A Progress Report From Minneapolis
In the two years since George Floyd’s murder, America has made significant progress towards re-envisioning the role that first responders, including the police, play in keeping communities safe. But much of that progress is overshadowed by ideological battles over abolition and the partisan weaponization of rising rates of gun violence.
Minneapolis embodies this dynamic.
For some, the city became a (failed) litmus test for the palatability of transformational movement demands around policing. Others used Minneapolis as a boogeyman for how Democrat-run cities across the country could disband police departments. Yet, the reality is that the city is further along than nearly anywhere else—having added a range of new unarmed public safety responders and related services, which collectively are shifting the city’s public safety ecosystem.
1. If somebody is illegally parked in my driveway and I can't get out..." In most cities, a police officer would respond to a complaint like this one. In Minneapolis, it’s mostly unarmed civilian traffic control officers who respond to these types of situations, according to data presented by the department to the city council earlier this month. After adding three additional officers and another supervisor to cover the overnight shift last year, traffic control now operates 24/7. In the one minute video below, Conrad McClain, a Minneapolis traffic control officer, describes what he does as a traffic control officer and why he loves his job: “We want everyone to work, play, and live in the city without worry”.
Click below to watch a one minute video from a traffic control officer:
2. “[T]he front desk for city services of Minneapolis…”—“[T]he front desk for city services of Minneapolis…” Unarmed city staff take non-emergency crime reports, including things like theft and property damage, through 311. And there is even an online option available 24/7. People in Minneapolis have filed over 13,000 police reports either online or with the assistance of a civilian 311 operator, which has furthered the city’s goal for the program—“to reduce administrative capacity for police and improve service experiences.” In the 68 second video below, Piovanni Rittman, a Minneapolis 311 agent, describes how, “when you call Minneapolis 311 to file a non-emergency police report,” you get “civilians who prioritize building trust and transparency with our community…”
3. “One of the main things that we get from dispatch, from folks at MPD, from folks in the community, is when are you going to have more vans? When are you going to have more responders?” — Candace Hanson, program manager for the city’s Behavioral Crisis Response team.
The BCR, which is composed of unarmed mental health experts, responds to mental health-related calls and is dispatched through 911. As Nick Halter recently covered in Axios Twin Cities, the BCR team responded to over 3300 calls over the first six months of the program; in “one recent example, responders helped a woman after her husband dialed 911 and said she was suicidal and had been declining medical appointments … The responders helped schedule a doctor's visit and create a safety plan, and no ambulance was needed.”
Last month at his annual budget address, Mayor Jacob Frey proposed doubling the team’s budget by 2024 and moving to 24/7 service—“We’ve heard loud and clear from community members, from you, my Council colleagues, from MPD officers, and from our mental health responders—we need to expand the Behavioral Crisis Response team.” The police department is on board, too. Minneapolis Police Deputy Chief Eric Fors said: “Feedback from the rank-and-file officers [also] has been very positive.” And Hanson, the program manager, recently told the local NBC affiliate, “Immediately, we would get officers just thanking us for the work, thanking us for taking over in a situation where they're like, ‘I've got to get to the next call.’”
Watch a one minute video of Dean Zoller, a Behavioral Crisis Responder, describing how the team operates:
4. MinneapolUS, the city’s community violence intervention program, works to “identify and calm conflicts that may lead to serious violence.”
Here’s how the city describes the premise and promise of the program—“We know violence is contagious. Our Violence Interrupters help reduce the spread. They are effective because they: Come from the communities they work in, have relationships in the community, and are personally familiar with the impact violence has on their community.”
Sasha Cotton, who heads the Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention, told city council members this summer that in the first six months of the program, “violence interrupters had more than 8,900 contacts with the public [and] mediated more than 1,500 incidents before they became violent.” One of the violence intervention specialists described one such successful mediation to the council members: “He was getting ready to shoot. He had two guns. Two guns. Not one. Two. And he was getting ready to shoot another young man over a dispute …. And our violence interrupters stepped in right then and they talked him down. They were able to deescalate him.”
Here is a one minute video of Muhammad, a violence interruptor team lead, describing how violence interruptors“provide resources, we de-escalate violence, and we help build up communities":
5. Next Step, the city’s hospital-based violence interruption program, allows “trained caseworkers to step in at the ER right after a victim is shot or stabbed.”
The program helps to “interrupt the cycle of community violence” by “reducing re-injury and re-hospitalization for youth who are victims of violent injuries” and decreasing the risk that the victim will become a perpetrator in the future. Healthcare professionals provide medical and trauma services while the person is hospitalized, and help victims obtain ongoing trauma counseling, as well as legal services, work placement, or school enrollment assistance.
CBS reports that the program has shown remarkable results: “Data from a five-year period shows it used to be quite typical that a crime victim would become a victim again; 41% of victims would end up getting shot again. Now, the local numbers after one year of the program are 3%.
Watch Larry Burgess, a Next Step case manager, and Thea, a hospital responder, detail how the hospital-based intervention program works in this one minute video:
