Just last year, the halls of power in Minnesota shook when people answered the murder of George Floyd by rising up. We marched on the State Capitol, the county attorney, the state attorney general, the police federation and the interstate highways. Day and night, for weeks on end, we faced riot police, tear gas, National Guard troops and white supremacists. The Third Precinct police station was burned, as were hundreds of other buildings. And fires here sparked protests across the world and transformed the political landscape.

Today, when Minneapolis is in the midst of its first local elections since the uprising, voters will consider dozens of candidates for local office, as well as a few ballot measures.

At the top of the ballot will be the mayor’s race. As of this writing, no candidate has a clear path to beat incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, but it’s important that he not be handed an easy victory. We can vote to send a message that he does not have support for his failures to address policing, housing, the pandemic and more. Whether you write in someone else, or if you choose a candidate who stands for things you can support, we urge people of conscience to use ranked choice voting to cast three votes against Jacob Frey.

There’s another chance to vote against Frey, in the form of a ballot question. Question 1 asks to take most city council powers and turn them over to mayoral control. Consolidating power into fewer hands would weaken the fight for working class and oppressed peoples. We can’t just leave Question 1 blank. To be counted against expanded mayoral power, voters need to mark No on their ballots.

There is also a ballot question, Question 3, related to rent control; we support rent control.

While those are easy choices. All of Minneapolis is waiting for the final tally on a measure that aims to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety. The new department would be under the joint control of the mayor and city council, and could still include police. The measure would also end the minimum police staffing requirement currently in the city charter.

Many good people have come out to support this amendment – Question 2 – and it’s been held up as an accomplishment of our movement. We see it as something that came from outside our movement, and which threatens to hinder the fight for real change. We’ll be voting No.

Proponents argue that Question 2 is a pathway to abolition, but also say it’s not that. A campaign website FAQ asks, “Does…it mean abolish or defund the police?” Then answers in bold type, “No. It does not.” Question 2 was born on a stage in Powderhorn Park, adorned with words “Defund police,” but it neither cuts the police budget nor requires the transfer of police funding to other projects or programs. We support investment in mental health resources, addiction services and youth programs, but Question 2 doesn’t mandate any of those.

And while we support ending the staffing requirement in the city charter, that alone does not get us the change our communities need.

First, ending the requirement does not cut the budget or the size of the police force – doing that is still a political decision. This amendment leaves that decision in the hands of the city council. The same city council that declared their “veto-proof majority” on that stage in Powderhorn Park last June and has voted at least twice since then for more money for the Minneapolis Police Department.

Second, to cut the number of cops without addressing accountability is meaningless. Take the example of Derek Chauvin, before he murdered George Floyd. He was a 19-year veteran of MPD with a display case full of commendations and medals. He would not be the first cut from a downsized police force. The only way to get rid of the Derek Chauvins is to demand accountability for someone like him, who has 26 complaints on his record and has killed five people before George Floyd. The killers of Terrence Franklin, Jamar Clark, Travis Jordan and others, are all still working for MPD, and as long-term employees, would be protected from any cuts in the force. The most direct way to ensure accountability is to end the practice of police being allowed to police themselves.

Currently, the Office of Police Conduct Review (OPCR) is responsible for reviewing civilian complaints, but no complaint gets sustained by the OPCR unless a police panel agrees. The group Communities United Against Police Brutality found that only 0.36% of complaints result in discipline (compared to a national average of 7-8% for civilian review boards). Question 2 does nothing to end this practice, nor does it open past complaints or police murders for review.

So long as police control the complaint process, there can be no accountability. So long as no one reviews past harms, there can be no justice. If there is no change in police conduct, cutting the size of the police force doesn’t protect us from police abuses.

Currently, the mayor is the only civilian authority over Minneapolis police. Question 2 would change that, so that the mayor would share power with the city council. While the mayor has proven himself unwilling to rein in police, the city council has also showed us time and again that they are willing to pass the buck even on the things they can do. They have the power to address the complaint process, and have not done so. It is the city council that approves the contract with the Police Officers Federation, but they never press for changes that will protect community members. The city council has the power to eliminate the camping ordinances that invite police to criminalize our unhoused neighbors and carry out merciless evictions, despite the overwhelming housing crisis in our city, yet they have done nothing. These are just a few things that could change on a dime, if the city council were willing to take action. Yes, we need to take power over policing out of the hands of the mayor, but it gets us nowhere to put it into the hands of a body that has shown itself unwilling to make change.

