The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020, and the uprising that tollowed and spread worldwide, did not happen in a vacuum.
As we protested to demand justice for George Floyd, as we protected our neighborhoods, fed the people, cleaned up glass, and explored alternatives to policing, we remembered MPD’s long history of brutality and the people’s proud record of resistance.This was not the first time Minneapolis rose up against police abuse. It was not the first time a city artery burned. It was not the first time a Minnesota Governor sent in the National Guard troops to pacify his own people. And it was not the first time Minneapolitans took community protection into their own hands.
The testimony below are excerpts of life stories collected by the Minneapolis Interview Project. (Names in bold italics link to interviews.) The final section looks at proposals for alternatives to the MPD.
This is a work-in-progress. All Rights Reserved. awmpedalstory@gmail.com
The Uprisings of the 1960s and 70s.
In July 1967, there was an Uprising on Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis against police brutality. Two years later, Indigenous people initiated the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis. AIM Patrol policed the police, protecting the urban Native American community from endemic cop abuse. During this period anti war protestors also experienced police abuse.
In 1967, a riot broke out again on Plymouth Ave. The spark this time was police brutality and classical Minneapolis paternalistic segregation. For most of my youth. the Aquatennial Torchlight Parade had the black marching bands bringing up the rear. Everybody knew this, so by the time they showed up, most the whites had begun dispersing so it would be a largely black crowd. Invariably, the police would start harassing us, attacking and arresting people. The news media like to say that the riot was sparked by an altercation between two teenage black girls that the police tried to break up by slamming them to the ground and swarming on them. When a black teenage bystander asked them why they were being so rough, they assaulted him.
Police assaulting folks during the Torchlight Parade was a regular thing. What began as a peaceful protest organized the next day at The Way by the Northside community demanding police accountability, turned into a melee when the police arrived and started assaulting people, including a pregnant woman who subsequently had a miscarriage. Skirmishes with the police broke out and the violence escalated to looting and arson up and down Plymouth, lasting an additional two days.
In response, Mayor Naftalin asked governor Harold LeVander to deploy the National Guard. LeVander sent around 200 troops to patrol Plymouth Avenue. He also deployed additional Guardsmen in South Minneapolis between Lake Street and 38th Street, where there had been no significant civil unrest—although we were as affected by police brutality. He also did so in Saint Paul. In other words, wherever there was a black neighborhood, LeVander sent in the Guardsmen. There were Minneapolis city officials who tried to blame The Way for the 1967 riots. They impaneled an all-white grand jury, which recommended The Way and its staff be investigated for inciting the disturbances. This was the beginning of the narrative of The Way as a hotbed of violent black radicalism. In fact, it was a center of black pride, culture, and education.
“For a while after the 1967 Uprising, 40% of Plymouth Ave was Black-owned. The Way — a Black community center–was in the building where the 4th Precinct police station is now. Northside Residents Redevelopment Council, (NRRC),came after the Uprisings , and was a major Black organization in Minneapolis for decades. It is supposed to create opportunities for economic development and housing. By the time I got to it, around 2013, there were 4-5 white men on the NRRC board, and it was in bankruptcy.”
I’ll always remember the blockade of Washington Avenue, after Nixon blockaded the Haiphong Harbor in 1972. I had a baby, so I couldn’t stay all night. But students did stay all night, prohibiting access to the East Bank. U of M President Malcolm Moos was out of town. The acting president didn’t know what to do. He called Mayor Charles Stenvig – a former (and future) cop. He and Hennepin County Sheriff Don Omodt sent in a tactical squad, and helicopters that sprayed tear gas onto campus and Dinkytown. It was an all out assault. People got sick and a few people were beaten, including a Daily photographer. The tactical squad followed the students onto campus. You know, campuses have historically been places of refuge. This was a violation of that historical contract.
The assault backfired. It was a beautiful May day. This was before the campus was air conditioned so all the classrooms had their windows open. The buildings filled with teargas. Professors and students who planned not to participate were forced out of their classrooms. They were horrified by the response of the police and many joined the protest, amplifying the anti-war movement.
The police sprayed Dinkytown and Stadium Village as well, filling the interiors of small businesses—many of whom were independent and progressive (unlike now when independent entrepreneurs are priced out of the University neighborhoods.) Some of them were already supportive, but after the tactical assault the whole Campus area business community was furious at the police. Many more posted leaflets in their windows advertising anti-war meetings and events. It was an interesting phenomenon to study how overreaction by authority can increase support for a popular movement—not that I would ever try to incite that kind of response on the part of the police — but they should learn from it.
Charles Stenvig, who had been a policeman, was elected mayor in 1969, and his “law and order” regime was notorious, very much like that of Philadelphia’s Mayor, Frank Rizzo. He served two consecutive terms, and when he lost his second reelection bid to Albert Hofstede in 1973, he became acting Chief of Police. I cannot quote any statistics about the police department under Mayor Stenvig, but I can tell you some of what I and my friends experienced in our own neighborhood at that time. The harassment was pretty regular. We were always being randomly stopped by the police. I’ll tell you about some of the more dramatic encounters.
