Myth/Fact Sheet
1. Myth: Minneapolis Defunded Police
Fact: Minneapolis Police are Fully Funded
In June of 2020, 9 City Council Members announced an intention to defund the Minneapolis Police, but they never did. At the end of 2020 they passed a budget for 2021 that maintains the full staffing levels of officers. The new budget moved $7.7 million from the police budget into non-MPD public safety work, but it also put an additional $11 million into MPD’s budget available by request.
Read Robin’s statement on the 2021 Budget
2. Myth: Crime is Up Because There are No Police
Fact: There Are Police, and They Are Not Preventing Crime
Currently, MPD is fully funded, and yet violent crime, theft, and even street racing continue throughout the city. As any victim of a crime can tell you, police do not prevent crime, they arrive afterwards to file a report and investigate. Crime prevention is different from policing. Over the decades, City Hall has heavily invested in policing without making anywhere near the needed investment in crime prevention methods like fully funding housing, jobs programs, youth programs, and public mental healthcare. Data shows that poverty and social inequality in a city are the strongest predictors for crime-- exactly what Minneapolis residents are experiencing as a result of Covid-19. To stop the crime spike, we need to fully fund basic needs.
3. Myth: More Police Lowers Crime
Fact: More Police Increases Incarceration Without Lowering Crime
Data has repeatedly proved that more money for police does NOT lower crime. Most cities, including Minneapolis, have been increasing police budgets for decades without seeing a correlation to crime reduction. Bill Clinton’s infamous 1994 Crime Bill is a notorious example of how increasing police funding doesn’t reduce crime, it merely increases incarceration and criminalization.
4. Myth: The Majority of Minneapolis Residents Support MPD
Fact: The Majority of Minneapolis Residents Want Public Safety and Don’t Favor MPD
Minneapolis residents, like all working class people, simply want to be able to live and work safely in our neighborhoods. In the most recent poll, only 25% of Minneapolis residents had a favorable view of MPD while 2 ½ times as many residents, 66%, have an unfavorable view. That 66% is looking for real change, not more slogans or promises unfulfilled. We have a legal, political, and moral imperative to try and change the governmental structures that aren’t working for us.
5. Myth: Police Are Powerless To Stop Crime Right Now
Fact: Police Are Cynically Using Crime to Benefit Their Agenda
The tragic shootings in Minneapolis this year are a testament to how seriously we need to address the poverty, public health crises, and violence epidemic in our city. Instead of rising to that challenge, Jacob Frey is cynically using each of these events to try and convince the public that we need to unconditionally support the police.
6. Myth: Minneapolis Residents Want More Police
Fact: The City is Paying Corporate PR to Manufacture Artificial Support for MPD
The main “grassroots civilian groups” supporting MPD, led by Operation Safety Now, were revealed to be backed by a corporate public relations (PR) apparatus who were taking directions from Mayor Frey and Chief Arradondo to over-represent civilian support for the police. The leaders of this PR work don’t even live in Minneapolis. The political establishment wants to make it look like their unconditional support for the police is popular, when data has shown it isn’t.
7. Myth: Mayor Frey Cares About (Black) People
Fact: Mayor Frey Cares About Corporate Developers
On the campaign trail, Frey said he would end homelessness in five years. He then proceeded to support privatization of public housing, pass a 2040 Plan that gives free range to developers, support projects like the Upper Harbor Terminal with no plan for maintaining affordability, refuse to use city powers to provide housing for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and Uprising, and is now threatening to veto Rent Control. Mayor Frey is That Politician: he tells you what you want to hear and does the opposite. If Frey cared about working class people and Black people in this city, he would have invested in our housing, jobs programs, youth programs, transportation, and public health before there was scrutiny on him to do so.
8. Myth: We Must Accept Police Abuses To Have Secure Communities
Fact: Police Accountability Is Part Of Safe Communities
Over-policing inevitably brings unjust arrests, fabricated police reports, and police brutality. This reality particularly plagues our loved ones in brown and Black Minneapolis neighborhoods. The routine of these abuses is allowed to repeat itself daily, because we have all been led to believe this has to be endured to have secure communities. Police abuse doesn’t stop crime, it is crime. In addition to the human costs of police brutality, the consequences include millions of dollars of civil liability payouts that prevent investment in needed resources.