Proponents of Question 2 have invited us to reimagine public safety, but ask us to vote for a proposition that will do nothing to make concrete changes that will protect us from police violence in our communities, or address the harms already done by a violent, racist institution. Some worry that the defeat of Question 2 would be a blow against the movement to end police accountability and win Black liberation. In our view, the defeat of Question 2 will be an opportunity to get the focus back on concrete changes to address the needs our communities have right now.

We will be voting No on Question 2, and throwing our weight behind the fight for community control of the police by establishing an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Commission. Look for it in your ballot in 2022, and join the Black-led grassroots effort to get us there.

#MinneapolisMN #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #Editorials #Opinion #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #Elections #MinneapolisUprising #MinneapolisElections

The highlight of the hearing was the testimony of FBI Special Agent Stephens who is the FBI’s weapons of mass destruction coordinator. Stephens testified that no weapons of mass destruction were used during the uprising except for, perhaps, the CS gas used by law enforcement, which is outlawed in international conflict.

“They are trying to get him for aiding and abetting for something he didn’t do,” said Rupert’s fiancé, who was present for the hearing. “He never even flicked a lighter and they are trying to give him 11 years.”

“If convicted, Rupert is potentially facing more time than [George Floyd’s murderer] Derek Chauvin,” said Jordan Kushner, Rupert’s lawyer.

“Choosing to continue to prosecute these cases is choosing to uplift the injustice of the status quo in spite of the needs of the communities most negatively impacted,” said Paul Estate, a supporter of the arrestee.

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #MinneapolisUprising

Minneapolis, MN – Three months after the murder of George Floyd, and days after the cowardly shooting of Jacob Blake in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the simmering anger in Minneapolis boiled over last night, Wednesday, August 26, after dozens of people witnessed what they believed was another police murder of a Black man.

In the early evening, word spread across social media that police had shot and killed a Black man on a crowded street here. Members of Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar were on the other side of downtown, at a memorial march for Lionel “Twan” Lewis who had been killed by police years ago in Hibbing, Minnesota. Some of them mobilized to the intersection of 8th Street and Nicollet Avenue, where police tape and dozens of Minneapolis Police Department officers and squads held back people who were upset about what had just occurred there.

Activists spoke with several witnesses. One young woman, appearing in a livestream, said, “I was sitting down right there… I see a whole bunch of police officers getting out of their car [shouting] ‘Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Put your hands up! Put your hands up!’” She described how, from her perspective, it had appeared officers shot him, before he landed at her feet.

Other witnesses described a similar sequence of events.

For their part, police claimed the man died by his own hand. They showed a video (there were many surveillance cameras in the area) to a handful of community leaders, who came to the scene to try and calm the angry crowd. The Minneapolis Police Department posted a video of the death on Twitter last night but have since taken it down. Many who viewed the video agree it was suicide, but for the people on that street last night, it was already too much. They saw police run up on a Black man, guns drawn. As they were backing or running away, they heard a gunshot. Looking back, they saw the man on the ground, with a gunshot to his head.

After seeing so many other police murders go unpunished, and seeing no serious efforts to address police violence, despite international outcry, and months of steady protests and organizing, the crowd was not calmed by reports that this may not have been a police murder, that their own eyes were lying to them. Instead, they rallied.

And their righteous anger was greeted with hostility and aggression by police. The crowd had moved up the block to the Target store, and soon, the police attacked with pepper spray. After that, the first windows were broken. Police continued to escalate, and the people responded in kind. Before the night was over, a curfew was imposed and the National Guard was mobilized, alongside MPD officers, county sheriff’s deputies and the Minnesota State Patrol. Defying the curfew, people stayed on the streets, smashing windows, emptying shelves and setting fires at a couple dozen buildings, most of them in the downtown shopping district. More than 130 were arrested. Another curfew has been set for Thursday, August 27.

Protests and other organizing efforts are ongoing, including the fight for community control of the police.

#MinneapolisMN #MinneapolisUprising

What we have watched in Portland is the dress rehearsal for what Trump is preparing for Chicago: an effort to squash the Black Lives Matter protests flowing from this uprising by violent military means. He claims he is targeting the cities controlled by Democrats because of the chaos caused by the largest rebellion in U.S. history.

