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‘Afraid to leave my home’: Residents describe city on the brink at Minneapolis committee meeting


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2020 Oct 13, 5:11am   716 views  6 comments

by Al_Sharpton_for_President   ➕follow (5)   💰tip   ignore  

"You’ll be presiding over the biggest exodus of businesses and families that this town has ever seen just as some of you are running for reelection next year."

“We have never seen anything like this.”

“I’m scared to even drive after dark.”

“I don’t feel safe walking around my neighborhood.”

“Everybody feels the same way. We all want to move.”

That’s just some of the feedback the Minneapolis City Council received during an Oct. 8 meeting of the Public Health and Safety Committee.

More than 60 residents signed up to speak their minds at the two-hour virtual meeting, grilling council members on their “irresponsible rhetoric” and failure to adequately staff the Minneapolis Police Department.

“We should all know as adults that words such as ‘defund,’ ‘dismantle,’ and ‘abolish’ have severe consequences. We are a city in crisis and need action now,” said one resident who lives in the Loring Park neighborhood.

“We are putting citizens and officers at risk working with a demoralized and burned out patrol staff that is down to 450 for a city of 437,000,” she added.

Another resident wondered if council members were still receiving private security while “the constituency are generally afraid.”

“I will just say due to the nature of public hearings and public comment periods like this that we as a council, we’re receiving the comments so it’s not necessarily a back-and-forth but I do recommend you contact your council member to be able to engage more thoroughly in that dialogue,” replied Council Member Phillipe Cunningham, chair of the committee.

Several speakers wanted answers on whether or not the Minneapolis Police Department is currently staffed in accordance with the City Charter, which requires roughly three officers per every 5,000 residents.

A lawsuit filed in August claimed that at least 80 officers had retired or quit while another 111 were on some type of medical leave, including 40 officers who submitted PTSD claims. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has said that he expects at least 100 officers to leave by the end of the year.

Cunningham was one of nine council members who announced their intent to “dismantle” and “defund” the police force just days after George Floyd died while in the custody of Minneapolis police. They have since walked back their plan to pursue police abolition, admitting that it caused confusion among residents, according to a recent New York Times article on the topic.

But some residents think the council’s rhetoric was enough to embolden criminals throughout the city.

“Through ongoing irresponsible rhetoric, City Council members, you have endangered us, our homes and our businesses. Brazen criminals now lurk in broad daylight knowing that the City Council, the city’s own leadership, through its anti-law enforcement and anti-safety rhetoric, is giving them opportunities to terrorize the community with more ease than at any time before,” an immigrant who has lived in Minneapolis for 16 years told the council last week.

Like many others who spoke at Thursday’s meeting, he said gunshots have become a “nightly occurrence” in a city that now has 66 homicides on the year — compared to 48 in all of 2019.

“You guys have had years to address any cultural problems within the Minneapolis Police Department. You have failed to do so. Instead, you embark on a campaign against your own police department, fighting and demonizing an entire internal city organization. The City Council has failed me, it has failed my neighbors, it has failed the city,” he continued. “Shame on you.”

Minneapolis resident Bill Rodriguez encouraged the City Council to consider his “Operation Safety Now” plan, a proposal supported by several other speakers. Rodriguez said the plan calls for a 60-day “surge of uniformed law enforcement to back up our depleted police” and a “communications campaign” to keep residents informed.

“Crime is rampant with no end in sight and we’ve never felt less safe. Meanwhile, there’s no leadership, no communication, not enough cops on the street, and now the chief says that some 911 calls may soon go unattended, leaving us to fend for ourselves. This is crazy. You folks need to spend less time tearing down the police, which is making things worse, and more time working together on the number one issue: our safety. A greater sense of urgency is needed before this crisis spirals out of control,” said Rodriguez.

“If we don’t act soon, here’s what’s going to happen: you’ll be presiding over the biggest exodus of businesses and families that this town has ever seen just as some of you are running for reelection next year,” he added.

COMMENTS:

- I live about 45 minutes from Minneapolis. This is a major issue I have with several of my new neighbors. ALL of whom have relocated and purchased homes here in this very conservative, Republican, SAFE community the past year or two. Why? Because they said the crime rate in the Twin Cities is going up and there is no longer affordable housing for them there. Yet ALL of them have a Biden/Harris sign on their lawn. They left liberal Hennepin and Dakota counties for the shit they were given, yet still support their liberal master shitters. Unreal.

- It's like Venezuela. The communists create chaos, and drive out the people who disagree (us normals). They are left with the people who either don't care, can't get their sh*t together, criminals, and homeless. Then the city council can ramp up their vision of a dysopian future, complete will all kinds of bizarre rules and laws.

Thus the city becomes even more progressive.

One problem is revenue. When we move out who's going to pay taxes? The remaining deadbeats?

https://alphanewsmn.com/afraid-to-leave-my-home-residents-describe-city-on-the-brink-at-minneapolis-committee-meeting/?fbclid=IwAR3qC1QB0Fu7Aja5g7biz4Za3Gktf_gC9Lgd_ZCnW7_yUMi0IcOrz5Q0FyA


Comments 1 - 6 of 6        Search these comments

1   Bd6r   2020 Oct 13, 10:42am  

Voting for idiots in city council has its consequences.
2   RC2006   2020 Oct 13, 10:50am  

Dbr6 says
Voting for idiots in city council has its consequences.


I don't feel sorry for any of them.
3   Ceffer   2020 Oct 13, 11:10am  

Didn't they use the City Council open forums to round up and beat the wailing citizens after giving medals to the local drug dealers and looters? What kind of progressives are they, anyway, losing an opportunity to seed more terror amongst those foolish enough to appear before them.
4   Shaman   2020 Oct 13, 1:42pm  

They need to rehire George Floyd’s arresting officer and make him chief of police. Derrick Chauvin for Chief!
5   MisdemeanorRebel   2020 Oct 13, 3:49pm  

Check out the Minneapolis City Board meeting with the chief of Police on youtube. Months after calling to defund police and restrict them more, they're demanding to know why crime is up.

And really check them out - all 30 something Woke Women and Gay Men.
6   MAGA   2020 Oct 13, 9:03pm  

I grew up in Edina back in the 1960/70s. A nice suburb south of Minneapolis. In 2000 I was living in the North Loop area of downtown Minneapolis. I was able to walk to work. I can't imagine what it's like today.

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