Another day, another police beating in America

[GreyICE]

Eh, kinda good news. Like so many things on the fast track, there appear to be a lot of issues that are not very well thought out.

I'd say having a police force with a union run by a white supremacist isn't very well thought out, but hey, what's a little double standard? Like "it's not well thought out." Okay, why not supply well thought out ideas, because "stick with what we've got" is not well thought out. It's not working.

[LittleRaven]

I'd say having a police force with a union run by a white supremacist isn't very well thought out, but hey, what's a little double standard? Like "it's not well thought out." Okay, why not supply well thought out ideas, because "stick with what we've got" is not well thought out. It's not working.

I think you may be reading some tone into my message that I didn't intend. I have zero problem with disbanding the MPD....god knows that department appears to have gone completely off the rails. But effectively replacing it means much more than just changing the name to Community Safety and Violence Prevention. I don't think very many people consider ICE to be much of an improvement over the old INS, because despite the new name and the (ostensible) new mission...it's pretty much the same people doing the same job. If that happens in Minneapolis, I fear you're going to see the same result.

And making sure that doesn't happen means dealing with all those elephants that the Mayor is talking about. How do you deal with the police union? How do you screen officers from the old police force before rolling them into the new Violence Prevention force? How does the current police chief fit in, and who does the new one report to? (and no, having someone report to 14 different people will not work in real life. Having more than 1 boss is asking for trouble. Having 14 is just asinine.)

These are hard questions that are probably going to take some time to work out. I realize that there's a tremendous desire to fast-track this, but when people are rushed, they default to what they know, and that's exactly what we don't want here.

[GreyICE]

I'd say having a police force with a union run by a white supremacist isn't very well thought out, but hey, what's a little double standard? Like "it's not well thought out." Okay, why not supply well thought out ideas, because "stick with what we've got" is not well thought out. It's not working.

I think you may be reading some tone into my message that I didn't intend. I have zero problem with disbanding the MPD....god knows that department appears to have gone completely off the rails. But effectively replacing it means much more than just changing the name to Community Safety and Violence Prevention. I don't think very many people consider ICE to be much of an improvement over the old INS, because despite the new name and the (ostensible) new mission...it's pretty much the same people doing the same job. If that happens in Minneapolis, I fear you're going to see the same result.

And making sure that doesn't happen means dealing with all those elephants that the Mayor is talking about. How do you deal with the police union? How do you screen officers from the old police force before rolling them into the new Violence Prevention force? How does the current police chief fit in, and who does the new one report to? (and no, having someone report to 14 different people will not work in real life. Having more than 1 boss is asking for trouble. Having 14 is just asinine.)

These are hard questions that are probably going to take some time to work out. I realize that there's a tremendous desire to fast-track this, but when people are rushed, they default to what they know, and that's exactly what we don't want here.

INS old functions got split out when it was rolled into DHS. ICE is a wing of DHS, and I don't know many people on the left wing who think the Department of Homeland Security was a good idea. One of those shitty Bush-era things that got him in the running for Worst President of the Century before we realized it was gonna be a fucking competition (and it might not last all century).

As for the questions, well before that - it's a little silly to take the Mayor's complaint completely at face value. Reporting to the mayor and the city council doesn't give you 14 bosses, it gives you 14 people you report to. Ideally the mayor and the city council would rarely step in for a properly functioning department. It's like the local DOT - the mayor and city council might get involved if they need funding for a new bridge, or if the department is screwed up. The DOT doesn't collapse if it reports to the mayor and the city council, because that's how most departments work, and when they work they're pretty autonomous.

The mayor and the police chief are tight, and he's very afraid of losing his authority (right now the MPD chief answers basically to him. Bob Kroll answers to no one, as people have known for years now - there's been protests since the chucklefuck since forever).

This gets it on the ballot. Once it's on the ballot and voted for, then it can begin. In other words, you're basically talking a process that is five months out from even starting, and you're worried it's moving too fast. What would be slow enough? Waiting five years before we start? Five decades? Maybe until climate change is fucking killing us all off?

[Darth Wedgius]

Hey, no police in Minneapolis means there's no one to arrest you for concealed or open carry, right? 2nd Amendment win!

[LittleRaven]

As for the questions, well before that - it's a little silly to take the Mayor's complaint completely at face value. Reporting to the mayor and the city council doesn't give you 14 bosses, it gives you 14 people you report to.

That is not how I usually hear the word used.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/report-to-sb

Someone you report to at work is the person in authority over you who gives you tasks and checks that you do them:to work for someone and be managed by them

Here in Texas, if you report to someone, that means they have the power to tell you what to do and have the authority to fire you if you don't do it to their satisfaction. That won't work with 14 people, in any setting. Maybe they use words differently up north.

The DOT doesn't collapse if it reports to the mayor and the city council, because that's how most departments work, and when they work they're pretty autonomous.