In truth, broad democratic forces have come together to exercise their right to protest against police murder and violence. We’ve had signals this was coming since Trump’s FBI labeled the movement as Black Identity Extremists. Now they’re seizing on the social unrest to bring about repression against all those united in struggle for Black people to have their rights to protest against police crimes and tyranny.

This is a clarion call to our movement to gather all the forces we can muster in defense of the Black Lives Matter movement, because under the Black Identity Extremist category, we’re all targets.

They’re coming after everybody in the movement, including the mothers and families who are crying out that their loved ones ought not to be murdered with impunity. They’re coming after all those involved in the movement for community control of the police and defunding the police, or as Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa puts it, real police accountability.

We cannot depend on the mayor or the city council to protect us. We must do as we have always done – depend on the organized might of the people to protect us, getting more people into the streets to demand justice – precisely at the moment when they are trying to drive us out of the streets through military occupation and terror.

If we don’t act, federal agents sent to Portland and now Chicago will be the beginning of the end of the democratic rights of the people of this country to protest for rights. It’s not a coincidence that this week also Trump refused to commit to leaving office if Biden wins.

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #NationalAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #MinneapolisUprising

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following resolution from AFSCME Local 3800.

This is another heartbreaking day in America. AFSCME 3800 stands in solidarity with the family, friends, and loved ones of George Floyd, with the Black community, and with everyone demanding police accountability and justice.

WHEREAS on May 25, 2020 a white Minneapolis police officer killed 46 year old George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for eight minutes while he pleaded to be allowed to breathe, and

WHEREAS three other police officers assisted in restraining George Floyd while he was being killed, or spewed anti-black and war-on-drugs rhetoric, or stood by and did nothing, and

WHEREAS the Black community repeatedly faces the deaths of loved ones at the hands of the police, and

WHEREAS the core principle of the labor movement – “An Injury to One is An Injury to All” – requires all working people of conscience to take a stand for justice;

THEREFOR BE IT RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 offers our deepest sympathy to, and stands in solidarity with, the family of George Floyd and the entire community.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 calls for the immediate arrest and vigorous prosecution of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. We further call for the immediate arrest and vigorous prosecution of officers Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Keung for aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 calls for an immediate de-escalation by police and an end to police violence against protesters.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 supports President Gabel’s decision to sever the University of Minnesota’s contracts with the MPD and we call upon other institutions to likewise disassociate.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 calls for immediate and ongoing community oversight of the Minneapolis Police Department.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 calls for a thoroughgoing review of law enforcement policies and practices by federal, state, and local authorities, followed by concrete and systemic reforms to ensure that all people in our society are granted equal treatment by law enforcement and criminal justice systems, regardless of the color of their skin.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 calls for an end to systemic racist police terror and the murder of black and brown people in our communities.

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that AFSCME 3800 will mobilize our members to safely participate in or otherwise support actions called for by those seeking Justice for George Floyd.

White supremacy and systemic oppression must end!

Black Lives Matter!

An injury to one is an injury to all!

Adopted at the May 28, 2020 Membership Meeting

#MinneapolisMN #Labor #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #AFSCMELocal3800 #Antiracism #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #MinneapolisUprising

Washington, DC – The streets around the White House are packed with people, June 6, as the massive protest demanding justice for George Floyd and others who have been impacted by police crimes continues to grow. Many tens of thousands are joining in. President Trump finds himself increasingly isolated. The National Guard and federal paramilitary forces have been deployed in the city.

#WashingtonDC #OppressedNationalities #US #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #DonaldTrump #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #MinneapolisUprising

Milwaukee, WI – On June 6, workers from across the city of Milwaukee joined a labor contingent in support of a rally and march for police accountability.

The march was hosted by the family of Alvin Cole and the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression to demand justice for “The Three”: Alvin Cole, Jay Anderson, Jr., and Antonio Gonzales – all victims of Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Anthony Mensah.

Union workers of the labor contingent could be seen wearing t-shirts and buttons from AFSCME, AFGE, AFT, IAM, IATSE, NALC, Workers United, Teamsters, Nurses, and others, along with the Milwaukee Area Labor Council (MALC).

The contingent was organized by members of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Young Wo