Policing in Minneapolis and Across Minnesota: What Two Reports Say

 

Two recent reports describe challenges for policing  specifically for Minneapolis and Minnesota more generally.  The first report was the Department of Justice’s Report on policing in Minneapolis that ties into a federal consent decree for reform in that city.  The second report is mine regarding what we know about policing across the State of Minnesota.

Minneapolis and the Department of Justice Report

            The Department of Justice initiated an investigation into police practices in the City of Minneapolis (MPD) after the murder of George Floyd.  The report is perhaps the  most comprehensive ever done on policing in Minneapolis, with a more detailed analysis and use of statistics than the Minnesota Department of Human Rights Report from last year.  The latter report had concluded  “A pattern or practice of discrimination is present where the denial of rights consists of something more than isolated, sporadic incidents, but is repeated, routine, or of a generalized nature.”

The basic takeaway from the DOJ report is that the police department violated the First (free speech) and Fourth (illegal search and seizure) Amendment rights systematically, especially in terms of its application of use of force against people of color.

            In reaching that conclusion it is first important to understand two points concerning the DOJ Report.  First, its focus is on the  use of (excessive) force.  It did look at other issues such as police stops and what is often called racial profiling, but most of the report examined racial disparities in terms of use of force.  Second, the US Supreme Court has said that questions of use of force raise constitutional questions, defining them as a Fourth Amendment search and seizure issue.

            Overall the picture the report paints of Minneapolis is  troubling.   It introduces us to a point many of us have made for years in places such as here and here—Minneapolis is a tale of two cities.  As the Report states: 

By nearly all of these measures, the typical white family in the Twin Cities is doing better than the national average for white families, and the typical Black family in the Twin Cities doing worse than the national average or Black families. The median Black family in the Twin Cities earns just 44% as much as the median white family, and the poverty rate among Black households is nearly five times higher than the rate among white households. Of the United States’ 100 largest metropolitan areas, only one has a larger gap between Black and white earnings.

 

The cause of the racial disparities are many, but when it comes to policing, the DOJ offers several stark  conclusions.  In examining thousands of uses of force, the Report concluded:

 

Our investigation showed that MPD officers routinely use excessive force, often when no force is necessary. We found that MPD officers often use unreasonable force (including deadly force) to obtain immediate compliance with orders, often forgoing meaningful de-escalation tactics and instead using force to subdue people. MPD’s pattern or practice of using excessive force violates the law.

 

MPD officers often used neck restraints in situations that did not end in an arrest. MPD officers used neck restraints during at least 198 encounters from January 1, 2016, to August 16, 2022.

 

Despite banning neck restraints  in 2020, the MPD still used them.

 

The Report documents the use of unnecessary or excessive force across a range of tactics that include physical restraint, tasers, and weapons.  And there appears to be a racial disparity in such use of force.

 

Additionally, the MPD fails to provide needed medical care and officers are failing to intervene  to prevent other officers from using excessive force.

 

The DOJ Report also describes disparate treatment when it comes to traffic stops and searches. For example, it concludes that “We estimate that MPD stops Black people at 6.5 times the rate at which it stops white people, given their shares of the population. Similarly, we estimate  MPD stops Native American people at 7.9 times the rate at which it stops white people, given population shares.”

 

Finally, the Report documents significant violations of the First Amendment rights of protestors and the media to cover, photograph, or report on police misconduct. 

 

Overall the Report reaches a series of conclusions that the Minneapolis Police Department is out of compliance with the Constitution, in part as a result of poor or improper training or supervision. Necessitating the  City enter into a consent decree and agree to remedial action.  

 

The Price of Injustice: Taxpayer Payouts for Police Misconduct in Minnesota

 

But is Minneapolis alone?  This is the question I sought to answer in my report that was recently released and updated. 

 

After Minneapolis paid out $27 million to the family of George Floyd  many wondered how much governments payout for police misconduct.  Nationally there is no database on this, nor is there one in Minnesota or any state.  In previous research I made some estimates that the amount was in the billions. I decided to construct a database for Minnesota.

