Two days ago the Minneapolis city council announced their intention to disband the police department. On Friday they made good on that promise by voting to replace the city’s police force with…well, they don’t really know what they’re going to replace it with but they’re pretty sure it will be awesome. This is the kind of leadership you get when 8-year-olds are in charge. No, I take that back, 3rd graders wouldn’t screw up this badly.
Reuters reports:
The Minneapolis City Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police.
The move comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department after the country erupted in protest over the killing of Floyd, a black man who died when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
“The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color,” read the resolution.
I guess they could come up with a policy that forbids policer officers from kneeling on people’s necks, or even better, encourage people of color to not resist arrest. This is like throwing away a perfectly good car because it has bird poop on the windshield.
Actually, it like getting rid of the car because of bird poop and then wondering how in the hell they are going to get to work now. The city council has absolutely no plan for what they are going to replace the police department with.
According to the resolution, the city council will begin a year-long process of engaging “with every willing community member in Minneapolis” to come up with a new public safety model.
But wait, it gets funnier. The city council also has no idea how to ask the community what to replace the police department with, so they have another process they need to do first:
The council commissioned a new work group to deliver recommendations by July 24 on how to engage with community stakeholders to transform the public safety system.
I wish there was a video of this city council meeting because it must have been the most hilarious thing in government ever:
“Let’s dismantle the police department!”
“Done, but what should we replace it with?
“I don’t know, let’s ask the community.”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know, let’s form a commission to figure it out.”
Liberal “solutions” are alway short-sighted but this one is blind. And not in a cool way like the blind Kung-Fu master but more like Mr. Magoo on acid.
Disbanding the police department is dumb, but not having a plan for a replacement first is insanely stupid.
One thing is for certain, the city council won’t be getting any input from business owners and productive citizens because they will all be moving out of Minneapolis for safer and saner areas. Hopefully whatever they replace the police department with is free and doesn’t count on tax revenue because they’re about to go bankrupt.
