences of other cities, similar to Minneapolis’ size, which have been under Consent Decrees because of police misconduct: Baltimore, New Orleans, and Seattle.
The report provides a lot of data, but draws no conclusions. The following summary is from Council member Wonsley:
Other cities spend around $2 million per year for the independent monitor and about $5 million-$7 million per year for operational changes. In Minneapolis, I believe adamantly that this funding needs to come from MPD and not be an additional burden on taxpayers. The City Charter mandates that MPD receive a budget large enough to cover the number of officers required in the city’s staffing minimum. However, since MPD hasn’t been able to recruit and retain enough officers to meet that minimum, there are millions of dollars that are budgeted for personnel each year but not spent. MPD’s unspent balance must be the source for the costs of the consent decrees. Taxpayers are tired of footing the bill for MPD’s decades of misconduct.
Robin Wonsley
The Intercept: ACLU-Colorado sues FBI for infiltrating racial justice groups
Here’s the top paragraphs, click on the link for the full story.
“The FBI’s secret infiltration and subversion of the racial justice movement in Colorado was challenged Tuesday in a lawsuit alleging that federal and local law enforcement officials abused their powers when they targeted left-wing activists in the summer of 2020.
“The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, accuses the FBI, the Colorado Springs Police Department, and local police officers of overstepping their authority in infiltrating, surveilling, and requesting search warrants aimed at Colorado Springs activists. The FBI’s targeting of racial justice activists was revealed in February by The Intercept and the podcast series “Alphabet Boys.”
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