A majority of city council members in Minneapolis have pledged to abolish the city’s police department after the death of an unarmed black man in custody last month led to some of the biggest protests seen in the United States.
MAYOR JACOB FREY HAD EARLIER OPPOSED THE MOVE
Huge weekend crowds gathered across the country, mostly peacefully. The near-festive tone was marred late on Sunday when a man drove a car into a rally in Seattle and then shot and wounded a demonstrator who confronted him.
Nine members of the 13-person Minneapolis City Council pledged on Sunday to do away with the police department in favor of a community-led safety model, a step that would have seemed unthinkable just two weeks ago.
“A veto-proof majority of the MPLS City Council just publicly agreed that the Minneapolis Police Department is not reformable and that we’re going to end the current policing system,” Alondra Cano, a member of the Minneapolis council, said on Twitter.
Council members said such reforms would be a long, complex process and provided little detail on the way forward.