
Minneapolis City Council looking into disbanding police department - nathcd
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1267891869691850754.html
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themodelplumber
> We can totally reimagine what public safety means, what skills we’re
> recruiting for, what tools we do and don’t need. We can invest in cultural
> competency and mental health training, de-escalation and conflict
> resolution.

I applaud this approach. As a nation of concerned and affected states and
cities, we owe it to ourselves to embark on new experiments, designed from the
start to fit the current environment.

You want a public safety concern that is geared toward a desired outcome?
Design it and refine it. We cannot bring forward a carbon copy of the past and
expect to transcend its worst parts at the same time.

> We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a
> weapon, or pulling out handcuffs.

> The whole world is watching, and we can declare policing as we know it a
> thing of the past, and create a compassionate, non-violent future. It will
> be hard. But so is managing a dysfunctional relationship with an
> unaccountable armed force in our city.

This is so on point. From what I have read so far, it also syncs with relevant
and current research into policing.

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orbz
Note that this worked quite well for Camden, NJ:
[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-
crim...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crime-in-
camden/549542/)

It’s not calling for no police, just starting from scratch imagining what a
police force could be. In the Camden case most of the officers were re-hired.

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nathcd
Thank you so much for sharing that article! When I posted this I was really
hoping someone might be able to point to a parallel. Steve Fletcher from the
OP is my councilmember so I'll pass this on to make sure Camden is looked at.

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mimikatz
This is really interesting, it is the important parts about local government
we don't usually see (RIP real local news). It would be a really good
experiment to try other ways of policing. Police have a lot of levers to push
government Discussed in the thread, and other things like union bloc voting,
etc. Balancing power in government would produce better outcomes for everyone.

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RickJWagner
Yeah, that won't work.

Something has to change, but any solution is still going to need cops. It's
not realistic to think otherwise.