In the summer of 1971, a young white man, a teenager, had been beaten up by some blacks somewhere near Lake Harriet. My brother Michael and I were at the Dairy Queen on 48th and Nicollet, getting some milkshakes when the police came, catching us in a rather broad dragnet in which they rounded up any young blacks found on the street from Lake Harriet to Nicollet between 42nd and 50th. I was still 16 and Michael had just turned 12. We were completely unaware of the assault, having had nothing to do with it because we’d been at the Dairy Queen drinking our malts, and told the police this. They did not care. We were simply the wrong color in the wrong place (past the designated western boundary of the black neighborhood), at the wrong time. I kept saying, “You have no probable cause to arrest us. We’ve done nothing.” I would not shut up. I was very loud, hoping the white people who were there and had seen us drinking our milkshakes, would intervene on our behalf. All that happened was the police became irate. They took us downtown.
There was this infamous elevator in the basement of the garage of the City Hall. They roughed us up till we got up to the booking floor. They didn’t charge us, and they didn’t call our parents. Instead, we were released into downtown Minneapolis. It was past midnight. We likely could have gotten arrested again for being out past curfew. We went to the Curtis Hotel where I pleaded with the concierge to let us use the phone to call our parents. Our father came and picked us up.
The second time I was arrested, was at the 1972 Aquatennial Torchlight Parade. It was the same sort of thing that led to the 1967 Northside riot. Brian Herron was with me. We were watching the Sabathani Drum and Bugle Corp bring up the end of the parade, and the cops started attacking us. The police lined up, waiting for us on 6th Street with dogs and on horseback. They charged us and we fought back and things got a bit wild. Both of my parents came down to the police station that time. My mother was furious and told the police that she was a friend of Humphrey and Don Fraser. But this was Stenvig’s reign. The cop answered her very disrespectfully, right there in front of my father. I got upset. He pulled out a gun. My father made me sit down and be quiet. My mother did have friends, and I was released a few hours later. And even though there were reports in the newspaper of eleven arrests, I was not among them. There was a large protest at city hall the next day about the police brutality during the parade.
“In the mid 70s, AIM was deeply involved in the education and support for incarcerated Indians. I participated in a march from Minneapolis to the Stillwater Prison they organized, that ended with a Powwow. I got a job at the Heart of the Earth Survival School, working in their prison program, from 1978-1985. We taught adult basic ed, GED, and pre-release — getting people ready to leave prison. We worked at Stillwater, St. Cloud, Lino Lakes, Shakopee, and Oak Park Heights. At Stillwater, Jimmy Jackson was a spiritual adviser. He would go in and do pipe ceremonies, naming ceremonies. We were going in five days a week, a different prison every day.”
My mom and dad — activists with AIM in the sixties and seventies — had always told me, “If the cops get you, don’t say nothin.”
1980s and 1990s:The Police murders of Tycel Nelson, the rise or racist and anti racist skinheads.
Mel Reeves
The murder of Tycel Nelson by police on December 1st, 1990, in North Minneapolis was a pivotal moment. I’ll never forget the organizing around that.The LA times reported that “racial calm in Minneapolis could be shattered by shooting.” There was a meeting at the Urban League. The city was afraid of the community response and tried to get more conservative folks to get out in front of it. They were trying to keep a lid on things instead of trying to get justice for Tycel’s family. A few years later, the cop who killed Tycel–Dan May–was given an award. Salt in the wound.
A lot of these cops who kill people go about their lives like they didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve never understood that. They swallow the hype that they are the arm of the state.
In 1993, I was hired by Rosalie Wahl of the MN Supreme Court, to write up their findings on racial inequalities in the justice system. The report was shared with courts in Minnesota and other states. It was my job to make the findings understandable to people who were not lawyers. We looked at who gets arrested, who gets charged, who gets set free, what people get charged with, the issue of cash bail, jury selection, and sentencing, finding bias at every level. We delineated changes that could be made that would decrease racial bias in the system. A lot of states used it as a model.
I was invited to the 10th year anniversary of the report in 2003. People talked about how much work was left to be done, but they also took stock of what had been accomplished. It sparked conversations, and laid out a roadmap. Simply being involved in the project, helped judges and prosecutors develop a consciousness of their own biases.
Fighting ICE and police abuse of Immigrants
I first became involved in police accountability after giving a Know Your Rights presentation to Latinx parishioners in Carver County and hearing their stories about a racist cop who targeted Brown people. I helped organize a group to testify at the City Council. We got the cop suspended. After investigation he was terminated
It was this experience that led me to join the Minneapolis Police Oversight Commission. I felt—and still feel–that we need to infiltrate and occupy spaces where white people make substantial decisions that do not include our voices. I made connections on the Police Oversight Commission. I also learned the limits of commissions and the pretensions of “good intentions” of many elected officials and people in positions of power.