 

We surveyed all cities in Minnesota with populations of 5,000 or more;  all 87 counties; and the State Patrol, Metro Transit, and the University of Minnesota Police.  This produced an effective coverage of 98%-100% of the population of the state.  Requests were sent to a total of 239 governmental units asking for  a list of all instances of police misconduct resulting in payouts from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2020.  Results were obtained from all 239 surveyed.

 

Here is a summary of what we learned.

 

Nearly 30% of all governmental units made some form of payout.

 

There were a total of  490 incidents that resulted in payouts.

 

The estimated  total payout is  $60,784,822.

 

The estimated total payment for Minneapolis is $36,535,708.10.

 

Minneapolis accounted for 60.1% of total payouts in the state during the ten-year time period.

 

For the entire state the mean or average payout per incident was $124,500.  For Minneapolis alone, the mean or average payout was $212, 416.   The mean or average for the rest of the state excluding Minneapolis was $76, 255. 

 

In Minneapolis the median payout is between $26,282 and $28,010.  For the rest of the state it is $6,500.  The overall median pay out was $12,000.

 

My report also asked for information about instances resulting in payouts, and they included use of force, property damage, improper  and improper use of data, among other instances. However, the largest category was unspecified.  We simply do not know or have sufficient data to tell us the factors such as race that led to specific  police misconduct.

 

The conclusion of the study was that gathering this data was difficult and time consuming and there is still too much we do not know.  I conclude that we need mandated statewide collection and standardization of data about police misconduct if we are going to seriously think about any policy change when it comes to policing.

 

How the Two Reports Interact

 

First, the DOJ report is only about Minneapolis.  My report is statewide.  Two, my report covers all instances of police misconduct which resulted in payouts.  Third, the DOJ report gathers its own statistics to analyze, while my report is based on an analysis of self-reported  data from the governmental agencies.  Fourth, the DOJ was able to discuss and examine race issues in Minneapolis, my statewide report lacked the data to do that.

 

One pushback I received on my report is that not all instances of misconduct are really misconduct.  However, the information reported here is self-reported and governmental entities could  have opted not to report if they did not deem it misconduct.  Two, even if police disagree, my report documented misconduct resulting in settlements by the reporting governmental entity.  Whatever happened the reporting jurisdiction decided that they had to make payouts for what their police did.

 

However, another way to view how the reports interact is in the focus on Minneapolis.  The two reports look at different time frames but reach parallel conclusions on  issues such as payouts for misconduct.   But what jumps out is that  the total instances of misconduct in Minneapolis and statewide may be higher than thought.

 

My study reports 172 instances in Minneapolis over a ten-year period that resulted in payouts for police misconduct.  If the DOJ report is accurate, there could have possibly been hundreds of other  instances that  should have resulted in payouts.  Why the under-reporting?

 

In my study I hypothesize that  of all the instances  where police and civilians interact, only a fraction of them may be circumstances where something goes wrong. Of those, only a fraction involve situations where civilians know something went wrong and then file a complaint or lawsuit and then of those, only some result in payouts. What the DOJ report suggests is that the number and percentage of misconduct in Minneapolis is probably greater than my report indicates.  This too may be true statewide.

 

Overall, the conclusion of my report is that we need to understand what happened in the instances where payouts occurred and  use them as case studies to help formulate policy change. The DOJ diagnoses the problems in Minneapolis and offers recommendations for change. Whether what is happening in Minneapolis is generalizable to all of Minnesota we still do not know, and neither the DOJ or my report can answer that question.

 

George Floyd and the Fourth Racial Turning Point in American Politics

 George Floyd’s death presented the United States with its fourth racial turning point. Whether or not America is ready to learn from his death and make real change is the question of day.

The United States is a nation born of racism. It is nearly impossible to separate out the origins of America from race. The slave trade and the conquest of native inhabitants were integral to colonial settlement, both when it was part of England, and then after independence. But during its history, there have been three racial turning points that defined America.

Turning Points in American History

Turning Point One was in 1787 with the writing of the US Constitution. The Constitutional Convention was a point when the United States could have shed itself of race and slavery. It was a chance to live up to the egalitarian promises in the Declaration of Independence, that “All men are created equal.”

