On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of people rallied at a Minneapolis park to call for more changes to the city's police department. Nine out of 13 Minneapolis City Council members stood up on the stage to announce their intent to disband the city's police department, CBS Minnesota reports. The announcement comes after council president Lisa Bender and member Jeremiah Ellison tweeted last week that they plan to dismantle the police department.
The alternative offer had to do with taking the department money and putting it toward community initiatives that strengthen safety, CBS Minnesota points out. Concrete details about how to do the work of dismantling MPD were less defined, although council member Philippe Cunningham said the upcoming budget is a great place to start. "We're not going to tomorrow all the sudden have nobody for you to call for help. There will be thoughtful and intentional work that's done, research engagement, learning that happens in a transition that will happen over time," Cunningham said. Many people have asked, in this visionary future with no police, "Who do you call when there's no 911?" One of the speakers on Sunday said it would be family and neighbors.
I'm not sure why that person said that or who they are. 911 doesn't mean an armed police officer needs to be the person that shows up though because the vast majority of the things police do don't involve armed conflict or the threat of armed conflict. Plus, we could hypothetically disband the current police departments and still have people available to respond to the true life or death situations. This is why I said we're at the very very early stages of this. It's a movement that is being galvanized well before its expected time due to public police fuckery. People don't have their talking points down yet.
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I gotta be righteous, I gotta be me, I gotta be conscious, I gotta be free, I gotta be able, I gotta attack, I gotta be stable, I gotta be black.