2012- 2015 Travon Martin and Michael Brown The Rise of Black Lives Matter Movement.
In 2012, I was watching the news. I heard a conversation about a young Black kid, Trayvon Martin, who was killed by that guy—George Zimmerman.I didn’t sleep. It changed me. A grown man can kill a kid and get away with it?! Then people came out with that whole “hoodie” shit. Even people in my family were saying — “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t wear a hoodie.” I’m thinking to myself, “Oh hell. So now we can’t wear hoodies, walk at night, eat skittles, drink ice tea, travel alone… enter gated communities….”
It was a call to action.When Black Lives Matter first took 35W I said “Wow. They took the Highway?! Hmmm… “Then when it came to shutting down Hiawatha I was like —”IT’S TIME!!.”We shut it down.Today (July 25th, 2016) I took a plea bargain on my Mall of America charge. If I get another trespassing charge, it will become a misdemeanor. I don’t claim a Black Lives Matter Banner. At the end of the day, the banner’s going to fade away, but the movement continues. The struggle is real. A lot of different banners are going to be waived in the process. I’m with the movement. At the Mall of America, the Black State Fair, nonviolent rallies, through education and conversations with people at work and in my community. Working broadly allows me to have many circles of friends—people who would not naturally speak to each other. I try to unify people, to bring them together.
After Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, I began viewing everything through a racial lens. It was like pulling a middle block on a Jenga tower. All the other blocks fell at once For a few weeks the media shined a light on white supremacy so that other white people I interacted with could see. I had ammunition when I talked to them. Not everyone understood, but at least we shared a set of facts. It was hard at first to figure out how to be involved as a white person. I began going to the First Universalist Church of Minneapolis (Unitarian) because they were doing the work. I also went to a Minneapolis meeting of Showing Up For Racial Justice: white allies joined together to support racial justice work.
The one time I felt a sense of community at South High School, is when I participated in a Black Lives Matter walkout. We walked in the middle of the street, to Martin Luther King Park where we met up with other schools. It got on the national news and helped change the story. I felt like, wow, we really can make a change. It was powerful. You know, if one person walks out, they get suspended, but they can’t suspend 500 students. We were all there for one purpose, for something we really believed in. I felt like we were unified ….
I was one of a team of lawyers who represented those arrested during the 2014, Black Lives Matter, Christmas demonstration at the Mall of America. That was an extraordinarily powerful, large, peaceful demonstration. They took on this icon of capitalism in Minnesota, by daring to have it inside. The city prosecutor should have let it go, but instead Bloomington charged the organizers with conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, trespass and disorderly conduct–unsupported charges.
The demonstrators had tremendous community support. We got all the charges dismissed, in part because the right judge took the case. He was right on the law, and he also understood the politics of it. He knew what kind of a high-profile case it was, at that political moment.
The most important thing about the BLM has been its multi-racial and gendered character. Police brutality fights in the 1960s and 70s were exclusively Black. And now you also have women in leadership. These changes are essential. You can’t have a movement that excludes people based on gender or color of skin. These developments register progress since the social movements of the 1960s.
I know there has been a discussion, here and elsewhere, about excluding white people from making decisions within the movement. I don’t think you can have such a policy in a movement that seeks to give everyone a sense of self-worth and equal rights in decision-making. Just because someone is Black or a “POC” (a term I’ve been forced to use), doesn’t make them progressive. The Obama era should have taught us that someone’s skin color, gender, or sexual orientation, doesn’t tell you much about which side of the class struggle they will be on when the shit hits the fan.
Shannon Nordby
In 2015, we formed our local chapter of Native Lives Matter, to mourn and organize against police brutality and missing/ murdered Native woman. I got out of it when I was pregnant with my fourth child. A big issue that has arisen recently is how heroin is killing our people. My students tell me how they are involved in Natives Against Heroin. I would love to be involved with them. Maybe when my youngest baby is in day care…..
The Police Murder of Jamar Clark in North Minneapolis and 4th Precinct Occupation
In November 2015, a young Black man named Jamar Clark was murdered by two law enforcers in North Minneapolis. His death set our local BLM movement ablaze, and resulted in a 18-day occupation of the 4th Precinct Police Station. Like so many Black folks, Jamar’s death sparked a fire in my soul. My non-profit consulting and volunteering started to feel insufficient in advancing the larger fight for racial and economic justice in Minneapolis. I felt a calling to do more.
I started attending anti-racist and police brutality community forums, BLM actions and protests. I eventually joined the Justice for Jamar Coalition, and Socialist Alternative (SA).
When the police murdered Jamar Clark, I had already spent time in Ferguson. Unfortunately, I was prepared for a police killing in Minneapolis. It was emotional for me. I was at the scene at 8am, tea in hand, analyzing the blood, talking to people. Jamar’s dad came up to me and said, “What happened to my son?”
At the occupation of the 4th precinct I had to be professor, healer, and organizer. I held restorative justice circles. People were coming down who were transphobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, atheists. Some people wanted to burn it up. A mix. We had 200 people in one circle. I saw Angela Conley emerge in those circles. I put my beef with Ellison to the side to build community, though I wasn’t sure he was there for the right cause.
I analyzed Mike Freeman’s press conference in an article co-written by Rachel Wannarka. He lied seven times. I pointed out five times that I had strong evidence he was lying. After it was published Freeman called, pleading for a meeting.
When we finally met, he had his criminal justice person at his side. I had my squad from the NAACP. He started playing, talking about his Dad, into his personal story. I tapped him and said. “Why did you lie and say Jamar Clark said he wanted to die? His response was, “I shouldn’t have said that.” I asked him, “Do you have a conscience?”
I told him, “We can work together on stuff; get some people home on bail. But if you lie again I’m calling you out.”
That work was risky for me. If I had gotten arrested during those protests, I would have gone to jail for 110 months, due to the 2005 set up.
We learned a lot about how this city works after the murder of Jamar Clark. Systems were exposed. The activist world was exposed. We know this precinct used to be a community center. The Way was a positive place for Black people. Now it’s a police station. We know white supremacists can shoot activists in Minneapolis and not really be punished. Allen Scarsella shot five people. We had to keep the pressure on just to get a conviction. We learned how the County Attorney worked. We learned how much homophobia we have in the movement. We learned more about the addiction and poverty present in the area.
We learned about the skills we have. The movement started with Travon. Ferguson enflamed the movement. Minneapolis’ occupation of the police station for 18 days, helped to build it.
When Jamar Clark was killed in Minneapolis I knew I wanted to participate in that movement. I joined the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar as it came together during the 4th precinct occupation in November, 2015. When the occupation was forcibly shut down by the City, we chose to continue the work to demand that killer cops be prosecuted in open court.
I learned from my experience with the FBI about the injustice of secret Grand Juries. We protested every Friday at Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s office until he announced there would be no Grand Jury. We also wanted to provide solidarity for families of those who’ve been killed. Their leadership and voices needs to be central. They didn’t choose this work, it chose them.
People in communities of color have always known the police lie. We helped the broader community learn that lesson. Like the lie Mike Freeman told about Jamar being involved in domestic violence. That didn’t happen. Two dozen black witnesses said that Jamar was unjustly killed, but Freeman deemed them all not believable. We need an all-civilian council overseeing the police. Right now it’s just the Mayor. Under this system the police union has more power than their bosses! Violent cops with multiple complaints stay on the street and receive no disciplinary action.
We need a civilian council that is independent and has power. A council with no cops or family of cops. This civilian council could, for example, outlaw the chokehold that led to Jamar’s murder. Police involved in shootings could be removed immediately, without the pay they get now. The council would have the power to fire and discipline cops.
The Civilian council would control the budget. Right now the cops control the budget. Some neighborhoods are over-policed. The civilian board could decide what are policing priorities.
I work with a group called Tamales y Bicicletas which is an environmental justice community organization led by longtime community activist José Luis Villaseñor. He has a loudspeaker on his bike. We show up to provide music and a loudspeaker for organizers speaking at the marches. We brought it to 4th precinct occupation rallies, to provide a sound system for the organizers.
I was Betsy’s aide when Jamar Clark was killed. I think that is Betsy’s story to tell. I’ll just say that as her aide I have second-hand trauma from that experience. It was hard to watch somebody who in so brilliant—who gets it—be villainized in a way that did not produce any meaningful outcomes.
I volunteered to be her staffer that went to community events, engaging in challenging conversations around race and policing, even though I was not her staff for public safety. It was challenging for me, as a young Black man, to be navigating in a system that said his death was justified. Trying to juggle those multiple truths at the same time was very hard. But I would not have wanted to be anywhere else during that period.
Around the time of Jamar Clark’s murder, I was in Somalia because my dad was dying. He had returned to spend the rest of his life in his homeland. That experience was a major shift in my life. When I got back, Minneapolis was in deep turmoil. I worked on judicial matters for the office, though not as much as I wanted to. It was really hard to watch how our leaders in Minneapolis and Minnesota responded to the Jamar Clark murder and the youth occupying the Minneapolis Police 5th precinct. That summer people were getting killed, literally a few blocks from our office in North Minneapolis. I remember this grandmother driving and being hit with a bullet not far from our office. I wanted to do more on local police issues than I was allowed to do within the confines of a Congressional office, but we did more than other offices did.
When Jamar Clark was killed by police, I understood very clearly there was no power to this Commission. I had to testify at a City Council meeting as an individual, because I could not get the Commission to do anything. The word oversight is a slap in the face to our community. It is not real.
Cathy Jones
When I think about the fourth precinct occupation, I smell my winter coat- – that smoky smell. My whole family spent time out there at all hours of the night. I never spent the night there but I was there late and early. I got up many times and went out there. It was an emotional time. The day the supremacists attacked the camp, I had just left. I came back.