However, the delegates were divided by fear. Small and big states feared that the wrong constitutional compromise would shift the balance of power away from one to another. But the biggest fear was the tension between the northern free states and the southern slave states. Each feared respectively that America could become all slave or all free.

The delegates instead enshrined slavery in the Constitution. It did so by an agreement that only counted slaves as three-fifths persons for the purpose of representation, while also remaining silent on the topic of voting rights. These provisions gave slave states additional representation in Congress while denying individuals of African descent the right to vote and be free.

A second turning point occurred after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Republicans in Congress passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and a host of civil rights laws to guarantee liberty and equality for former slaves. For a brief period of ten years, Reconstruction led to the enfranchisement and election of Black men across the South. Yet this turning point soon closed.

The disputed 1876 presidential election between Democratic Sam Tilden and Republican Rutherford Hayes resulted in the Democrats conceding the election if Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South – the states where slavery and the Confederacy existed. Without a northern military presence, there was nothing to stop southern states from ushering in the Jim Crow area. Blacks were segregated from Whites, and the latter effectively lost most of their voting and individual rights.

Turning Point Three began in 1954 when the US Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. It grew when Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, beginning the civil rights movement that culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. All aimed, much like after Reconstruction, to bring equality to African Americans and other people of color. But this movement too came to an end quickly.

Across America in the summers of 1966 and 1967, riots occurred in urban areas. President Johnson created the Kerner Commission to report on the causes of these riots and offer recommendations. In 1968, the Kerner Commission released its report, declaring American had become “two nations, separate and unequal.” The causes of these riots were rooted in race and poverty, segregation, and in the lack of opportunity for people of color. The report called for addressing these underlying problems. Yet this racial turning point was soon abandoned.

President Johnson, instead of taking up the call to address the underlying racial and economic causes of these riots, chose instead to treat this as a law-and-order problem. He opted to press for a 1968 crime bill that militarized the police and gave more authority to local police and the FBI to act. Richard Nixon in his 1968 presidential election ran as a law-and-order candidate and prosecuted a war on drugs. Subsequent presidents pressed policies that sent disproportionate numbers of people of color to prison, and the US Supreme Court issued a series of decisions making it difficult to hold police accountable for excessive uses of force.

Now, America is at a fourth turning point.

George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis was never an if but a when, an inevitable consequence of sixty years of “law and order.” Minneapolis, like the rest of America, was a city of enormous racial disparities in terms of education, wealth, income, health, police and criminal justice stops, arrests, incarceration, and use of force. Racism was everywhere, but ignored.

This blog originally appeared in the Impakter.

George Floyd’s death reminded America of the racial divide. He presented America with an opportunity to pick up the message of the Kerner Commission that had been ignored.

There were calls to reform the police and for other changes in Minneapolis, but it appears that opportunity for change has already begun to end. The demand to defund the police, a surge in violent crime in America, and riots in Minneapolis struck fear into suburban voters. This in turn blunted Democratic Party gains across the country in the 2020 elections. The narrow focus on police reform in Minneapolis and across America steered the country away from the institutional, economic, and social conditions that fed racism leading up to Floyd’s death.

More than seven months after Floyd’s death, racial reform is stalled. The fourth turning point may already be lost.

Policy change in America occurs when there is a convergence of a perception of a problem, a policy solution, and a transformative movement. Floyd’s death created this convergence, although perhaps only briefly. Perhaps it is premature to declare America already in a post-George Floyd moment, but if history is any guide, it is not clear that this fourth racial turning point will result in the change that needs to occur.

The Pornofication of the 2020 Election

 American democracy  is threatened, but not for the reasons  depicted in recent election law porn. 

Donald Trump’s comments about mail-in-voting being rift with fraud or his refusal to respect a peaceful transition of power if he loses, while troubling, are merely a symptom of deeper  problems plaguing American democracy.

            Election law porn is the journalistic de jour theme of the corporate media now.  Recent articles in The Atlantic and The Guardian describe the 2020 elections as make or break for American democracy.  The New York Times and the Washington Post writers decry Trump’s threat to the United States and how he plans to steal an election.  Other articles tell of plots by Republican state legislatures to take away the popular vote and directly award the electoral votes to Trump.  All of these stories appeal to the fear, paranoia, and conspiratorial insecurities of Democrats, looking for reasons why Trump will win and Biden lose.  These articles represent bad journalism but are good clickbait business—they get readers to look at them, titillating their anger and arousing angst.  They are election law porn meant to hook readers.

