My attention has been focused on two issues in the November 2nd Elections. (1) Whether Democrats would somehow lose the Virginia Governor’s race in a state that has slowly trended blue over the last 12 years; and the Ballot initiative in Minneapolis, Minnesota that would do away with the Police department and replace it with a Public safety department overseen by the city council and the mayor.
Needless to say, my interest in both issues was disappointed; Democrats lost Virginia to an undercover Trumpist. Question 2, as it was called on the ballot in Minneapolis, was also defeated.
The daylight murder of George Floyd by a uniformed cop Derek Chauvin while other uniformed cops assisted, propelled the city of Minneapolis into an uproar, launching arguably the biggest movement against police violence in American history.
Ballot measure Question 2 as it was called, would create a public safety department led by a commissioner nominated by the mayor and appointed by the City Council, according to supporters. The minimum funding requirement for police would have been removed, although the department could still have included police officers, and armed officers would have still responded to situations considered violent.
The city’s Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey and the States senior Democratic US senator both opposed the measure. Bothe Jacob Frey, the Mayor, and Amy Klobuchar are white; the masses of the people dying in Minneapolis at the hands of violent white police officers are Black.
Even after the uproar surrounding Floyd’s death, the Minneapolis police department did not pull back from its history of racist violence; in fact, the data shows that officers became even more brazen, even though the department is led by a Black chief Medaria Arradondo.
In July of this year, damning new bodycam footage from the night of Minneapolis protests over George Floyd’s murder reveals officers joking about “hunting activists” and making other disturbing and racist remarks as they responded to unrest across the city.
That was one of multiple references officers made to “hunting” people.
“Tonight it was just nice to hear, ‘We’re going to go find some more people. Instead of chasing people around, we’re going to hunt.’ You guys are out hunting people now, and it’s just a nice change of tempo,” one officer says to another.
In another, an officer says: “The first fuckers we see, we’re just handling them with 40s,” ostensibly referring to 40 mm less-lethal firearms, which fire rubber bullets, tear gas, and similar ammunition.
“You see a fuckin’ group, call it out. OK, great. Fuck ’em up, gas ’em, fuck ’em up,” an officer says in another clip.
While firing a less-lethal round on a group of protesters, an officer hits someone and says, “Gotcha!” while laughter from other officers can be heard. “Good hit, buddy,” one of them remarks as they bump fists. (Huffpost reported).
The tragedy in all of this is not that these ignorant, racists, clowns have the power of life and death over citizens; they actually destroy lives with lies that send them to prison through the just as racist court system.
As they tried to do to Jaleel Stallings (a Black man, of course), whom they beat mercilessly as he lay on the ground helpless.
Stallings was protesting police violence.
It was not enough that they violated Stalling in every way possible; they then added eight criminal charges, which corrupt pro-police, not pro-justice prosecutors actually prosecuted.
The charges against Jaleel Stallings were eventually dropped after the body camera evidence came to light.
Here is the critical decision by the Jury!!!
The jury found that he acted in self-defense when he fired his gun, which he was permitted to carry, at officers who were firing rubber bullets at him.
That’s the law. Do you think that if this weren’t a jury trial, a white judge sitting on any bench anywhere in the United States would have upheld Jaleel Stallings innocence using the letter of the law?
I think not.
The Minneapolis police department, like the majority of Police departments across America, is an outpost that defends white supremacy. If police departments were subject to the same laws as Black Americans, they would be banished to a life locked away for incorrigible, unfixable, beyond redemption.
But since they are guardians of white privilege, regardless of how corrupt they are, they are maintained to carry out the work of white supremacy.
In fairness, not only whites voted to keep the Corrupt cesspool that is the Minneapolis police department, a Minneapolis Star Tribune poll from September found that 53% of Minneapolis voters held an unfavorable view of the city’s police department, with 58% of those people being Black and 51% of them white.
Some Blacks voted to keep the irredeemably corrupt police department that treats them like shit. It is one thing to accept that whites would vote to keep it, even Democratic-leaning whites. I do get that no one wants to give up privilege or anything that helps maintain or deliver those privileges.
What I will never understand is what did the Black voters think they had to lose?
Nevertheless, the sad irony is that as long as low information people believe it is a binary choice between police violence and lawlessness, these are the outcomes we should expect.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”(Benjamin Franklin).
Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.