9. Myth: Police are All Inherently Evil People
Fact: The System of Policing is the Problem
Many police officers join the force out of a genuine desire to help their communities. Many police also join because there is a scarcity of good jobs with dignity and benefits. Once in the system, police are all put in the position of enforcing unfair laws, an internal culture of racism and misogyny, and a political system where there aren’t resources to address the root causes of issues. J Alex Kueng, one of the three officers standing behind Derek Chauvin, joined MPD with the explicit intention of helping change the internal culture. Many police officers, including Chief Arradondo himself, have tried to address racism within the department. It never works. The system is set up to dead-end these good intentions and maintain a system that oppresses People of Color and the working class to fuel the prison-industrial complex. No individual, no matter how smart or well-intentioned, can overcome that system.
10. Myth: It’s Easier and Safer to Return to the Status Quo
Fact: Minneapolis Has a Historic Opportunity for Real, Meaningful, and Lasting Change
At this moment in history, all eyes are on Minneapolis. We are confronting the legacy of racial capitalism that has shaped and continues to shape our city. On one side, Jacob Frey, MPD, the Chamber of Commerce, and the DFL establishment have a vision of Minneapolis as a playground for the rich, where rent is unaffordable, chain stores and corporate entertainment are the only surviving businesses, and police and private surveillance maintain it all. On the other side is us: the working class. Our vision is a Minneapolis where everyone can live, work, worship, and play in safety and health, no matter their income or race. A Minneapolis where diversity thrives and everyone is safe.
That’s the crossroads we’re at now.
Statement on Public Safety
At this historic moment in Minneapolis, many of us are grappling with the question of what a humane and effective public safety system could possibly look like. The Minneapolis Police Department’s long, bloody track record of brutality and racism is clearly not an acceptable path forward. At the same time, many of us are feeling less safe than ever as everything from violent crime to drag racing endanger us and our neighbors.
I am running for public office to help deliver answers to this question. I grew up on the southside of Chicago where my family was directly impacted by violent crime. As for many Black, brown, poor and working class communities, the police were not effective at protecting us from crime, and often were a source of violence and harm themselves, but we were led to believe they were our only option for public safety. I have nearly thirty years of personal experience, study, and on-the-ground work that have given me some clear perspectives on the failures of the current public safety system, a clear vision of what a more humane and effective system will look like, and a clear understanding of what it will take to make this vision a reality.
We are at a crossroads in this city and in this country about policing, but just below the surface is a crossroads about the system that policing is designed to protect. Let me be clear: any system of law enforcement will be unjust if the system it is upholding is unjust. Real equity and democracy cannot happen under our current system of racial capitalism because this system profits off of concentrated power, exploitation, displacement, dispossession, and violence. Although this perspective might seem ambitious or beyond the scope of the issue at hand, I believe it’s crucial to remain politically anchored in this analysis in order to not simply think of changing the police as making them “nicer,” but rather moving towards replacing the system of racial capitalism with an economic system based on wellness, sustainability, and the needs of human beings.
In the immediate term, though, we face the very real challenge of how to establish a less violent, less racist, and overall less harmful system of public safety given the context of racial capitalism in which we live. This is a massive opportunity and one that we cannot let slip away. We have the opportunity to get serious about systemic change here in Minneapolis.
Our current system fails the working class every day because it is designed to protect profits, not people. George Floyd’s possibly counterfeit $20 bill, is just one of the literally millions of examples of a civilian paying dearly for a petty damage against a corporation’s bottom line. Meanwhile, the public safety system does not effectively protect working class people from daily harms like community and sexual violence. Data shows that the total value of wage theft by bosses against their employees is nearly triple the value of all robberies.
We need a system that does the opposite: prevents exploitation by bosses and slumlords, deters interpersonal conflict, and fully funds high quality support for people in hard situations to prevent violence. These are the humane and effective responses to crime that the vast majority of Minneapolis residents are demanding.
This transformation is possible, but it will take a mass, multiracial movement to win it. Throughout the coming years, we must stay focused on our goal. Our lives are at stake here. Mayor Frey, Chief Arradondo, the Chamber of Commerce, and aligned corporate forces have everything to lose at this moment, and they are deploying some of their best tools to divert our attention and divide us. One tactic is the intense polarization of terms like “defunding,” which aims to fracture the solidarity between Minneapolis residents who all fundamentally want the same thing: a public safety system that exists to protect the whole working class.
