Electing Blacks to positions of power does not guarantee change. Hiring more Blacks and Hispanics to be cops does not improve the broken culture of what passes for politics and policing in America.
A significant amount of data bears that out, corrupt cops and repreg=hensible politicians come in all colors, and so do judges and everyone else. Hello Clarence Tom-Azz. (mb)
The story
By Akela Lacy of the Intercept.
The Minnesota attorney general took over a murder case from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a fellow reformer. She accused him of playing politics.
PROGRESSIVES REJOICED LAST year when Democrat Keith Ellison won a tight reelection race for Minnesota attorney general against a police-backed opponent who attacked him as being “soft on crime.”
In the same election cycle, Ellison’s ally Mary Moriarty won election as Hennepin County attorney, installing a reform-minded prosecutor in Minneapolis about three years after the city’s police murdered George Floyd. Moriarty, previously the chief public defender for Hennepin County, took office in January and implemented reforms with a focus on correcting failures in the juvenile justice system.
Now, three months into their terms, Ellison and Moriarty are no longer on the same side of the reform platform they once shared.
Late last month, Moriarty’s office issued new guidance on prosecuting children, which was designed to keep as many kids as possible out of the adult criminal system. Before issuing the guidance, Moriarty’s office chose not to charge two teenage brothers accused of murder as adults.
Last week, Ellison’s office intervened in the juvenile murder case. His office described the juvenile charges as “inappropriate” and requested that the governor take the case away from Moriarty’s office and assign it to him. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who was reelected along with Ellison and Moriarty last November, assigned the case to Ellison on Thursday — pitting the two would-be reformers against each other.
The affair has become a tense point in what was once a roundly promising trajectory for reforms in Minnesota. In 2022, Ellison endorsed Moriarty, who, like him, faced a police-backed opponent. And Ellison’s popularity was propelled in part by his handling of the prosecution of the cops who killed Floyd, and his campaign for reelection celebrated his record on reform.
A source involved in the jurisdictional dispute, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive private deliberations, said Ellison told Moriarty he needed to appear tough on crime for his next reelection campaign. “The Attorney General denies having said that or anything like it,” said Ellison spokesperson John Stiles.
Ellison also has a tour planned for this spring to promote his upcoming book on ending the cycle of police violence. Some Minnesota political operatives suspect he’s mulling a run for governor.
Read the full story here: https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/minnesota-keith-ellison-juvenile-murder/