The initiative, rejected in a referendum by 56%, sought to replace the local police force with a new public security agency.
Voters in Minneapolis (Minnesota, USA) on Tuesday rejected a proposal to dismantle the local police department, an initiative promoted as a result of anti-racist protests after the murder by a white policeman of African American George Floyd.
The initiative, rejected in a referendum by 56%, sought to replace the local police force with a new public security agency to respond to crises without having violence as the first option.
The nation’s leading African-American group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), argued that dismantling the Police was necessary to end violence against African-Americans and heal Minneapolis nearly 18 months after death. by Floyd.
Meanwhile, other groups opposed the measure, arguing that it would negatively impact communities already battered by violence, especially now that homicides in the city set records not seen since the 1990s.
Two nationwide progressive Democrats, Legislator Ilhan Omar and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, supported the proposal; while other centrist Democrats, such as one of the state’s senators, Amy Klobuchar, rejected it.
Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020 when four officers tried to arrest him for using a counterfeit bill to pay at a store in Minneapolis. During his arrest, white police officer Derek Chavin pinned him to the ground for more than nine minutes by pressing his knee against his neck until he stopped breathing.
Floyd’s death sparked the largest anti-racism protests in America since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in the late 1960s. (I)
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