The area in Minneapolis where George Floyd died while in police custody has become something of a shrine to the movement for racial equality.
It has also become a violent, lawless zone where police are unwelcome, emergency vehicles can’t get through, and terrified residents plead for help.
One city council member spoke of “constant gunshots” at night. And the New York Times is reporting that the neighborhood has become an “epicenter of violence” in the city.
After hours, the Times adds, the area, which is largely left alone by Minneapolis police, is a magnet for criminal activity: “At night, though, the space is increasingly a battleground, with shootings and drug overdoses. The area has had an uptick in gun violence similar to what other cities have seen in the wake of protests.”
The dullards on the Minneapolis City Council who voted last week to defund the police can’t quite figure out why there’s so much violence.
“What people aren’t recognizing is that people who live there are having a very, very challenging time from the unlawfulness that is occurring after the sun goes down,” said Andrea Jenkins, the Minneapolis City Council member whose district includes Floyd’s memorial and the “no-go” zone, told the Times. “There are constant gunshots every night. Emergency vehicles can’t get in. Disabled people are not able to access their medications, their appointments, their food deliveries, et cetera. It’s a very challenging situation.”
Duh… gee. I wonder how dat happened?
Let’s simplify it for her: no police = unlawfulness.
Got it?
“Minneapolis residents in some areas still recovering from rioting and unrest are forming community watch and security groups, some bearing firearms, to fight a surge of crime in the wake of the George Floyd killing in May,” WSJ said. “At least one neighborhood has put up barricades to keep away outsiders.”
Next thing you know, people will be issued special passes by neighborhoods so they can move about the city. And tolls — don’t forget the tolls.
One resident reflected on how her neighborhood has changed.
Dr. Jackie Kawiecki, who constructed a medic station to treat injured protesters, said night and day in the area where Floyd died is “very different.”
“My nighttime world, after sunset, I have taken care of double gunshot wounds, drug overdoses,” Kawiecki said, the Times reported. She limited the station hours after evading gunfire herself and after a pregnant woman was killed.
If you want to “reimagine Minneapolis without police,” here you go. Doesn’t take much of imagination — or intelligence — to see where this is headed.
My guess is that the radicals will quietly retreat and drop their grandiose plans to totally remake the police into a “department of community safety and violence prevention,” according to an amendment that will be offered to the city charter. That amendment will have to be approved by the voters in November.
Unless you’re Snake Plissken, I don’t think there are going to be too many takers.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member