These articles first feed into the Trump narrative.  For nearly five years the corporate media has profited over coverage of  Trump.  It gave him undue $5 billion free media coverage in 2015-2016 because it was profitable to do so.  It continues to cover ever one of his Tweets and statements he makes even though the mainstream media such as the Washington Post acknowledges that the president is a serial liar. His lies are brilliant diversions that set the political agenda.  Criticize the president about his handling of the pandemic and he talks of fraudulent vote by mail.  Ask him about health care and he will talk about not accepting  the results of an election or agreeing to a peaceful transition of power if he loses.  Simultaneously the press and the public—mostly Democrats—take every word he utters as a lie and as literal truth.  Take a lot of what he says, as Hermann and Chomsky declared in Manufacturing Consent, as part of a propaganda machinery in a symbiotic relationship between him and the corporate media where the latter takes what the former says and delivers it in a way to sell news and divert the public from the real problems.  Here the real problem is what is wrong with American democracy.

As noted above, among the more recent manifestations of election law porn is that Republican legislatures will force delays in vote counts or otherwise take actions to directly award electoral votes to Donald Trump as a way to ensure his victory.  Great conspiracy, thin reality.

The Constitution does ultimately allow state legislatures to pick the electors who pick the president.  Our popular votes for president to select the electors are a product of state law which theoretically can be changed.  Yet in reality it would be difficult and probably not make a difference. According to Ballotpedia, there are 36 states where one party has a trifecta where it controls both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office.  Of those 36, Democrats have 15 trifectas, Republicans 21.  Of those 21 states, only two—Florida and Arizona, are swing states where Joe Biden has a chance to win.  Perhaps maybe three if Ohio is still a swing state. The remainder of the states where Republicans hold a trifecta are ones Trump is going to win anyhow.  Of the real swing states in play—Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, there is no trifecta and therefore Republicans could not change the law to pick the electors.  If Biden loses the election by losing in these swing states  it is plausible  he will do so simply because he ran a lackluster campaign  or the voting demographics in these states were against him.

Yes, there are additional and legitimate fears that this election will be close and  in some states there will be allegations of vote tampering and miscounts.  One should not minimize these as issues, but again they are diversions away from the more systematic and deeper problems facing  American democracy.

The United States is a troubled democracy.  Even before Donald Trump it faced problems.  Its gap between the rich and poor is among the highest compared to other western-style democracies with wealth and income concentrating into fewer and fewer hands..  It has a troubled legacy and history of race that goes back to the settlement and founding of the country.  The criminal justice, education, and health care systems  reveal huge racial disparities.  The death of George Floyd and the causalities of the pandemic are   reminders of this.

America has the lowest voter turnout among its peers, with the electorate stratified by race and income.  Its neo-liberal style election system has reduced democracy down to the right of the few wealthy donors to spend unlimited money to influence elections.  Corporate interests spend billions to lobby, and  the 50-state patchwork of election rules and eligibility requirements have already  disenfranchised millions.  All of this occurred before Donald Trump and perhaps made his election possible.

Donald Trump is a product of an American democracy that was failing before he was elected.  The 2020 elections have brought home those failures,  but even if Biden were to win the problems will not go away because they are more than about Donald Trump.  His policies have exacerbated a challenged democracy and perhaps made them worse, but the root of them is deeper than him and it will take more than a Biden victory or hand wringing sensationalism by election law porn to fix them.

 

The ethics of protests at people’s homes

•  Note:  This blog originally appeared in the Pioneer Press on August 30, 2020.

Under what conditions, if at all, is residential picketing a form of legitimate protest or expression of ideas?

Recently in response to the death of George Floyd the streets in front of the personal residences of two police officers and their families have been the sites of public protest. So too has the Minnesota governor’s mansion, also located on a residential street.

