Minneapolis councilman vows 911 calls will be answered "every step of the way" amid plans to dismantle police
Minneapolis residents will retain access to emergency services even as city leaders move to disband the police department, according to city councilman Steve Fletcher, who vowed that "911 will be answered every step of the way"
A majority of city council members support dismantling the police force following two weeks of protests over the death of George Floyd, despite Mayor Jacob Frey's vocal opposition to the plan.
"What we're trying to change is how we answer 911," Fletcher told CBSN's Elaine Quijano. "So many of the calls that we currently send police officers with guns would actually be better served by mental health professionals, by social workers, by outreach workers, by conflict resolution specialists."
The measure, announced Sunday, was left vague, with the intention of setting a goal around which to build a blueprint. The officials announcing their intention to vote for it pledged to take "intermediate steps" towards ending the department "over the coming weeks and months."
In the meantime, Fletcher floated the possibility of "contracting with another jurisdiction."
"At least in the interim, while we build the longer-term vision, that we're working towards," he said. "But the vision for defunding means defunding — it means that we intend to end the Minneapolis police department as we know it."
Some in Democratic circles worry calls to defund the police could be polarizing.
"I think when people use the word 'defunding the police,' it is political ammunition, I think, to Republicans to use it against us in the court of public opinion," CBS News political contributor and Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright told CBSN anchors Vladimir Duthiers and Anne-Marie Green on Wednesday.
"I would probably say it a different way — what I would say is let's demilitarize the police. Let's make structural changes to the system. Let's invest in more community policing," Seawright said, adding, "All of us agree that we need law enforcement to keep us safe.
The structural changes proposed in Minneapolis, Fletcher said, would put an emphasis on crime prevention before crime stopping.
"I believe that a lot of what makes people safe, and a lot what makes people feel safe, is the presence of other people who are constructively engaging in society," he said.
Fletcher said the system would have to give all people help in "a situation that they didn't feel like they could handle themselves," and make them feel safe doing it.
"We focus way too little on the public health aspects of violence prevention, and way too much on our ability to be tough," he said, adding that the current system has police who "often use" threats of violence or arrest at minimum as the "main tools of their trade" on too broad a range of issues.
The move to dismantle the MPD is supported by nine out of 13 city council members, a majority that could override Mayor Frey's threatened veto.
"What I will say is that I am committed to that deep structural reform," Frey said in a press conference Wednesday. "If you're talking about having a full culture shift in the Minneapolis Police Department, I am on board. If you're talking about making sure that we're not criminalizing poverty or addiction in making sure that we have a different conceptual approach to how we handle it, I am fully on board. But if you're talking about abolishing the police department, no, I am not."
Fletcher acknowledged that Frey, as mayor, oversees the police department. The council's authority comes in with the city's budget.
"We have not been able to enact some of the reforms that we supported because we don't have a direct ability to write police policy. But what we do have is the ability to use the budget and the community is asking us very strongly to use our power over the budget," he said.
At the same press conference, Frey remained hopeful that negotiations with the police department will move towards reforms, citing the ability to "channel all of this anger and sadness and frustration towards the shift in the way that we do business."
Fletcher disagrees.
"We're trying these reforms and we're getting resistance every step," Fletcher said. "You know, people say, well, what you really need to do is implicit bias training. ... We have those trainings, and we know officers just kind of sit in the back and roll their eyes."
He believes city residents support more drastic change.
"The political support for this proposal that we most need in order to enact it is the people of Minneapolis," he said.