The occupation rearranged our life — the things we did to make sure the family was safe. My son would follow me to make sure I got home safely. There was a lot of toying around with our different phones. I’m sure my phone was tapped. Many people’s phones were tapped.
But it was a positive experience. The good we did, providing a meal for a homeless person, the clothes we distributed. People came together from a place of hurt and stood for justice. It was an indescribable feeling. I think about it a lot; how exhausted people can be. Many put in way more time than me —out there for days and nights. I was able to come and go. Go to work, come back. There were times I didn’t go to work, and I had to deal with that. I tried to be a support. If I saw a situation I would grab someone’s arm and walk them away and talk to them. Being there, letting the community talk; listening.
I am proud of the activists in our Twin City area. We have a lot of people who are really committed. One thing that I’ve learned is that everybody does not have to be on the same page. We are still all fighting for the same goal. I was part of a “break off” that has not ended — a group of people getting comfortable being at each other’s houses having meetings, forming friendships. It was an amazing time.
Raymond Dehn
Relations were already strained between police and community on the Northside before Jamar Clark was killed on November 15, 2015. I think the communities’ response was appropriate.
I don’t know if, in the aftermath, a whole lot has changed. Every officer should have implicit-bias training, and it should start while they are in training. Maybe there are some officers that should just not be on the Northside or Southside. They should be policing southwest Minneapolis–but then you have what happened to Philando Castile in Falcon Heights…..
Clearly, we need to train officers differently. The legislature can do a lot. There are two statutes we could change: 609.066 allows police officers to use deadly force when they believe their lives or someone else’s lives are threatened. This statute is why virtually no grand jury would ever be able to charge an officer for murder. Minnesota statute 626.89 establishes a “reasonable standard” for police, which is different from the ‘normal people’ standard. So they can act in very different ways and get away with it. In addition to changing those two statutes, we can change the pool of officers going into policing. That may even involve reducing the size of the police force.
And then the community plays a role. When I was growing up, and you got out of line, a neighbor would call you out. That doesn’t happen anymore, and part of the reason is the number of guns on the street. We have way too many guns in our society. Gun manufacturers drive that because the only way they make money is when they sell guns and ammo.
Some say the difference between an officer alive and an officer dead is a quarter of a second — but we need to change that. I look at the situation with Philando Castile and Jamar Clark, and I think —- it’s a problem when officers come to a scene, and 61 seconds later, someone is shot in the head. That is where issues of de-escalation training are critical, and having officers with the right attitude. In the Jamar Clark case those two officers had past records. It was astonishing to hear the Chief say, “look, these are the people I have to hire from – this is the pool.” That is very telling. She was almost saying, “I don’t have a lot of choices of cops to hire, so some of the cops I hire are going to be questionable.”
Like Occupy Homes and the foreclosure crisis, the occupations of I-94 and 35W made it so people couldn’t keep their blinders on. Whether they agree with the tactics or not, whether they believe police are acting as they should or not, they could no longer ignore what was going on. If you were listening to the radio, watching TV you were aware of what was happening because people were bringing it to your attention. I have my colleagues tell me —oh those protestors (grumble grumble). I say, look, they play an important role. We don’t move until the community moves.
The Murder of Philando Castile
I remember getting the message about Philando. Nekima and I went out there. We left Larpentuar Ave and went over to the hospital because the family had requested that someone from the NAACP family come over. I went with Nekima and a couple other people. They weren’t giving the family any information. We actually found out more than the family knew and they were sitting out there for a couple hours! They had moved his body to the medical examiners. Nekima called and got a lawyer for the family.
Black Lives Matter was already at the mansion when we got there. It was absolutely amazing. They had music going. They had already decorated the Mansion gate with police tape. It was raining a little. Someone had built a fire.I talked to a guy who was there because his son went to the school where Philando was the lunch supervisor. He said his son would often get bullied, so every day Philando would walk him through the lunch line. I heard so many stories like that. Philando saying a kind word, giving a kid an extra serving of food — the things that you want a lunch supervisor to do for your kids. We chanted all night. In the morning — maybe 6AM — the police came and snuffed out our fire. They said, “We are getting ready to open up the street.” There were about fifteen of us there by that time. Nekima said “ We should all sit in the middle of the street and lock arms.” We did. We were chanting until the police chief came over. He was very nice that morning. He said they were going to respect our rights. They would block off the street at each end of the block.
To see that crowd grow from fifteen of us to over 4,000 that afternoon —- it was beyond emotion. It was so crowded! All our phones were dead. Nobody had any communication. I saw a friend and felt suddenly so exhausted. I said “Can I use your phone to call my husband?” That is when I started crying. I said “ I am so tired and hungry!” There was plenty of food there —donations coming in — but I couldn’t eat. There was a woman cop who saw me and said, “You better sit down — you look like you are going to pass out.” She kept checking on me — brought me a water and a banana. I probably did look like hell.
