Two months after “defunding the police,” you could say that the Minneapolis City Council is now “refunding the police.” Last December city council voted 7-6 to cut nearly $8 million in funding. This was done to appease Mayor Frey and far-left activists. There was also a significant fall in tax revenue that necessitated city budget cuts anyway.
However, City Council set up an exit strategy. They created two emergency funds for law enforcement purposes. The first was a $6.4 million emergency fund that could be authorized to hire new cops in “future years.” They also made another $5 million emergency fund that could be authorized to pay for law-enforcement overtime.
It took an entire two months for Minneapolis City Council to trigger their exit strategy. Minneapolis City Council is now authorizing the $6.5 million emergency fund to hire new police officers. Since the Minneapolis riots, scores of officers have already left the force due to the political climate anyway. What this shows is that the December 10th budget cut was primarily political theater.
Minneapolis had 82 homicides in 2020, two of these were committed during the BLM rioting. The number of homicides in 2020 was a 78% increase over the 46 homicides that occurred in 2019. The Minneapolis PD reports that fewer homicides are being solved as well. There were also 550 other gunshot victims, which was an increase of over 100%. Black residents made up over 80% of shooters and gunshot victims despite making up about 20% of the city.
Nevertheless, far-left activists still want to radically change law enforcement in Minneapolis. A group called “Yes 4 Minneapolis” is pursuing a ballot initiative to “replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety. We decide what safety looks like for our communities.”
Yes 4 Minneapolis describes itself as “a Black-led campaign composed of a growing coalition of grassroots, community organizations and individuals.”
In reality, it is funded by a $500k grant from the George Soros’ DC-based Open Society Policy Center. This is the lobbying arm of Soro’s Open Society Foundation. A movement founded by a foreign born multi-billionaire hardly sounds like a “black-led grassroots campaign.”
The creator of the Yes 4 Minneapolis website is Oakland based Color of Change. According to public records, Color of Change took in $ 2.6 million in 2016 and $3.1 million in 2017. They are probably taking in even a lot more now. Color of Change was founded by James Rucker, who is also a board member for the Action Fund of the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC].
Meanwhile, crime is still escalating. In the first three weeks of January, shootings were up 250% in Minneapolis compared to an average of the previous four years. While all of these “activists” claim they are working for black people’s benefit, black-on-black shootings appear to be the primary driver of the increase in shootings and murders.
These are recent gunshot fatalities in Minneapolis. Do you notice a pattern? How does any of this benefit black people?
