RESIDENTS OF MINNEAPOLIS! With the increasing levels of police violence against those who live in our fair city, I have crafted a letter that I sent to Mayor Hodges and to my city council representative. You can contact Betsy Hodges here: ci.minneapolis.mn.us/mayor/contact/ You can find and contact your City Council Rep here: ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/ Here is the letter that I wrote. Feel free to copy as much or as little of it as you like in writing to your representatives. We march in the streets, but we also need to use our power as engaged citizens to lean on those whose job it is to be accountable to us. --------- Hello, As a resident of Minneapolis, I am writing with a grave concern. There are many things about our city that make us great: the relatively low cost of living, the vast park space, the bike-ability, the friendly business climate, the active and engaged citizenry. At the same time, we are pretty widely known for our tremendous disparity in terms of quality of life between our citizens of Color and our White citizens. Setting aside for a moment our gaps in education and employment, there is a particular issue that has been weighing on me greatly as of late. Minneapolis consistently ranks as having some of the highest rates of police brutality and excessive force violations of any police force in the country, and it is no secret that this excessive use of force by our police officers display disproportionately impacts our communities of Color, particularly our African American and Native populations. With the recent beating of community activist Al Flowers and with there being no accountability in the extra-judicial killing of Terrance Franklin, it is time for our mayor and city council to fight for every citizen of Minneapolis in providing more citizen-accountable police oversight. As I see it, there are two main changes that need to take place to hold police more accountable, and I would love to hear from your office about how we might be able to move on these changes in the coming year: 1. With close to 450 complaints made to the Civilian Review Authority and Board since it was overhauled in 2012 with (to my knowledge) none of those resulting in officers being disciplined for their actions, it is clear that this supposedly neutral board is not working in favor of the citizens of Minneapolis. The Mayor and City Council have a responsibility to investigate alternatives that lead to actual civilian oversight of our police force that can hold police accountable to excessive force. 2. In more and more police forces around the country, body cameras are being used to not only hold police accountable but to protect the city and its officers from unjust lawsuits. Considering the cameras cost as little as $299 plus costs for transmission and storage of the video, this seems like a tremendously affordable option when the city has paid out upwards of $10 million on the past few years for excessive force and wrongful death lawsuits. These body cameras have been found to reduce excessive force violations by up to 50%. However, in order for these to be effective, there would need to be a functioning civilian review authority that would be tasked with storing and utilizing the data from the cameras, as allowing police oversight of such footage is not likely to lead to greater accountability. One of the greatest markers of the health of a functioning democracy is its responsiveness to violations of the basic rights of its citizens. With far too many of our citizens facing the brutality of our police forces in Minneapolis, we have a duty as citizens of this democracy to do more to protect each and every citizen of our city. As a citizen who voted for you with great hope for responsiveness, I hope that you will not only respond but will lay out a plan for how you plan to push these or similar changes throughout the rest of your term. Sincerely, Jamie Utt
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:33:16 +0000
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