In my state government, "the DOT" is not a person, so it doesn't report to anyone. TxDOT has an Executive Director, but he doesn't really "report" to anyone either. He could be ousted, but that would be a political process, not an executive decision.

The mayor and the police chief are tight, and he's very afraid of losing his authority (right now the MPD chief answers basically to him. Bob Kroll answers to no one, as people have known for years now - there's been protests since the chucklefuck since forever).

I live a long way from Minneapolis, so I have no particular insight into this matter. If you say the Mayor is incompetent or blinded by his lust for power, then I'll believe you. (it would certainly line up with the current state of the city) I just know that if you tried to replace the police department in my town, it would be amazingly complicated. You would have to get a lot of moving parts to stop, realign, and restart without blowing anything up. I suspect trying to rush that process would end in disaster, and lead to years if not decades of court battles.

But hey, maybe things work differently up north. I certainly hope so.

In other words, you're basically talking a process that is five months out from even starting, and you're worried it's moving too fast.

I'm not worried that it's moving too fast - Jacob Frey is. I don't live in Minneapolis, I don't know any Minneapolis insider baseball, and frankly, I have no skin in this game. But I do know that when you plan on revamping a huge part of a city's infrastructure, it's very, very helpful to have the Mayor fully on board.

Maybe you guys should replace him, while you're at it?

[GreyICE]

I'm not worried that it's moving too fast - Jacob Frey is.

Okay. Well, I've already heard what Jacob Frey has to say about it. Since you don't have any particular opinion or useful thoughts of your own, and you're simply repeating what the mayor has already said - aka what I've already heard - then I don't see much value to be gained here. As you say, you have no skin in the game. I happen to think the posts you've made here might reveal you have quite a lot of skin in the game, but hey, who am I to argue with you about what you think?

You have no opinions outside the mayor's, and are not interested in hearing things that don't come from the mayor. As I am not the mayor, I am not of interest to you.

I do think some of the shit you've spouted is offensively ignorant, but as I am not a mayor you are clearly not looking to hear it from me or learn from me. When you attacked the very idea of democracy as unworkable? That seems offensive to me. When you asked how the protesters could make you, a white person, more comfortable with their protests about the police beating them and killing them? That certainly seemed a little lacking in empathy, and ignorant to me. But again, I am not a mayor, perhaps you don't care about any of that.

It does make me wonder why you're posting though. If you're only interested in hearing from mayors, did you expect these forums would be a hotbed of them?

[LittleRaven]

Grey, I'm not attacking you here. I'm posting here because I'm interested in what you (and our fellow forum members) have to say. You seem to know a great deal more about what's going on in Minneapolis that your average Joe. To someone like me, who only knows what he reads in the news, that's valuable. I enjoy reading your posts. I'm sorry that you take such offense at mine.

[GreyICE]

Grey, I'm not attacking you here. I'm posting here because I'm interested in what you (and our fellow forum members) have to say. You seem to know a great deal more about what's going on in Minneapolis that your average Joe. To someone like me, who only knows what he reads in the news, that's valuable. I enjoy reading your posts. I'm sorry that you take such offense at mine.

Okay then. Well let me put it this way. Attacking the idea that the police chief has to answer to the council is attacking democracy. Like, literally, the concept of representative democracy. The concept of representative democracy is that we elect people who represent us, and those representatives represent our interest to the government. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not ideally, but they represent us.

If the police chief isn't answerable to them, then we don't have a democracy. We have something more akin to what is called a "police state". And the truism of the police state is that even if you hold some sham elections, you can't ever get the boot off your neck, because you don't elect the police, and the police don't answer to the people you do elect.

So when we say "wow, accountability to the will of the populace is unfeasible..." why? Why is it not possible for democracy as an institution to work? Because this is core shit here. This is the most core we can get. The police have to answer to the populace, because in a democracy, everyone in government answers to the populace.

And we have police that scoff at the idea. That should legitimately fucking scare you.


Look, at the moment, do we have all the answers? No. I can tell you for my city we have the police handling a lot of stupid shit. They answered 161k calls about misparked cars. They handle traffic accidents. They go after nuisance calls. We send armed officers everywhere, and those armed officers don't seem to be making us any safer. Because maybe crime is a structural problem. Maybe crime isn't caused by "darkness lurking in the hearts of men" but people who want money, don't have the slightest hope of getting it legitimately, and see a way to earn it. Maybe some of them think that they're owed it because they've been mistreated. Maybe some of them are assholes. Maybe some of them become assholes - there's a lot of research on gang recruiting techniques, they're about the same as white supremacists. Find angry, depressed, lonely people, reach out to them. Feed them attention, acceptance, and bullshit. After a while, you get the truest believer you ever did see.

So Minneapolis is working with an idea that's not new. It's not even that radical. Many "police forces" elsewhere in the world are much more community service. Watch videos of cops in Ireland waking up drunk people and walking them home while joking with them, or talking people down. There's a level of trust between the community and the cops there. That level of trust in America hasn't been broken because of "the media." It's been broken because of what the cops have been doing. The media is just now telling you what the cops have been doing, because cell phone video makes it impossible for them to hide it any longer.