The primary tactic by the ruling class that we must be prepared for is the perpetuation of myths about crime and policing, namely that police prevent crime, and more police prevent more crime. Studies show that this is simply not true, and “there is little clear connection between staffing numbers and crime.” Other data confirms that the number one predictor of crime is not the levels of police, but rather that interracial inequality. For those of us who have lived the last year in Minneapolis, this shouldn’t be hard to believe: although MPD is fully funded, they have essentially abandoned the working class out of spite and cynicism, leaving many of us alone through fires, carjackings, muggings, and more.
The myth that more police make us safer is appealingly simple, especially at a time when many of us in Minneapolis are feeling less safe in Minneapolis than ever. However, it is a dangerous myth that holds us hostage to the status quo. Mayor Frey and his allies are implying that we must accept a certain amount of police brutality if we want to stop community violence. This is not an acceptable compromise, nor is it one we actually have to make.
We do not have to accept the false choice they are offering us, because there is an alternative option: taking bold leadership towards an economic and social system that exists to meet the basic needs of everyday people, and a public safety system that does the same. This work will happen outside the political establishment and face fierce opposition from the most wealthy and powerful operators in our city and state. It is the work I am committed to leading.
As a country, we have become addicted to an economy based on the illicit profiteering of mass incarceration, and too scared to get away from the fictions that perpetuate it. Breaking these chains of racial capitalism means defeating its myths and structures, and also rolling up our sleeves for the concerted work to change what we know does not work for us all.
The fact is that people across a wide political spectrum understand the status quo is not working. There is already a political mandate for common sense strategies to put working class people before corporate profits. There is a political mandate for change.
What can we do to move towards a more humane and effective system of public safety right now in Minneapolis? Plenty. I’m ready to take action now. Join me.
Robin’s Plan for Public Safety
As a City Council Member there are two main procedural avenues I will have to fight for changes to our public safety system: the budget, and the City Charter.
On November 2nd, voters will elect a new Mayor and City Council, and will also have the chance to vote to change the City Charter to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety. The outcome of this vote will impact which legislative tools are available to me and my fellow City Council Members. A Department of Public Safety gives us more options to work with and will greatly increase the speed at which it will be possible to act. Regardless, I am committed to fighting for a public safety system that keeps us all safe.
The key difference between the passage and non-passage of the new Department of Public Safety is that the existing legislation around the Minneapolis Police Department significantly limits the amount of changes that can be made without legislative overhaul. Some challenges, such as the ratio of officers to civilians mandated on the force, present us with two options: one, to engage in a political debate about their removal through a civilian vote, or two, to creatively try and “work around” these limitations, for example by accepting the ratio as-is but further stipulating that a large portion of these workers be unarmed. While there are doubtless many opportunities to workaround the limitations of the existing policy language, the recalcitrance of the police union and high level of public scrutiny on this topic mean that any change, even what should be an inoffensive and thoughtful improvement, is likely to draw legal challenges and a well-funded public relations campaign to smear the change and falsely link it to violent crime.
Therefore, if I am elected without the passage of the new Department of Public Safety, I will work to amend City Charter language. This is certain to provoke a public debate, but on the terms most favorable to our social movements for change. Engaging more working class residents in the political conversation is certain to be more representative of the public mandate than a debate waged behind closed doors in City Hall. We are certain to face a well-funded opposition to change no matter what procedural avenue we use, which is why I will use my position to support a mass movement to keep up the pressure on City Hall.
Regardless of the passage or non-passage of the new Department of Public Safety, the municipal budget will be a crucial fight within City Council. Our budget In Minneapolis must reflect the priorities dictated by the community. This past budgetary cycle, Robin for Minneapolis was proud to be one of more than 50 community organizations, and the only City Council campaign, that helped create The People’s Budget, a comprehensive policy proposal for the Minneapolis budget that prioritizes meeting the basic health and safety needs of Minneapolis residents. As I outlined in this piece for local news site The UpTake, MPD and beneficiaries of the public safety status quo organized to block our progress. Journalists later confirmed that the Mayor, police, and private interests built up the organization Operation Safety Now Minneapolis to promote extremely specific talking points about supporting the police chief and increasing the police budget.
We must continue to resist MPD’s demands for unconditional, unlimited funding. Instead, I will work to build and support coalitions around a public mandate for the following proposals and amendments to fight for massive investment in the public safety priorities that the community supports:
Expand and Fully Fund a Quality 911 Workforce
911 must be a number that anyone in the city can call in case of emergency and receive useful help quickly.