When I left my husband the day before, I told him I would be back in a couple hours. I didn’t come home until 4:30 the next day! He picked me up, fed me something, and then I went to sleep from 5pm to 8AM. I went to work the next day. I only missed one day . I didn’t go out for a few days, but when I did, I was apparently on the police radar because as soon as I got to the Governor’s Mansion my phone drained. My husband and I went back to the safety plan we had with the Jamar Clark 4th precinct occupation — he knew to drop me off and pick me up in the same place.
On July 9, 2016, I attended the Day of Atonement march against police violence, to protest the brutal police murder of St Paul elementary school nutrition services supervisor, Philando Castilo. Thousands of us walked the streets of downtown Minneapolis and interrupted a Cathedral block party. What a day! We walked nearly four hours! It was so empowering– yet so sad, to have to fight for human rights! The same day, protesters in St. Paul marched onto Interstate Highway 94, occupying it for five hours, and the 24 hour occupation of the block in front of the Governor’s mansion, continued.
Recently with all the police violence I am reminded of all the great things I learned in school about the African-American resistance and liberation movements, but I understand that people are still not free. The murder of Philando Castile, affected me the most. At this moment people of color are seeking platforms to be heard– not remaining silent about the injustices we face. With Black liberation, there will be Latino liberation, Asian liberation, GLBT liberation and so on.
September 18-20, 2016, I attended the We Won’t Wait Summit in Washington DC, bringing together more than a thousand activist women of color. We talked about economic justice, defining family, immigration reform, reproductive rights, gun violence, state violence, building solidarity across these issues, and how to fix them for ourselves. When I returned to Minneapolis I attended the Navigate gala with Rosa Clemente, who addressed anti-Black sentiment in the Latinx community. She said we need to recognize our race, because the state has already racialized us. It was powerful for me, because I am a person who has always wanted to keep race a
t the forefront. Other people in my community have wanted to get away from it. Rosa Clemente gave me inspiration and a blessing to continue to speak up.
Raymond Dehn
A lot of people operate out of fear. Fear is a bad place to be in when making decisions on how to act. The officer who shot Philando Castile was agitated, fearful. If you watch that tape, I don’t know how you can’t question what happened. We didn’t see what happened before the shots, but the audio makes it clear that the stop was questionable. The officer had assumptions going into that stop.
Super Bowl 2018: Take A Knee Action
I began working with people outside of academia and the nonprofit structures; activists like Mel Reeves and Cris Nissan. We worked on issues of police brutality. I focused on how the University department could play a role in the community. In about 2005, we sponsored Freedom Winter in the Twin Cities, to address police violence. Brock Satter in Boston was involved in organizing that campaign nationally. We door knocked and talked to people. That was important organizing. Satter returned to Minneapolis for the Take A Knee Conference during the 2018 Super Bowl.
In February 2018, I participated in the Black Visions Collective Super Bowl action. We blockaded a light rail on Super Bowl Sunday. There were seventeen of us who risked arrest, probably 100 involved overall. It was one of the coldest days of the year. We locked ourselves across the tracks. There were BLM folks from around the country who had come in to participate, and Black folks read a list of demands. Women from the Blackout Collective in Brooklyn came in and led the direct action training. That in itself was one of the most transformative experiences of my life. We rehearsed a jillion times and then it all went to shit when we got there. It was freezing and we were all in different cars. There were police already there when we arrived. We were wearing diapers and giant T-shirts over our coats.
It was my first taste of feeling a part of something historic. There was such visionary Black leadership. It was an amazing experience to be told what to do by them, to be an ally in that way. We had such a clear purpose and commitment to the cause. There was so much support: there were people tying our shoes, blowing our noses, putting foot warmers on our feet. We were expecting to spend the night in jail, but they just booked us and let us go. None of us had our phones, so we had no way to tell folks we were out. Somehow–I still don’t know how–Lena Gardner pulled up at the jail in a van— like the batmobile! We all piled in and drove to CTUL for food and celebration. It was a transformative experience.I remember looking at Kandace Montgomery, Director of BLVC, who was leading the action, and thinking: “Thank God I’m not doing that.”
The mega-companies in Minnesota raised and spent millions of dollars on the Super Bowl—a corporate prom for their wealthy friends at the expense of people of color. That is not lost on us. These are the same corporations who said, “If we pay people $15, we will go out of business”. If they can pull together money for a party for the 1%, they can pay their workers living wages. The Super Bowl committee brought in 10,000 volunteers. It was absurd—as though it was some noble cause! It was clearly intentional to bring in White people from the suburbs who could afford to volunteer, so as not to have Minneapolis residents—Black and Brown people who need jobs, be the people who greeted the Super Bowl out-of-towners. The race and class disparities were so clear. We had to shine a spotlight on it. We had a great coalition: Black Vision’s Collective, Baker’s Union, CTUL ,MN 350, St. Paul Federation of Teachers, came together to reveal the underbelly of this naked display of wealth and shameless profiteering at our expense.
