Skip to content
  • Essence GU
  • Beautycon
  • NaturallyCurly
  • Afropunk
  • Essence Studios
  • Soko Mrkt
  • Ese Funds
  • Refinery29
  • 2025 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture
  • Celebrity
  • Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Lifestyle
  • Entrepreneurship
  • News
  • Shopping
  • Video
  • Events
  • Subscribe
Home • News

Minneapolis City Council Signals Commitment To Dismantle Its Police Department

A nine-member majority of the Minneapolis City Council committed to investing police funding into community-led ways to address public safety.
Minneapolis City Council Signals Commitment To Dismantle Its Police Department
KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images
By Breanna Edwards · Updated November 4, 2020
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

In the wake of the police-involved killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a nine-member majority of the city council announced on Sunday the commitment to defund and dismantle the police force in lieu of more community-led ways to address public safety.

According to CNN, the nine votes already committed to restructuring the way public safety is handled signal a veto-proof majority. The council acknowledges that things just aren’t working the way they currently are.

“We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe,” Council President Lisa Bender told CNN.

“[We need] to listen, especially to our black leaders, to our communities of color, for whom policing is not working and to really let the solutions lie in our community,” Bender added.

The city council will discuss what it looks like to replace the police department while reallocating police funding to community-led initiatives, although “the idea of having no police department is certainly not in the short term,” Bender acknowledged.

https://twitter.com/lisabendermpls/status/1268644819628224513?s=20

Floyd’s death has lit a new fire in the nation calling out for justice and equality for all Black lives and prompted some newer calls to flat-out defund police departments across the nation.

TOPICS:  Black Lives Matter defund the police Minneapolis Police police accountability Police Brutality