First, no reasonable person should disagree with the proposition that racism is wrong. Nor should a reasonable person endorse unwarranted use of force by police, especially when done in a racially discriminatory way. What happened to George Floyd was a tragedy and whether the police officers are guilty of a crime is a matter for the courts to decide.

Regardless of legal verdict in the pending trials, individuals have a First Amendment right peaceably to assemble, protest, and present their views on public streets, however much we agree with them or find their views repugnant. There is also a right, whether prudent or not, to use language, symbols, and speech which many might consider to be uncivil, to express their ideas. None of us should be expected to use perfect grammar or prose, and sometimes the choice of words or symbols, however impolite some may view them, may be effective ways to convey a message or get attention.

There are limits to the expression of ideas in residential areas.

The issue is not civility but counterbalancing rights of individuals to be protected from harassment and unwanted speech from which they cannot escape.

In the 1988 case of Frisby v. Schultz (no relation to this author), anti-abortion protestors peacefully picketed on the streets in front of the home of a doctor who performed abortions. The home was in a residential district. Justice O’Connor, writing for the Supreme Court, recognized that streets even in residential neighborhoods were public, yet upheld an ordinance banning this picketing. It did so for a couple of reasons.

One, the Court recognized a right to privacy in our homes. There is a legitimate interest in protecting people from unwanted intrusions into their homes.

Two, unlike protests in front of businesses or other public accommodations, individuals in their private residences are captured audiences who have no ability to escape from speech they do not wish to hear. One may have a right to free speech, but not a right to force unwilling audiences to listen.

Protests, especially loud, long, repeated, or with large crowds, can be threatening, and if residents or neighbors have no means to escape, these protests have turned from legitimate expression of views into forms of intimidation. Even the liberal Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens, who dissented in  Frisby, contended that there are valid time, manner and place restrictions on speech, and a careful balance of expressive rights must be struck with efforts to protect privacy, captured audiences, and prevent intimidation. Contending rights must be balanced, and in some cases limited  restrictions on residential protests should be upheld.

There is a critical difference in the protests in front of the private residences of police officers versus the governor’s mansion in Minnesota. The latter is a public building with a public official. He is fair game for protest, however uncivil but peaceful it may be, and a different balance may need to be struck here that weighs more in favor of the protestors.

There is an additional problem with protests at private homes, at least as they have emerged recently. The demonstration at the home of Minneapolis officer Bob Kroll also targeted his wife. Bob Kroll’s wife is not Bob Kroll. There is an incredible amount of sexism in attributing the views of a husband to his wife, whether the attribution is positive or negative. We are all individuals and should be judged on basis of who we are as individuals, not by association.

But even if that protest had focused only on the officer, it subjected all parties in the household, including children and also perhaps immediate neighbors, to unwarranted intrusions on their privacy under circumstances where they had limited opportunity to escape speech they did not wish to hear. If the whole purpose of the protests at a private residence was in fact to trap people in their homes, then this was not speech but intimidation.

Some will argue that the protest intrusions here were justified in the name of abating racism. Others will contend that criticizing these protestors is racist. Both assertions are wrong and misdirected.

Abating racism and righting the wrongs it has caused do not justify committing other wrongs or trampling on the rights of others, no matter how noble the cause. If today it’s racism, tomorrow another perceived greater good may justify similar tactics, perhaps even for a cause you do not endorse and against people whom you do.

Finally, criticism of these tactics is not racist. It is an argument to respect rights and to suggest that there may be more effective and focused ways to make a point — and not use tactics that draw attention away from the message.

Requiem for a Special Session: Why It Never Had a Chance to Succeed and the Next One will probably Fail too

Why did the Minnesota Legislative Special session fail to produce police reform, a bonding bill,

a Covid-19 bill, and more? That is the wrong question to ask.  Instead of the surprise of why it was a failed session one should ask was there any chance it would succeed?  The answer is no, and the reasons it failed will be the same for a future Special Session later this year if called.
The first reason for failure was that the regular session set the grounds for the failure of the special session.  Consider where the Minnesota politics was when the regular legislative session ended in May.  Politically the legislature and the governor were divided.  With the only state in the country with partisan control of the legislature split, Democrats and Republicans were fissured here along lines that mirrored national divisions.  There was a clear divide geographically in the state between urban, suburban, and rural that reinforced the partisan-ideological differences. 
In Minnesota, the Republican Senate and DFL House were divided over the governor’s use of peacetime emergency powers to close part of the economy.  This division spilled into other issues, such as over the amount of the bonding bill and whether Republicans would provide the critical votes for it.   Some of these disagreements were substantive policy differences, some tactical, some part of the way the 2020 elections were an overlay or backdrop to the session.  Better, according to some, not to negotiate and pass legislation and instead use the issues to run on this November than reach a boring compromise.  This is where the legislative session ended on May 18.  The politics of the regular session simply carried over into the special session.
Initially there were two major reasons why the governor wanted or had to call a special session.  One was to get the bonding bill passed to help stimulate the economy.  Two, Governor Walz had to convene a special session no later than June 12, according to state law, if he planned to extend his peacetime emergency orders another 30 days.  He had to do that to give the Legislature a chance to override his orders.
Two, between then and June 10, when the governor called the special session, or June 12, when it started, nothing and everything changed.  Nothing changed in that neither the governor nor the legislative leadership of both parties did much to change the incentive structures or politics of the regular session from impacting the special session.  Between May 18, and June 10, it does not appear that there were any negotiations among the leadership to reach compromises or deals.  That needed to occur.
Going back at two generations to when Rudy Perpich was governor there was a basic political rule that one does not call a special session until all the details for it are worked out. Only governor’s can call special sessions but once the legislature is back,  legislators decide what will be discussed and when to adjourn.  To address the specter of aimless, unproductive special sessions the rule was negotiate in advance, get agreement on major issues and targets if not even the actual legislation before calling starting a special session.  This did not happen here.
There was no agreement on the scope or dollar amount of the bonding bill.  There was partisan disagreement over the governor’s authority to respond to the pandemic.  None of this had been resolved.  Lacking negotiations and agreement going into the special session why anyone would have thought it would have produced a different result that the regular session is naive.
But everything did change since the end of the regular session–George Floyd’s death, the demonstrations, the destruction, and the demand for police reform. When the governor on June 10, called for a special session he sent confusing messages.  It was now about police reform.  Yet police reform as a salient political issue decreases in importance in Minnesota the farther one gets away from Minneapolis and Saint Paul.  For Twin Cities legislators and their constituents it is a major issue, not so much for those at the four corners of the state and in greater Minnesota.  However unjust and wrong the killing of George Floyd was and however racist policing may or may not be, protests and anger in Minneapolis and Saint Paul were not going to change much the political calculus on police reform outside of those two cities.  Not understanding this was another reason why the special session was destined to fail.
But the special session failed also because of confusion over its purpose.  It was now about police reform but also about the bonding bill, other unfinished business, and to extend his peacetime emergency orders.  There was too much to do, with too little focus and preparation for all of this in a promptly called special session when little had been done to prepare for it.  This confusion and lack of preparation are other reasons why the special session failed.
Finally, the special session was almost a month later than the end of the regular session.  It was one month closer to the November elections; one month closer to being firmly captured by politics of 2020 where it made perverse sense to grandstand, not reach agreement, and then run on these issues in the campaigns.
Given the above there was no chance for a successful special session.
Going forward there are rumors of another special session.  The governor probably wants to extend his peacetime emergency orders, necessitating such a session.  Unless he and the legislative leadership prepare for the special session it will again fail.  The bonding bill, police reform, Covid-19 relief, and the peacetime emergency orders are entangled together and it will take a larger compromise across all of them to get anything done.  Whether the incentives to compromise will have changed or hardened is yet to be seen.

George Floyd and the Final Fracturing of the Democratic Party, Labor, and Civil Rights Coalition

            George Floyd being killed by a police officer in Minneapolis is not simply about the death of one Black man. His death also killed  an historic but uneasy alliance among the Democratic Party, labor unions, and the civil rights movement.  The reaction to his death is ending the last vestiges of the historic New Deal coalition that defined progressive politics in American for at least 50 years, ushering in an era where it now appears that the Democratic Party and the civil rights community are at odds with labor and unions.