We know that whenever there is an event like this there is wage theft. Fly-by-night operations come in to fill jobs, people work for ten days, the boss takes off, and workers don’t get paid. CTUL called on the Super Bowl host committee to raise a $500,000 bond, so if any workers experienced wage theft, their wages would be covered. That did not happen. But we talked about wage theft, we talked about the militarization of our communities, bringing in law enforcement on this massive scale, to keep the residents of Minneapolis away from corporate party goers. The St. Paul Federation of Teachers focused on the school to prison pipeline. We used the opportunity to amplify a progressive agenda.
We called on the Chamber of Commerce to support a $15 wage in St. Paul and anti-wage theft legislation in Minneapolis. We said, “As a Super Bowl host, if you want to leave a legacy—don’t just leave a donation to a food shelf; create longstanding systemic change. During the Super Bowl, don’t let anyone experience wage theft, and make sure no Black or Brown people are over-policed.” The civil disobedience on the light rail, led by the Black Visions Collective, was amazing. We got through a media blackout and we created an awesome coalition. That work continues.Before the Super Bowl, the coalition had a leadership school for members of our organization. For five solid days we trained in direct action, and how to be marshals. CTUL had 20-25 members participate. The learning that happened in that process was tremendous. It was a powerful week on many levels.
The Police Killing of Thurman Blevins June 23, 2018
Earlier in the year, Hmong Americans for Justice went out to protest when Phumee Lee was killed by police in the East Side of St. Paul. After Thurman Blevins was killed, I knew I had to be at the 4th Precinct in my old neighborhood of North Minneapolis, to speak out. When I see men of color getting killed by police, it hits home for me. My brother was a victim of gun violence at a young age. Thankfully, he is alive and with us to this day. I know how easily my brother could have been Phumee Lee or Thurman Blevins, and I never want that pain for anyone to live through. The police target men of color because that’s what the historical system of policing set them up to do. That should concern everyone. White people who are low-income and, especially, women of color are targets of policing as well. When I think about this, it reminds me that a pain from one person trickles down to everybody.
Alternatives to Policing
People in Minneapolis have been advocating, organizing and practicing alternatives to policing for decades, increasing their work since the murder of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile.
MPD 150 Ricardo Levins Morales
The idea of MPD 150 was to hijack the narrative of the 150th anniversary of the Minneapolis Police Department, formed in 1867. We began in early 2016. We were a group of activists pulled together from within the Minneapolis organizing ecosystem. We did not represent organizations, although some were members of existing groups. We didn’t want a coalition of organizations because we wanted to avoid turf jealousies. We did not want to steal anyone’s glory. We did want to put wind in everyone’s sails, providing momentum and resources for anyone working on police issues.
The first year we were completely under the radar, working in teams. At our height we were probably five dozen people. We did police history, interviewed people who interface with the police, like social workers, social services organizations, and domestic violence centers. We fundraised and wrote zines. We partnered with a northside research team of high school students who had done a lot of street interviews with people impacted by police violence. They made their archive available to us.
We produced a print report. It was important to have a tangible, beautifully-designed document, divided into past, present, and future. The historical section showed that the only thing police have consistently done well is racial profiling. Police reforms have just been a distraction that allowed them to continue with that principle mission. The present, focused on how they are currently impacting the things we say we need police for, like safety and social service. The future was about the issues that policing pretends to address, and how they can actually be addressed, shifting resources to take away the social service functions the police don’t do well anyway, to others who do, moving toward the ultimate goal of police abolition. We wanted to change the narrative to police abolition from a naive fantasy to the only pragmatic solution and course for the future. After all, the police were set up to keep Black people in servitude after the Civil War.
We had a held public launch event that packed 300 people into CTUL. It showed the depth of readiness in the community. Even before that, news of our work seeped into City Council races. Politicians were holding press conferences to tell people what a bad idea it was. It was wonderful. Once the report came out we had a vehicle to bring to conferences, high schools and colleges, groups working on policy issues, and social work departments.
We created a wonderful audio book using the local voice talents. We had an exhibit that with art commissioned for each section. It was on display in North Minneapolis at New Rules on Lowry, for about five weeks. We had panel discussions that went with the exhibit.
It was creative, horizontal work. Because it was based on a hopeful strategy, we avoided a lot of the problems of ego. People were able to work with full hearts and listen to each other. People cycled in and out of the work, and there was space for that. Other people stepped in. The hopefulness of the work encouraged people to volunteer resources.
We were intentional about not centering ourselves. We always gave credit to the groups that came before. We did not have press conferences whenever the police did something wrong or ask to have the microphone at events. We invited people doing this work in organizations to speak at our events.
After the exhibit we had a period of reflection. A panel of elders and neighborhood organizers reflected on our work.
We decided this will be our last year. Our goal was not to create a permanent organization, but instead a permanent change in the narrative. Right now we are working on explaining the nature of “community policing” which is a pacification strategy that comes out of counterinsurgency strategies of the 1970s, but is disguised as a new way to make policing non-oppressive. We are breaking that down. High school students are working on exposing the oppressive nature of police in schools. We are creating a case study of our work so that other people can learn from it.