People are sick up to their eyeballs of reforming the police. Because here's the truth. Even the talk of white supremacists in the police force is a red herring to an extent. It's true, but it's not that relevant. The problem is that the police departments are an environment where white supremacists can hide, can act out their bigotry, and can thrive.

What sort of fucking environment is that? Where ordinary people leave, but white supremacists thrive? What's wrong with an organization like that? How fundamentally broken is it?

And they're policing us.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Hi LittleRaven long time.

[LittleRaven]

The concept of representative democracy is that we elect people who represent us, and those representatives represent our interest to the government.

Except....the Mayor is elected, right? So...he acts a representative of the people? So as long as the Police Chief answers to HIM (as is normal in most American cities) the concept of representative democracy is upheld. Right?

It's not like I have some deep ideological objection to the idea of the Police Chief answering to the council, but I think it's going to make for very inefficient government, which comes with a whole new set of problems. There's a reason most cities put the Mayor in that slot. It means you have a single point of decision making, but one that still has to run for re-election, so you can kick them out if they screw up too much.

And the truism of the police state is that even if you hold some sham elections, you can't ever get the boot off your neck, because you don't elect the police, and the police don't answer to the people you do elect.

I guess I just don't see how answering to an elected council is fundamentally different than answering to an elected official in terms of democracy. In both cases, the people elect the boss.

Of course, in practice, the boss (regardless of who they are) often has a very difficult time controlling the police, because the police almost always wield tremendous political power of their own. After all, the police almost always serve to protect the interests of the powerful, which gives them power in turn. I suspect Minneapolis is no exception to that rule. But the police do occasionally overstep their bounds, and I think everyone would agree that the MPD needs to be brought to heel. As far as I can tell, even Fray is firmly behind THAT effort. The disagreements appear to be about the approach, not the goal.

The police have to answer to the populace, because in a democracy, everyone in government answers to the populace.

Uh....no. That would be mob rule, which is appealing at times, but generally counter-productive in the long run. Don't get me wrong, I get what you're saying, (at least I think I do) but there are very good reasons why, for instance, Supreme Court appointments are for life. Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn't answer to ANYONE, and that's a good thing.

Look, at the moment, do we have all the answers? No.

And that's fine. We're mortals, not demigods. Nobody is expected to have all the answers. But when you are in a position where you don't have a LOT of the answers, sometimes its not such a bad thing to take some time to see if you can't gather some.

As far as I know, (and believe me, I'd love it if you could correct me on this) what Minneapolis is attempting to do has never been done before in a city remotely that size. Yes, I'm well aware of the Camden experiment, and of its successes and failures...but Camden only has 70,000 people in it. The Minneapolis metro area has something like 3.5 million. I fear the Camden approach simply won't scale appropriately. (and besides, Camden ended up ultimately rehiring most of the officers on the force. I'm not sure that's what Minneapolis is looking to do.) That doesn't mean they shouldn't do it, like I said, the MPD is clearly out of control. But I can certainly see why Fray would want to move slowly. To do this right, the police union will almost certainly have to be broken, but Minnesota is not a right to work state, so that's probably going to be difficult. The police chief is obviously on board, which will, but I'm willing to be there are a few mines lurking under the surface of Minnesota labor law. Can you really blame Fray for wanting to have all his ducks in a row before he goes into battle?

I assume that there's a fear that if you don't do something NOW and FAST then the momentum will fade and it won't be done at all. That's perfectly legitimate, god knows it's happened plenty of times in the past. But you have to balance that against the fact that you will probably only get one shot at this, so making sure it hits is paramount.

We send armed officers everywhere, and those armed officers don't seem to be making us any safer.

This is complicated topic, and a highly localized one. Many books have been written about it, and I'd love to do a deep dive with you. But by every metric we can collect, you are in fact safer now than you have ever been in the history of this nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Pick a category of crime, and it's decreased over time, at least at a macro level. Please don't take that as an endorsement of our current criminal justice system, which has all kinds of problems. But if you live in America, the odds are overwhelming that crime has noticeably decreased in your lifetime.

Find angry, depressed, lonely people, reach out to them. Feed them attention, acceptance, and bullshit. After a while, you get the truest believer you ever did see.

Yup. That's pretty much the recipe for every group looking for members to cause mischief. Time tested and true.

So Minneapolis is working with an idea that's not new.

Uh....kind of. The goal that Minneapolis is ostensibly driving for is not particularly radical. The approach very much is. I don't pretend to be an expert on this topic, but I've done what reading I can, and I can't find a single example of a city remotely resembling Minneapolis completely retooling its police force. That's a big ask. I don't think anyone denies the necessity, but you can't honestly be surprised that people have different opinions about how it should be achieved.