            Historically, the New Deal coalition from the 1930s that defined the Democratic Party was composed of labor unions, farmers, working class, and increasing people of color.  It was a coalitional party weaving together a variety of interests, primarily focused on economic and class issues. From the 1930s to 1960s it fought mostly for minimum wages, workplace safety, and collective bargaining issues.  The coalition produced significant gains improving the economic lot of its members and Americans in general, helping shrink, as Thomas Piketty noted, the rich-poor gap in America.  This was the Old Left–class and economic focused.

            Yet a valid criticism of this progressivism was the blind eye it cast on race.  Many New Deal programs such as minimum wage laws excluded southern Black sharecroppers, or unions were criticized for excluding Blacks.  The Democratic Party in the South, which dominated that region from the Civil War to the 1960s, was notorious for the White Primary Supreme Court cases where the former fought hard to exclude Blacks.

            Yet many labor leaders, including Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, and A. Philip Randolph, who led an AFL-CIO member union, were there in 1963 with Martin Luther King, Jr at the historic march on Washington, D.C.  With labor’s support, the civil rights movement produced the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and other major legislation.

            But this embracing of civil rights also fragmented the Democratic Party and progressive politics.  Democrats, as President Johnson foretold when signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, would lose the South and they did.  First Barry Goldwater,  then George Wallace, and finally Richard Nixon exploited white racial anxieties regarding the civil rights movement the summer 1967 riots.  Nixon profited from this backlash, producing what the Edsalls called a chain reaction that led to the exit of white working-class America out of the Democratic Party.  Ronald Reagan continued to exploit the race card, and the adoption of civil rights, or identity politics to its critics, by the Democratic Party at the exclusion of class further contributed to the split among the Democratic Party, labor, and the civil rights community.  The emergence of the New Left in the 1960s—focused on racial, gender, and LGBTQ  issues—is often seen as a critical facture point.

            Progressive Democratic Party politics succeeded when it held together labor unions and civil rights.  In Minnesota, the birth of the modern Democratic Party came in 1944 when Hubert Humphrey among others brought the Democratic ad Farmer-Labor parties together.  Together the DFL advanced, especially in Minneapolis, a progressive economic agenda but it did  not put as much emphasis on race, not surprising for a state and city overwhelmingly White until recently.  The DFL often gave lip service to civil rights issues, but Minnesota is a state  with among the worst racial disparities in the nation for education, economics, and criminal justice.  But with a rapidly diversifying population and a growing Black population,  Minnesota but especially Minneapolis was changing.

           Minneapolis became the picture of contemporary Democratic Party politics today.  It is socially liberal, headed by a Millennial Democratic mayor and a 12-person city council, 11 of whom are Democrats one a Green.  But the DFL of Minneapolis and Minnesota is not the party it was.  Farmers have left for the Republican Party, and even before Floyd’s death  in many parts of the state labor too has left.  For those who are white, well-educated, and at least middle class, it is a wonderful place to live.  But despite the progressive rhetoric,  Minneapolis was a tale of two cities, with the one for the poor and people of color not so wonderful.

Floyd’s alleged murder by a white Minneapolis police officer turned the city into the center of the “defund the police,” with nine of its councilmembers supporting this proposal.  Floyd’s death is about the hypocrisy on race in America, even with Democrats. But equally fascinating is how a Democratic Party city is going after the police union whom it blames for a history of officer shootings and use of excessive force against African-Americans.  Minneapolis’ police chief announced he would no longer negotiate with the union.  Minnesota’s Democratic Governor also locates much of the blame with the union.  Former Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybek sees the union as an obstacle to reform, and even other labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO are calling for the current head of the police union to resign.   In Minneapolis and across the country police unions are seen by members of the civil rights community as hostile to civil rights reform.

               George Floyd’s death is perhaps the final fracturing of the Democratic Party,  labor, and the civil rights supporters.    Maybe this split needed to happen.  But as it does it bodes a dramatic turn in  party politics that complicates the electoral map for Democrats and progressive politics going forward.  Smart politicians such as Donald Trump see this opportunity and will surely exploit it in the 2020 election.