In 2019, the Mayor’s proposed budget included more money for cops. We decided to push for no new funds and a 5% divestment in the cop budget.
We scrambled in the fall to make the budget hearing. We were meeting weekly. We were fully grassroots community members, with no funding. We didn’t get the 5% but the City Council did divert the 1.1 million dollars that the Mayor requested. The city is supposed to have a working group now looking into 911 calls that can be rerouted for many of the things that currently involve police coming to your door. It’s unclear if that is moving forward. I hope it is.
Knowing how much is possible is difficult. When they eliminated the 1.1 million I was elated and sad. It was a great victory and at the same time a drop in the bucket, not one that people will feel.
It is hard for people to imagine a world without police because we don’t have other safety alternatives. There have been community safety practices in poor communities for a long time, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done to create infrastructure. It is parallel to the military, in terms of how the police feel entitled to obscenely disproportionate funding. I don’t think people are aware how much of their tax dollars go to both. Most reasonable, caring people would agree, if they knew, that we need to invest more in resources that prevent crime, rather than violent militarized entities that respond to it.
We have the momentum now, and the research of MPD 150 is a huge resource. You do not need to be an abolitionist to support shifting financial priorities. We won’t eliminate police overnight, but we can begin the process of building a city that expresses concern for its residents by allocating resources for their welfare.
I’ve evolved, in my understanding of the role of the police. I used to believe in community policing and police reform. What I have seen in the last three years has convinced me that the police as a system is an intractable thing. Now I am in the abolitionist camp. Our entire city can come together and design something different, demanding accountability from those we give power to enforce laws. We can redesign from scratch, a new way to mete out justice.
The majority of the things we do with each other are ruled by a social contract. We are largely self-governing. In the history of human beings, we have shown that we can move closer to where it is the social contract and not guns that protect us.But the police don’t recognize that. They start the discussion from the point that their 400 officers are protecting 400,000 people and without them there would be mayhem.
If I were a police officer that would be my aspiration. Instead of demanding more cops to solve problems. I would love to hear Police Chief Arradondo say, “I’m working for the day when I don’t have to do this anymore.” Instead we get the opposite: ‘You need more of us. You need us under your beds to be safe.’
People have told me when they legalized conceal and carry and they got a gun, they suddenly became focused on their safety all the time. You don’t want to live like that. You want to have a life. Unfortunately, the police view the community that way. They go to work thinking they are in mortal danger. Every time they have an interaction with a community member it is defensive. Behind the intent of the police is always, to increase the force and increase the ability to do what they want to do, that is extrajudicial — more surveillance, more fire-power, more power beyond the law. That is a failure of imagination.
I have had family who were police officers. They are all great individuals. The system extracts that greatness and puts that aside. It’s not about the individual, it’s about the system. Some people who are great—like the former 4th Precinct commander Mike Friestleben—are pushed out.
The first step to ending policing is to start analyzing our investment in resources. We spend 170 million on MPD a year. We’ve spent two billion on public safety in ten years. What else could we be doing with that money that would increase public safety? Let’s take resources and shift them; let the police know we will be cutting their budget. Tell them, if you want to build other skills, please do. There are hundreds of ways you can serve the community without carrying a gun. We can hire healers with that money. Perhaps some of the former police will become healers. We can pay community leaders to create public safety. We can invest in jobs. We can invest in gyms and other resources for teenagers. We can prevent such violent tragedies by investing in ten different strategies for accessing power as an 18-year-old in North Minneapolis that don’t involve buying a gun. One of those would be to pay them to get out of that life.
Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley
In Bryant Neighborhood we created a “Committee on Social Justice and Safety.” We had discussions about how not to stereotype Black youth while keeping our neighbors safe… We pulled together a community engagement subcommittee. We have a neighborhood garden. I envision neighborhood potlucks, community clean-ups, neighborhood yard sales. We don’t need a city grounded in surveillance. We need to be a city grounded in community. That is what will make us safer.
Minneapolis Interview Project Explained
Anne Winkler-Morey is a writer, historian, educator and activist based in Minneapolis. She is a scholar of social movements, nationalism and inequality in the US and Latin America. In 2011-12 she and her spouse biked the perimeter of the United States, 12,000 miles. Her book about the trip: Imagined Security: a Bicycle Memoir, is forthcoming. Her Minneapolis Interview Project (turtleroad.org) aims for 100 interviews: life stories that reveal hidden histories of struggles for social justice in Minneapolis.
Brad Sigal is a Twin Cities-based photographer capturing moments and movements in Minnesota and Beyond.
Eric Mueller is in the process of capturing all of the Minneapolis Interview Project portraits. Many of the thumbnails here are his. His book Family Resemblance (2020) is now available.
#GeorgeFloyd #Minneapolis #Jamarclark #AngelaConley #MinneapolisInterviewProject #MinneapolisUprising #MPD #MikeFreeman #PhilandoCastile #MPD #riots #MinneapolisUprising #BlackLivesMatter