Fully staff 911 to dispatch:
Fire Department
Emergency Medical Services
Public Safety Workers
Expand the unarmed workforce
Create new job classifications of Public Safety Workers with the same priority funding status as other Essential First Responders, including mental health crisis response workers, social workers, and domestic violence responders. Fill these roles with new employees.
Ensure union contracts, benefits, and fair pay to these professionals.
Work with public sector unions to fund jobs programs for youth and adults to build the public safety workforce through skills building, job readiness, and paid internships.
Drawn down the armed workforce over time
Staff an initial ratio of 25% armed and 75% unarmed employees, in line with the City of Minneapolis MPD/911 Workgroup data showing that 76% of calls are non violent and do not represent any imminent danger.
Audit all current officers, remove those with any history of complaints and bar them from re-applying.
Commit to reducing armed workforce and increasing unarmed workforce annually.
Mandate all public safety employees do anti-racism training, bias training, and de-escalation training before interacting with the public and be re-trained regularly as a condition of employment.
Massively Expand and Fully Fund 311
311 is a Non-Emergency line that anyone can call for certain non-urgent services. While 311 fulfills some needs now, we must invest in expanding it into a high quality resource for public health and wellbeing.
Fully staff 311 to dispatch unarmed employees to respond to:
Parking & Traffic Control
Property and Damage Complaints
Civic information such as voting locations
Health & wellness checks
Resource navigation for social programs like housing support, food access, domestic violence services, detox programs, wage and labor violations, and mental health services
Remove punitive fees and fines for minor violations.
Re-orient parking enforcement towards service to drivers, such as replacing lights or helping renew tabs .
End contracts with private towing companies; municipalize the towing force and remove all fines.
Build a municipal snow removal program and end ticketing.
Fully fund all the social services and community resources available under 311
Classify all 311 services as Essential First Responder priority level.
Develop fees and taxes on the largest corporations to augment financial resources to meet these needs.
Ensure all public services under 311 are free for everyone without means testing.
Demilitarize & Decriminalize
Our current policing system relies heavily on a number of tools and tactics that exist to terrorize, not protect, our communities. We must ban these tools and tactics immediately.
Ban tear gas, armored vehicles, military-style weapons, prone holds, attack dogs and police horses.
Eliminate surveillance, facial recognition, social media tracking and military technology contracts.
Have all lethal weapons locked in squad cars with direct permission from a supervisor based on specific justifications required for access.
Prohibit interference and intervention from law enforcement agencies from other jurisdictions.
Ban the Thin Blue Line emblem on public property and public safety and police uniforms.
Fight against state and federal level policies that criminalize without increasing public safety, such as ending cash bail and decriminalizing marijuana.
Hold Public Employees Accountable to the Public
Deregulation of public safety is a fast-track to vigilantism, and public safety without public oversight is authoritarian. It’s crucial that public infrastructure around safety is democratically controlled by everyone who lives in Minneapolis.
Support democratic community control over police.
Create an elected body of civilians with fully hiring and firing powers.
Make any complaint against an armed responder grounds for immediate suspension, and any sustaining of that complaint grounds for removal.
Integrate screening and hiring accountability into civilian oversight
Support student & worker control over campus public safety.
Strike Charter Title 9 Article II: Special Police, which gives the Mayor power to effectively appoint civilians as additional plainclothes officers for any reason without direct civilian input.
Fight for an amendment to Title 9 Chapter 171 Article 1 stipulating that the Chief of Police must come from a non-law enforcement background, and have no professional disciplinary history or outstanding community grievances.
Establish regular reports on outcomes from staffing levels and opportunities for direct civilian input on these reports.
Healthy Communities: Prevention is The Only Long Term Solution
We can reduce crime and violence long term by building a society where everyone’s basic needs are met.
Fight for non-lapsing dedicated funding for children, youth, and young adult programming
Work in tandem with Minneapolis Public School, Minneapolis Public Libraries, and Minneapolis Parks and Recreation to increase free programming
Work in tandem with trade schools, unions, and community colleges to make job pathways available to young people as well as adults in transition
Fully fund diversionary and re-entry programs.
Work with local unions to provide quality job training to individuals exiting the carceral system.
Massively expand free and culturally specific mental health services for all residents, and therapeutic and mental health programs for those in contact with the carceral system.
Replace the sentence-to-serve system with well paid, dignified community work.
Work towards the creation of a municipal bank to be the administrative and financial backbone of a well-funded and publicly controlled social safety net.
Feedback
Please submit your thoughts and feedback here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/robin-for-minneapolis-public-safety-feedback-form