The Lesson of George Floyd: It’s Time to Put the Minneapolis Police Department Under State Control

Minneapolis has a police problem.  It has a race problem.  We have known both of those facts for
years.  The question is the cause and what are the possible solutions?  There is no simple answer but one is that Minneapolis police department needs to have a major cultural change that can only be effected by either state takeover of it or by merging it with or having it taken over by the Hennepin County Sheriff or placed under receivership and operation with another jurisdiction.
Minneapolis has long had a problem with its police department.  Muckraker Lincoln Steffens in his 1904 classic the Shame of the Cities and in his 1903 McClure Magazine cover story highlighted the corruption and problems in the Minneapolis Police Department that included graft, corruption, and a host of other issues.  There is a problem in controlling the police that go back over a century.
There is also a well-known racial problem.  It is one of the most racially segregated cities in the nation with terrible education, health care, incarceration, income, and employment disparities.  Combine them together and they yield a racial problem with policing, especially including excessive use of force.
Twenty years ago I taught a class on police civil and criminal liability law.  Minneapolis was a living laboratory in what not to do.  The City made constant pay outs to victims and families and across two country prosecutors that included now Senator Amy Klobuchar and Mike Freeman little had been done to hold officers criminally liable.  There are lots of reasons for this.  Some are political and not wanting to take on the police or wanting to appear tough on crime.  Others are the fact that the law on police criminal (and civil) liability favor them over victims.  As a result, Minneapolis is perhaps the most notorious example of police racial violence against people of color.
What do we do now?  Addressing the underlying racial and economic disparities in income, education, and health care are needed but they will not change police behavior.  There is a persistent cultural problem with Minneapolis police practice that needs to be addressed.
Some had hoped that Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) would provide an answer.  The Monell decision allowed individuals to sue under 42 U.S. Code § 1983 for civil damages.  These §1983 suits, if won, would require cities to pay civil damages for abuses of constitutional rights.  If cities had to keep paying out then maybe they would have an incentive to force changes in police practices or training.  Great theory except it did not work, including in Minneapolis where despite millions of dollars paid out training and use of force practices have not changed.
Others blame the police unions. It is not so much the unions as it is the psychology of the “thin blue line” where in a view of us versus them, police are hesitant to take action against or buck other police officers.  This is just the most extreme version of no one like a snitch or fink.
Maybe the fault is with the public.   Generally suspects and defendants  do not garner much sympathy from the public.  Racism may be a factor when often it is white police interacting with people of color.  Of course the exception in Minneapolis was when a Black police officer shot a white woman and there was a rush to convict him.  Many felt good about themselves here indicating they could now support a victim over the police.
There is also a culture of complacency. By that, Minneapolis has a reputation of being one of the most liberal cities in America.  Mayors, city council members, and voters can say all the right things about race but at the end of the day the solutions fall from short of anything beyond rhetoric.
Finally, mayors in Minneapolis are weak.  They cannot do much.  The city is effectively a one-party town where the establishment is not going to challenge anyone in power for fear it will hurt their career.
Now firing four police officers and calling for them to be charged with murder will placate some but it still will not change the culture and administration of policing.  What should be done?
It is clear, if Steffens was correct, that the police have been a problem for Minneapolis for more than100 years.  The City has shown it is incapable of reforming or correcting the problem.  It is doubtful people of color have much confidence in the City of Minneapolis to fix the problem.  Someone needs to step in.
Solution one is a takeover of the Minneapolis police department by the State of Minnesota.  This probably would require legislation altering or preempting home rule authority of the City.  Across the country states such as New Jersey have employed similar solutions when it comes to education.  Maybe the State of Minnesota putting the police department under its control would be an option.
Solution two is disbanding the police department entirely and letting the Hennepin County Sheriff perform public safety functions in Minneapolis.  A variation of that is merging the Minneapolis police department into the sheriff’s office or putting the former under some type of receivership with another jurisdiction.  Perhaps this what should have been the remedial basis of a previous civil rights law suit.
Overall, continuing to believe that the City of Minneapolis can administer and reform its police in a racially neutral manner increasingly looks unlikely and a new entity needs to run or provide for the public safety needs there.