Minneapolis voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal to replace the city’s police department with a new Department of Public Safety, an idea that supporters had hoped would bring radical change to policing in the city where George Floyd’s death under an officer’s knee brought calls for racial justice.
The initiative would have changed the city charter to remove a requirement that the city has to have a police department with a minimum number of officers. Supporters said a complete overhaul of policing was necessary to stop police violence.
Opponents said the proposal had no concrete plan for how to move forward and warned it would leave some communities already affected by violence more vulnerable as crime is on the rise.
